Six Black Friday Predictions

Digital Strategy

Oct 18

think pieces.PNG — Black Friday 2021 will extend beyond even last year’s surge. Despite so much uncertainty for supply chains and demand, our team of experts have gone ahead and made six key predictions.

By: Kinase Editors

1. Bigger but not a jump in growth

The holiday sales season always delivers a surprise. Black Friday 2020 saw a huge surge to ecommerce as it concentrated sales. This year Black Friday will come back bigger, but by less of a year on year jump. Google predicts that ecommerce sales will still be up year on year across the holiday sale period, this time by 9.5% - which indicates the strength, stickiness, and continued growth of ecommerce, despite the comparison against YoY growth in 2020 sounding like a climb down from the 30% level of 2020.

Two key stats for marketers:

In the UK, holiday spending is projected to grow 7% YoY (NRF Forecast).
Online isn’t slipping back - its share will grow by 5% YoY (eMarketer).

2. More early Christmas gift buying

Black Friday will continue to draw sales forward from the holiday period, as current data shows that gift purchases are a strong rising trend within the Black Friday week. Partly this is driven by the twin uncertainties of Covid and supply chain disruption - consumers will purchase when they can and when stocks are in, rather than waiting.

3. Consumers are not saving

UK consumer confidence is high (PWC’s survey of consumer sentiment is up 8 points over the last three months), and income is holding up against inflationary pressure as shifting restrictions and demand patterns scramble any inflationary hits for now.

These are sound underlying reasons why an increase in sales volumes in 2021 vs 2020 is a strong prediction.

4. Different sectors will diverge more than ever

Radical changes in behaviour combine with restrictions to produce divergent trading environments for different sectors, sometimes reversing their positions year on year. Black Friday will bring these into sharp relief. Google’s ‘Rising Retail Category’ dashboard is a good place to start tracking these trends for digital. Below are three highlights in divergent sectors.

Gifts and Luxury

These are two retail trends which have been soaring in 2021 since lockdown - people buying treats for themselves, and gifts for others. Watches of Switzerland Group reported sales of luxury watches and jewellery up 43% on pre-pandemic levels, with the holiday period to come looking “very good”.

Travel

Travel was a late comer to Black Friday discounting, waiting it out for the post holiday peak in bookings. However, since 2019 hotels, agencies and airlines have increasingly looked to lure people in with deals, and in a sector beleaguered by ongoing border restrictions, Black Friday 2021 is going to be a competitive struggle for share of voice in a narrower audience of people prepared to take a chance.

Home and Furniture

Sectors which saw big increases during periods of home working and increased time in the house have naturally slowed down, as trends shared by Google indicate - but they are still tracking well above 2019. With winter pandemic restrictions coming, demand will also be drawn forward here as home categories settle into a new, higher level.

5. Amazon will continue to eat Google and Facebook

Amazon Ads will continue eating away at Google and Facebook’s ad revenue, while Amazon will benefit from every other aspect of Black Friday as well - while it also has Amazon Air ready to ship goods around the US efficiently.

6. Tiktok will grow like crazy

Black Friday hashtags, filters and influencer led campaigns will make a huge impact on Tiktok, as they did last year. Now, Tiktok has overtaken YouTube for average watch time per user in the US and UK - setting it up to be the biggest growth advertising platform for this year’s event. How can advertisers leverage this highly engaged audience to be excited about seasonal deals? Can Walmart outdo the 4 billion views for #UnwrapTheDeals in 2020?