Tag: Black Friday

In recent years, South Africa has embraced the global phenomenon of Black Friday. While, for businesses in this country, it's tempting to focus solely on the immediate potential that this flurry of buying activity presents, small and medium enterprise (SME) should take a much longer-term view of Black Friday, understanding its real potential to underpin long-term growth.

November marks the start of seasonal spending, with consumers looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. While this is an exciting time of year, it is equally critical for customers to be vigilant when shopping to avoid falling victim to fraudsters.

Picture this: It’s Black Friday and it’s time to take advantage of the massive sale on your favourite online shop. You’ve been receiving emails all month in the run-up to the day and you’ve bookmarked several items that you just have to have – and their prices for one day only are ridiculously low. You open the browser, head to the store and….

The Festive Season is a time when most South Africans, like the rest of the world, will be looking to spoil their loved ones by purchasing them gifts. Over the past few years, South Africans have been lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the discounts that are offered on Black Friday (the last Friday in November) and Cyber Monday (the Monday immediately following Black Friday).

With Black Friday around the corner, most if not all, e-commerce and retailers will have that feeling of anxiousness and dread in the weeks leading up to the day asking:mWill the site or systems stay up? Will it perform under the additional load? and If it goes down how fast can we recover?

This year, Black Friday will fall on 26 November. As has been the trend for the last few years, many retailers have already started offering discounts on goods since the beginning of the month. Last year (2020), many South Africans took to social media to lament their dissatisfaction with what many termed 'Black Friday scams'.

This year has seen many more businesses moving online, adopting ecommerce models in an effort to continue to reach their customers as COVID-19 wreaked havoc. While this has opened up markets to hundreds of thousands of new customers, it also has the potential to create vulnerabilities that cybercriminals can exploit.

We are on the cusp of the festive shopping season, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday kicking off the spending spree in the run up to Christmas and Boxing Day. However, this year’s shopping season will be very different compared to previous years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The upshot is that many South Africans are emerging from the pandemic with considerably less spending power.

Black Friday is what happens when the dangerous mixture of anxiety and excitement are blended in a retail test tube. Although we might think that we know what is going to happen, the result is almost never as predictable as we would like it to be; with the risk that it might all blow up always a possibility. Each year in the build-up to the day, both consumers and suppliers deal with the fact that things can go horribly wrong.

With the Black Friday shopping frenzy around the corner, the digital economy this year is expected to receive an enormous boost as many people will want to avoid crowds and take their shopping online. After a difficult year marked by severe disruptions and decreased demand, businesses will also be relying on this period to make up for losses due to the pandemic.