Black Friday sales headed to $5.6bn and pushing Boxing Day aside

Australia’s love affair with Black Friday has helped the shopping event emerge as the largest single contributor to the $320bn retail sector.

Shoppers at Sydney’s Pitt St mall during Black Friday sales. Picture: Britta Campion

Australia’s love affair with Black Friday has helped the shopping event – long second to the annual Boxing Day sales – emerge as the largest single contributor to the $320bn retail sector.

The impact of the sales frenzy is starting to show up in national economic data, too, with National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster saying the volume of money poured into retailers over Black Friday and the weekend was shaping the seasonal nature of retail sales recorded in December.

Early data from Zip Pay shows a 52 per cent leap in the spending of the buy now, pay later platform’s 2.9 million users on Friday alone, against the previous four weeks.

There was also a healthy lift in the amount of money users were spending with merchants that ­accept the service, with the average transaction size on Black Friday up 30 per cent. Transactions were also increasingly online, with Zip data showing 65 per cent of sales were not in store.

Early statistics flowing in from Black Friday sales – which continues with Cyber Monday sales – showed homewares and home items, electronics, fashion, clothing and cosmetics were the most popular categories among consumers.

Zip told The Australian that the most in-demand retailers for Black Friday sales among its users were JB Hi-Fi, the Good Guys, Harvey Norman, Big W, Catch and Kogan.

“Sales have been pleasing with good traffic both in store and online,” JB Hi-Fi chief executive Terry Smart said. “Black Friday sales have been gaining momentum over the years and now is definitely becoming an established promotional event.”

The National Retailers Association is predicting the Black Friday sales, which is actually spread across four days, will generate $5.6bn in retail sales, an 8 per cent rise on last year.

This should help elevate Black Friday – an import from the US where retailers often open after midnight on Friday following the Thanksgiving holiday to offer deep discounts and sales – to be Australia’s leading retail event.

Shoppers at Westfield Bondi Junction last Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

Debbie Wine, Zip chief marketing officer for Australia and New Zealand, said people were getting in early and using buy now, pay later services to spend with a range of retailers and across many categories.

“There is no doubt there is pent-up demand among consumers and from what we are seeing we predict Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be bigger retail moments than the Boxing Day sales,” she said.

“In Sydney there was heavy rain so convenience is one explanation, but people are still uneasy about Covid-19 so shopping from their iPhone means they don’t need to line up, check in and wear masks and that gives them peace of mind,” Ms Wine said about the increasing online sales.

  

Mr Oster said November was starting to eclipse December as the key retail month.

“You can see it in the seasonal factors already, because there has been a big change in the seasonal pattern over the last couple of years and you can start to see the seasonal pattern in December come down a bit,” he said. “Everything we have seen recently is that it is very strong. It is probably the biggest event.”

However, he said the fuel for shoppers to keep on spending was starting to be depleted.

“Consumers have got lots of money but one of the issues is the ‘dollars in’ versus the ‘dollars out’ are now going more out than in, and that always makes people feel slightly nervous,” he said.

“Consumers are running down their savings rate and they didn’t get as much money from what they got last year from the government (stimulus).”

Originally published as Black Friday sales headed to $5.6bn and pushing Boxing Day aside