2020 has been a year of turbulence, with everyone and everything adapting to a new normal. Whether it’s been businesses embracing remote working, or families hosting Zoom quizzes, everybody has pivoted and Black Friday is set to be no different.
With reports of second waves of Coronavirus hitting the globe, it’s now an inevitability that the biggest shopping day of the year will have to evolve to become even more digital.
Consumer habits have changed, with more people being comfortable doing their shopping from their living room, and fewer people being comfortable with venturing out into busy shopping centres.
This year’s Black Friday is set to be very different from previous years. The Coronavirus pandemic has forced organisations to change the way they operate and consumers to change the way they shop.
Traditional retail businesses in many countries were forced to close as lockdown measures have been enforced, and even since reopening, many customers are still reluctant to head back out to the shops. In fact, a recent survey carried out by Wells Fargo suggests that as much as 70% of shoppers are wary of returning to stores.
As a result of this upheaval, the e-commerce industry skyrocketed during the lockdown period with companies such as Amazon reporting 40% sales growth. Naturally, as lockdowns around the globe eased, e-commerce sales reduced to more normal levels – although still higher than pre-lockdown.
Rather than being a revolution, this has been more of an evolution that has simply accelerated the shift to e-commerce that was already happening. According to a report by IBM, this shift from physical stores to digital shopping has been accelerated by roughly 5 years.