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Black Friday – what happened to November’s discount holiday?

The Picodi team checked the search statistics of Black Friday offers in South Africa and worldwide and analysed the sales statistics on different days and hours of Black Friday and Black Week.

• In South Africa, Black Friday enthusiasm decreased by 44% in the last three years;
• The end of November is still one of the hottest periods in SA’s e-commerce when sales even triple compared to a normal day;
• The average cart value during Black Friday sales totalled R2,651;
• Clothing, holiday tickets and books are the three most popular things we buy;
• Most shopping is done on Friday, and the most active shopping hours are 11:00–13:00;
• On average, the discounts declared by shops amounted to 39%, however, this applied to a limited number of products.

Is Black Friday no longer exciting for consumers?

In order to check how the interest in Black Friday sales has changed, we used data from Google Trends and used the pre-pandemic year of 2019 as the reference point. In an overwhelming number of countries, the number of searches related to Black Friday decreased. The highest decrease in interest was noted in Turkey (−81%), Nigeria (−67%), Colombia (−63%), Russia (−58%) and Poland (−54%). In South Africa, the interest in Black Friday decreased by 39%. This is most likely related not only to the pandemic and financial instability, but also to the overuse of “Black Friday” and “Black Week” names for sales other than the ones at the end of November.

However, there are countries, in which despite the pandemic, shoppers searched for Black Friday deals more often. Those countries are Chile (+33%), Japan (+22%) and Finland (+1%).

Sales during Black Friday are still high

Although Black Friday doesn’t attract as much attention as it used to, the end-of-November sales continue to be one of the hottest periods in SA’s e-commerce. On November 26^th 2021, the number of sales was 764% higher compared to a regular day, and on other days of the so-called Black Week, sales were between 79% and 428% higher.

In countries where Picodi operates, the number of sales increased by an average of 320% on Black Friday.

Black Friday in South Africa

Among South Africans participating in the November sales, the most popular product categories were clothing, holiday tickets, books, sports accessories and furniture. The average cart value amounted to R2,651, and the average discount was 39%. This enabled shoppers to save an average of R1,673. However, it is worth noting that the average discount percentage declared by shops usually only applied to a limited number of products.

We also analysed the shopping activity throughout the day. In general, South Africans are daytime shoppers: the most active shopping hours are 11:00–13:00.

Methodology

The data regarding the interest in Black Friday sales was taken from Google Trends. The sales increase, most popular products, average cart value, and the discount statistics were taken from Picodi.com for the period of November 22–28, 2021.

Public use

Would you like to share the information about Black Friday in South Africa and worldwide with your readers? The infographics and statistics can be freely used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. We only ask you to credit the author of this research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage. In case of any questions or if you’d like to receive the infographics in higher resolution, please contact us at: research@picodi.com

Learn about Black Friday 2023 in other parts of the world