We made it November, and now holiday marketing is in full swing already. In fact, many marketers didn’t even wait until after Halloween to get the season started.
The attempt to push holiday marketing early happens every year, and so Black Friday has evolved and stretched to pretty much all of November over the past several years. Yet there were always some holdouts who would for the super deals on doorbuster specials available in stores only on the day itself.
Recollecting Past Black Fridays
That phenomenon is what prompted my father-in-law to get up before dawn to bring home two play kitchens for his grandchildren. I don’t recall what price he paid, only that he believed the savings to be worth the trouble.
It goes beyond saving $20. He enjoyed the thrill of the frenzied excitement surrounding Black Friday sale events.
As the National Retail Foundation (NRF) reported last year, “Thanksgiving weekend draws nearly 190 million shoppers, spending up 16 percent.” That year online shopping outstripped in store shopping: 142.2 million vs. 124 million.
There were always some traditionalists who like to see what they buy in real life and who expect better deals in stores. That’s particularly true of those of older generations who are loath to order online ever.
New for 2020
This year, though, likely the figures will shift to more online shopping and more shoppers making completing their purchases before the big weekend still referred to as Black Friday. The challenge for retailers will be not to lose out on the sales that shoppers would come into stores for at a time when people are still skittish about crowds.
However, adapting to the reality of life under a pandemic when many stores were closed for months forced even a lot of the old-school shoppers to embrace the ease, convenience, and safety of online shopping.
That shift is going to reshape Black Friday 2020. Even if stores wanted to revert to the old model, the concerns about rising cases this season and the general advice not to pack a lot of people together means there is no concentrated shopping frenzy at most retailers.
Read more in This is Not Your Father’s Black Friday
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