Black Friday: how a sales gimmick is changing SA’s retail sector
The day’s importance to SA’s nascent e-commerce sector is clear as 352 sites across 29 categories offer promotions for the day
Black Friday promotional sales are transforming the SA retail sector. What started out as an imported US sales gimmick — Takealot and Checkers both claim they brought it to SA — about four years ago, is now reshaping how South Africans shop. The SA Reserve Bank referred to its effect in its Quarterly Bulletin in June when it showed a “robust increase” in durable and semidurable goods in the fourth quarter of 2017. It said this was as a result of “substantial Black Friday promotions”. Research group Nielsen echoed these findings. It said in its “Black Friday: Heyday or Hype” report that sales in November 2017 were 7.2%, or R1.36bn, higher than the average for the preceding two months. It was no different in 2018, with some retailers reporting record sales for the period. E-commerce retailer Takealot said sales for the day were R196m — a 125% year-on-year growth. This is sharply up from the mere R1m it generated from Black Friday in 2015. The group sold R11.5m in merchandise before 1a...
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