The Black Friday sales campaign is beginning to show signs of fatigue in the Spanish market. This is the spirit with which more and more operators welcome it, especially local businesses, to which are added an unfavorable economic situation and a calendar that does not blow in favor of going out to buy – the Spanish soccer team He plays two games of the controversial World Cup in Qatar right in the middle of Black Friday, which this year falls on November 25.
Even so, most stores –physical and online– end up joining the event in some way, albeit reluctantly. “If you don't, it seems that you don't exist; now, the reality is that it doesn't help us at all to make discounts just before Christmas, which is when we sell the most; It doesn't pay off, but you have to be there”, say sources from a distribution giant.
“The campaign has stabilized and there is some exhaustion; for the merchant it does not report excessive profits, even more so this year, with skyrocketing costs; Basically it is a marketing campaign”, agrees Albert Vinyals, a consumer and retail specialist at the Escodi business school. From the surveys carried out among operators each year, one trend stands out: the margins of those who participate in it are increasingly reduced. Last year, in fact, the companies that obtained the most benefits from Black Friday were Meta (Facebook) and Google, thanks to ads and payments to appear in the top positions of their search engines, says Vinyals. The feeling that spreads in commerce is that of being trapped by the campaign, which this year comes with a large dose of uncertainty.
All projections made so far point to consumers spending a little less than last year on Black Friday and Christmas. The Accenture Christmas Shopping Survey estimates that each Spaniard will spend an average of 497 euros, 5% less than in 2021, while BCG forecasts a drop in spending of 13%. Deloitte calculates a budget of 634 euros per person, similar to the previous year, although it includes more categories than the other surveys, such as spending on restaurants and travel. In the case of electronic products, stars of Black Friday, GFK forecasts a 5% decrease in sales by the end of the year.
This setback has also affected the traditional employment that is created for these dates. "Recruitments for Black Friday have fallen by 17% compared to the previous year," confirms Valentín Bote, from Randstad Research. Not only because of the effect of the labor reform, he underlines, which has annulled the effect of the mini-jobs, "but also because of the drop in activity linked to the lower disposable income of families."
"This is an atypical campaign," says Javier Vello, partner in charge of business consulting at EY. On the one hand, continues Vello, the consumer confidence index is at a minimum and inflation plus the rise in rates reduces the purchasing power of families. Faced with this situation, customers will compare prices more intensively and plan their purchases much more. They will look for the biggest discounts on specific items, the acquisition of which they already have planned. The effect of these circumstances on the campaign has been clear. “It has been shortened; In previous editions the discounts have started much earlier, even lasting a month; now it has been limited to a week”, says Vello. If the offers have to be higher to attract customers, they cannot be extended over time because the impact on margins would be devastating. And it would end up causing the dreaded cannibalization of Christmas sales.
On the other side of the scale weigh the effects that are still kicking in from the end of the pandemic. This will be the first Christmas without restrictions since the outbreak of the covid at the beginning of 2020, so merchants are crossing their fingers that households end up throwing in the rest despite the economic uncertainty.
"We believe that it will be a good campaign despite everything," confides Luis Sans, from the Associació Passeig de Gràcia association of merchants, restaurateurs and hoteliers. The luxury trade that abounds in the center of Barcelona has never needed to join the promotion campaign to sell, Sans adds, which observes a certain lethargy on "Black Friday" among the rest of the offer. "Luxury has never been there, the mid-price trade has been distancing itself and now it has remained something of the mass market (mass market)", he considers.
Among the segments that come out with the greatest discounts, clothing and footwear stand out. "The high temperatures have delayed the sales of warm clothing and a stock has accumulated that must be disposed of," explains Sergi Martín, vice president of the Comertia trade association. “The rest of the sectors will continue making efforts to make discounts; we believe it will be a good campaign despite the economic situation”, he adds.
Households are thus more aware than ever of the offers, although this year they arrive limited in time and are not very convenient for merchants.
