We are all feeling the pinch a bit this year, what with high energy costs, rising food costs and monster interest rates. We were interested to know what the impact would be on the usual Black Friday sales usually held around or on the 25th of November. Some large E-commerce distributors are still holding Black Friday sales and these will be most likely to continue the closer we get to Xmas. Will the UK public have a disposable income for Black Friday or would they be even keener to secure that pre-Christmas bargain?
So what is Black Friday?
Here in the UK, we first saw the rise of Black Friday when Amazon introduced its sales back in 2010. The British public was not particularly on board with the idea of it. Seeing it as an American tradition that usually happened around Thanksgiving.
In 2013 ASDA decide to take part, which proved to be an incredible success, enticing more and more retailers into taking part. Now if you ask anyone in the UK what Black Friday is, you are going to be hard-pressed to find someone that has not heard of it.
What happened on Black Friday 2022
Many retailers and economists predicted that due to all the current doom and gloom, this year’s Black Friday would be a washout. However, this year saw one of the biggest days for online sales. On average the amount of British people shopping during the sale in 2022 has risen from 33% in 2021 to 39% in 2022. So even though in general the public has reduced their overall spending per person, at this time, the number of people looking to save and shop online rose.
So what were the most popular sale items this Black Friday 2022?
Well, no surprises here in one of the most popular purchases amongst Brits – 20% are looking to purchase game consoles or devices. I have yet to meet a teenager who does not have a gaming device or gaming platform here in the UK.
Home decorations and furnishings account for another potentially sizeable chunk of Black Friday Sales, 20% in fact! Let’s face it, with less and less disposable income, we all want our homes to be as lovely and comfortable as possible.
Girls Vs Boys?
Looking at the trend from 2019 onwards, men are more likely to spend more of their hard-earned cash than women during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales. Women will also be me likely to spend less overall on sales. Men will be planning on buying those gaming consoles and devices and women, yes you guessed it, home decor.
Is Interest in Black Friday starting earlier each year?
It looks like retailers have been starting their online sale events earlier and earlier to entice consumers. Google Trends data shows interest in online sales starts around 12 weeks before Black Friday now. In 2014 it was 7 weeks before.
How does all this affect the retailer’s supply chain?
If you’re an e-commerce store or a High Street retailer, how do you find the space to store goods before the Black Friday surge? As the trend for online shopping increases upwards, businesses need to look at how they can hold enough stock and manage the supply chains at peak times of the year.
In the 2021 UKWA report research suggested that for £1bn of online spending, 775,000ft of warehouse space was required to meet this. Unfortunately living in the UK, we all know, space and the cost of purchasing the space are at a high premium.
At STS Storage we have a range of warehouse storage solutions for increasing your storage needs at peak times of the year. One great option is a mezzanine floor, adding a mezzanine floor can greatly increase your floor capacity without the need to move your current storage location, which can be extremely costly and cause disruption within your business. With a mezzanine you don’t need to stop at one floor, multiple floors can be added which can aid pick and pack, which is especially useful for small items. All of our mezzanine floors are designed to BRE Digest 437, we also can trace our structural steelwork to the source (CE Certified).
There is also the option to install pallet racking for your product storage, warehouse racking greatly increases storage density and the width of the aisles and height of the pallets are all interchangeable and built bespoke to your product and storage needs. This eliminates any wasted space overhead between the ceiling and the racking. Our pallet racking solutions are based on your access and handling requirements, we can design a wide aisle, VNA (very narrow aisle), double deep, articulated truck or a reach truck – all in the most cost-effective way.
If you don’t own your warehouse or are a small online e-commerce store, another great option is fulfilment warehouses. Many traditional warehouses have now converted to fulfilment centres. The Warehouse charges you to store your products and also to pick and ship them to the consumer, usually at very reasonable rates.
Another possibility for small-scale storage options is shared warehousing. Also called “on-demand” warehousing, it provides peak-time storage as and when you need it. Multiple e-commerce or retailers with similar products or closely located retailers share the risk of sharing a space.
Whatever your warehouse storage requirements we have a wide range of storage solutions for your warehouse that we can design to fit your exact storage requirements.