With Black Friday just around the corner, talks of a recession, energy price and interest rate hikes, you could be forgiven for thinking that this Black Friday may be more of a washout than previous years. With consumers taking a more reserved approach to household budgeting, would they be searching for deals, or reserving their pre-Christmas spending for more considered purchases?
Online vs High Street spending on Black Friday
Early indications suggest that it does seem to be good news for businesses with a strong online presence, with the expectation that more customer spend will migrate online and once again increase against high street offerings. Online spending is expected to go over 20% of total spend this Black Friday, up from 19.3% last year.
With the recent Autumn Budget from the Treasury scrapping plans to implement an online sales tax, online businesses will remain confident of no increased outgoings from a taxation point of view, whilst many high street businesses will be reassessing and jumpstarting their online offering if footfall does not recover to pre-pandemic levels this festive period.
Will spend increase in line with inflation on Black Friday?
With inflation increasing at the fastest rate in the UK for 40 years, it remains to be seen whether spending will increase in line with inflation, and therefore balance out added costs for suppliers and retailers.
PwC estimates the average spend per consumer to be around £238 this Black Friday, which will add £0.5billion extra to the retail economy from last year. Overall spend on Black Friday is predicted to be around £7.5billion. That £0.5billion would fall short of the current 9.6% inflation that we have seen over the past 12 months from October 2021 to October 2022, with the magic number being around £0.7billion.
What will shoppers be searching for on Black Friday?
Shoppers will…
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