Changing consumer spending patterns, influenced by the rise of Amazon and Black Friday, have reshaped the traditional Christmas sales calendar, according to a new report by tech company Ve Global.
The report says that the UK's January sales period showed a 'major decline' in online sales (-29%) and traffic (-19%), while 21 December, which is usually delivery cut-off day and causes a late boost in sales, also saw sales drop by 31%.
Ve's analysts believe that this decline is attributed to record Black Friday spending, as well as the spill-over effect of Amazon's Black Friday Week campaign, which began before Black Friday itself.
“Amazon’s Black Friday shocked the market into life earlier than expected and put spending at odds with the traditional festive calendar," said Morten Tonessen, CEO of Ve.
"With many retailers struggling to compete, there was an earlier start to the discounting which resulted in shopper fatigue that impacted long-established sales events. These events may even lose their place in the modern retail calendar.”
The report also highlights the expansion of Black Friday and Cyber Monday into new markets, with growth seen in the Nordic countries (+1189%), Russia (+408%), and Italy (+568%), compared to normal shopping days.
Christmas Retail
Data from the Office for National Statistics revealed that UK retail sales fell the most in 18 months in December, as a post-Black Friday slump rounded off a rough year for British retailers.
Since the cut-price shopping event was first introduced to the UK in around 2010, consumers have been making their Christmas purchases earlier, and retailers feel pressure to keep prices low, damaging margins at a crucial business period.
Overall, UK like-for-like retail sales were up by 0.6% over the Christmas period, but this was boosted by strong performance in the food retail category, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
“With inflation outpacing income growth, shoppers continued to see more of their spending power absorbed by essential items, including food, leaving less left over for buying Christmas gifts," said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC.
"That made this year’s festive period all the more nail-biting for non-food retailers, many of whom offered deep discounts in the last weeks before Christmas in the hope of something to celebrate at the end of a year, which has seen, on average, zero growth in non-food sales."
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Sarah Harford. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
