Black Friday – the name elevates images of people standing in long lines, fighting the crowds to grab the best bargains of the year, and filling the shopping carts to the rims. But, as FreeShippingCode.com notes, from another perspective Black Friday is the day when retailers try to push their sales to the last limits in order to maximize their profits, i.e. move from red (loss) column to the black (profit).
While the shoppers try to grab the best bargains of the year, the retailers, on the other hand, try to achieve their Black Friday sales targets, this battle continues till the end of the day to mark the winners and losers of this battle.
The Changing Battlefield
Black Friday sales reached record levels in the last year, but if you are wondering why you did not see those long lines and scenes of shoppers fighting for the best bargains, it is because most of the Black Friday shopping last year was done online. Sales data from last year reveals that 51% Black Friday shoppers used their smartphones to shop online and only 49% headed to the shopping malls and big retail stores. Shoppers have all the good reasons to justify their choice of using their mobile phones and desktops to do their Black Friday shopping online.
A Look At Some Of The Winners
The online shopping landscape has dramatically changed the shopping behavior of Black Friday shoppers, as a result, many big retail giants with profound online presence and popularity are enjoying good sales and profits. Let us have a look at some of the major retailers who were able to make it to the victory stands last year.
Amazon came first with a big chunk of the online sales (35%) in the last Black Friday season. Apple with its popular iPad and iPod brands also enjoyed a good Black Friday season last year. Similarly, REI despite its early announcement to remain closed on the big day recorded 26% increase in the online traffic.
Every year Black Friday creates demand for thousands of new jobs. Retailers hire more than 70,000 part time seasonal workers and offer them handsome packages and bonuses to perform various tasks like managing distributions, dealing with customers, running store operations and stocking new inventories. These season workers are always the winners in this battle of sales and bargains.
A Look At Some Of The Losers
At the end of every epic Black Friday shop-a-thon, there are winners and there are losers. Let us have a look at some of the losers of Black Friday 2015.
The brick and mortar shopping trend, in general, experienced a great decline in last year's Black Friday shopping event. ASDA, a Walmart subsidiary that introduced this event in the UK market failed to survive. Similarly, a lot of other big retail stores in the UK like Primark, John Lewis, Oasis, and Argos also reduced their participation or canceled it altogether. A lot of the online retail stores failed to handle the heavy traffic load and experienced downtime. John Lewis, for example, reported that one minute of downtown accounted for £75,000 in lost sales.
In addition to the lost sales faced by the retailers, the consumers also faced losses in terms of injuries and deaths while shopping for discounted items on this one-day shopping bonanza. Since 2006 almost 98 people faced various injuries and 7 lost their lives to win this battle of sales and bargains.
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