Black Friday 2020: A Year Like No Other
The 2020 edition of Black Friday was heavily impacted by the restrictions related to COVID-19, on the one hand by the renewed lockdown, which led to an increase in online purchases, and on the other hand by the reopening of non-essential stores and their drive-to-store initiatives. Unlike neighboring countries and following negotiations with major retailers, commerce and e-commerce players, the French government ultimately postponed the date by one week in order to reopen all stores as quickly as possible. While some international players such as SKLUM still maintained their promotions on the originally planned date, others gave in and agreed to postpone their offers by one week, notably Amazon.
Despite an increasingly visible Green Friday movement, this annual event was highly anticipated, driven by Christmas shopping and strong expectations regarding discounts. Here is an overview from Feed Manager.
A Black Friday Disrupted by the Health Crisis
In order not to penalize small physical retailers that were closed due to the lockdown, the Black Friday date was postponed in France. Initially scheduled for November 27, it was moved to December 4. While some retailers such as Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc or Amazon France accepted this change, others maintained their offers under different names and launched campaigns to attract visitors to their websites.
Consumers, for their part, responded throughout the entire promotional period and, on Black Friday itself, sales increased by 11% compared with 2019, according to a Criteo study.
The Date Postponement, a Government Decision
A compromise between health and the economy, this postponement was based in particular on the implementation of a reinforced health protocol. The Minister of the Economy also stated in a joint statement that “this unanimous agreement had] been reached with a view to allowing stores to reopen soon under maximum health safety conditions”. By following government recommendations and postponing its Black Friday, Amazon France, the e-commerce giant, was also helping facilitate the reopening process for “non-essential” physical stores.
Confusion Around Black Friday for Consumers and Retailers
The confusion generated by these last-minute changes in the minds of internet users also had an impact on how retailers organized themselves, particularly regarding the activation of their ads and offers.
“Blue Friday”, “Noël Design”, “Beauty Days”… whether it was Black Friday under another name or offers running alongside this promotional event, this change in naming, reminiscent of a similar phenomenon that had already occurred during the 2015 attacks, once again raises questions about the legitimacy of Black Friday in France.
Analysis: Figures and Trends
Figures collected over the previous three years show that Black Friday and Black Week have now become an exceptional period for online sales, particularly because of Christmas shopping. According to forecasts made before the event, e-commerce sales, strengthened by the health crisis, were expected to gain even more ground that year compared with in-store sales.
We decided to share here some results from our client panel (across all sectors).
If we analyze the 4-day period from Black Friday to Cyber Monday (from Friday, December 4 to Monday, December 7, 2020) and compare it with the previous year (from Friday, November 29 to Monday, December 2, 2019), we observe an average revenue growth of 102%.
If we focus only on the “official day”, Friday:
+21% traffic
+17% conversions
+25% revenue
Even though many advertisers had launched promotions the previous Friday, this postponed Black Friday was clearly highly anticipated by internet users.
Conclusion
As these results demonstrate, along with the analysis of Google Trends data, this key date continues to generate strong consumer interest. According to a Strategy&PwC study cited by Le Figaro, 36% of consumers had planned their purchases before the promotional event and 35% of purchase intentions concerned Christmas gifts.
Even though it is contested and criticized for encouraging excessive consumption, Black Friday still appears to have a strong future ahead of it because “French consumers, affected by the economic crisis, are “moving toward more pragmatic consumption that gives greater importance to product prices than to ecological or societal concerns”.”
