The holidays are upon us, and with that comes the pressure of getting the best deals and conversion rates on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now, with the pandemic affecting businesses all over the country, retailers are looking to the holiday weekend to make up for sales that were lost throughout this year. It is a must for businesses to adapt to providing a safe Black Friday experience for customers, and we have already seen moves taken by major retailers such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy to produce a successful turnout. These three retailers seem to be the key leaders in setting the trends for what will work best this year.
The first trend this year is the increase in-store closures on Thanksgiving Day. This is in contrast to previous years, where stores aimed to open as early as possible. According to BestBlackFriday, Walmart, Macy’s, and JCPenny’s are just a few that have decided to close their doors as a safety precaution and a way to say thank-you to their employees.
The second trend has been the rise in e-commerce. As it seems like a no-brainer for major retailers to drive more traffic to their online store during this time, this could cause a decline in sales for smaller local businesses, that don’t have a large online presence and may take much longer to ship their products or produce large quantities of it. However, this past year has shown the importance of utilizing and adapting to online platforms to increase sales. With Instagram’s recent update, e-commerce on the app has been in heavy focus, as it now has its own tab that is easily accessible. According to BusinessInsider, “For those that haven't got that kind of online presence, competing in Black Friday 2020 is likely to be far trickier this year.”
Another trend being heavily utilized by retailers is extending the time period in which the deals will run online and in-store if they are open. By doing this, businesses hope to properly space out times when the Black Friday deals are happening, allowing for more consumers to have the opportunity to participate. According to reports from Tambay, Amazon began releasing their marked down prices in the beginning of November. Target and Best Buy created their own “Deals Day” and Black Friday shopping events back in October. These tactics were put into place to increase sales beyond the date of Black Friday itself and will be a true test of the results that online shopping produces, and the purchasing habits of consumers during this time.