Black Friday brings early gifts for shoppers and retailers

Black Friday sales have taken off in Australia, with NAB tipping shoppers will spend $860m on the day.

Holly Harnwell peruses beauty products she’s likely to buy at Myer’s Black Friday sale. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

There was a time when Holly Harnwell was oblivious to the Black Friday sales, but not any longer.

Her email accounts, Instagram feeds and social media accounts are now increasingly swamped with offers from retailers to tempt her to spend big, filling her inboxes with steep discounts for what is ostensibly an American shopping tradition.

“Advertising, social media marketing and I get a lot of emails coming in from the shops, or Instagram and Facebook ads. I’ve seen a lot of those, whereas in the past I didn’t really have any contact about it,” Ms Harnwell said as she assessed make-up and lipsticks at the bustling cosmetics floor at Myer’s flagship store in Melbourne at lunchtime on Thursday.

“So this year I have stalked all of the stores, found out what I wanted and will hold out until Friday for the Black Friday sales.”

She is not alone. What began in the 1960s as a shopping promotion to kickstart Christmas on the day after that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving, has now got Australian retailers and shoppers in their grip.

Like Halloween, which is now a lucrative segment of the nation’s $320bn retail economy, Black Friday has also taken off, with National Australia Bank tipping shoppers will spend $860m on the day, then follow that up with spending over the weekend and Cyber Monday (another American shopping tradition) to take the total spending spree over the four days to $2.9bn.

NAB analysis shows Black Friday is especially helpful to rocketing the spend on cosmetics, with more than $48m expected to be spent on all things beauty-related, following an increase of 14 per cent year on year.

All the major retailers are participating, with traditional bricks-and-mortar stores such as Myer, David Jones, Woolworths and Aldi, and online retailers including Amazon and eBay all getting in on the act. Discounts of up to 60 per cent are grabbing the attention of shoppers. Tech gear seems a popular Black Friday product in Australia, with Fitbits, PlayStations and handstick vacuums on many people’s shopping list.

“It is becoming a major event in the retail calendar in Australia and every year it is getting bigger,” Myer general manager Loucinda McCorry told The Australian.

“It is just so popular. I think it is perfect timing with last-minute gift-giving, and the discounts are good — customers know there will be good offers.”

National Retail Association chief executive Dominique Lamb said the four-day spendathon highlighted the growing trend of consumers moving their Christmas shopping to the earlier period of late November than the traditional time of December.

“We’re seeing a growing trend with consumers looking to knock off their Christmas shopping earlier than usual, with November starting to edge out December as the busiest period,” Mr Lamb said.

Consumer electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi is moving fast to lock in the Black Friday sales as a major selling campaign in the lead-up to Christmas and issued its own catalogue tempting shoppers with discounts of up to 50 per cent.

“Black Friday is the start of the all-important Christmas trading period,” JB Hi-Fi chief executive Richard Murray told The Australian. “We start planning in January each year and we will have great deals across our range. Black Friday has grown in importance for the last three years and is a key promotional event.”

Michael Whitehead, centre manager for Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre, the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere, said Chadstone was an “early adopter” of the Black Friday sales and last year saw foot traffic at its centre rise by 20 per cent on the day.

“There is a lot of hype in the market around Black Friday and we see it now cementing itself as a key retail period,” Mr Whitehead said.