Black Friday as a marketing strategy

03. 11. 2022 Autor Sina Müller

Black Friday history 

Black Friday is an annually recurring discount promotion that originated in the USA. This day was probably established in the 1960s to boost the local economy. At that time, it was placed on the first Friday after Thanksgiving. Since then, the offers and discounts have grown continuously and can now be found worldwide. In Germany, Black Friday deals arrived on a larger scale around 2013 and have become more and more popular. In the meantime, the campaign day is held both offline in shops and online on numerous platforms and is also extended to the next few days. This is called Black Week. However, this term also has another intention: since the name Black Friday is partly protected and thus not freely usable for online retailers, they switch to other words such as Black Week.
The shopping marathon begins on the fourth Friday of November.

Black Friday as a marketing strategy

Why are Black Friday offers so popular anyway?

There is a simple marketing strategy behind the event. Customers are offered deals that seem more than profitable. If discount campaigns with high discounts are suggested, this automatically increases the potential number of customers. The reason for this is the percentage sign, which activates the human psyche. The symbol stimulates a kind of reward system, which means that people buy the products with apparently high discounts to reward themselves by apparently saving a lot of money. Often these are products that are not actually needed and would not have been bought without discounts. However, discounts and savings are very strong motives that influence the purchase decision.  

Tips for Black Friday

In general, Black Friday advertisements and offers should always be treated with caution. When the idea developed in the 1960s, it was intended to stimulate the economy. Nowadays, this is no longer the case, as most countries have a well-developed economy and often a saturated market. Nowadays, it is more about emptying stocks and selling as many products as possible that would have sold less or even not at all without discount campaigns. 

To avoid buying too many unprofitable products, you can follow these steps:

1. Compare prices: If you are intending to buy expensive and high-value products such as computers, refrigerators or the like, this should be calculated beforehand. The best thing to do is to select the relevant product a few weeks in advance and compare the price trend up to Black Friday. This way you can be reasonably sure whether the discount campaign is really worthwhile. 

2. Avoid impulse buying: If you are planning a shopping trip on Black Friday, there is one thing you should definitely keep in mind: The day is mainly about selling as much as possible and the deals are not always high as is often suggested. So before making any purchase decision, one should ask oneself whether the product is really needed. 

3. Trustworthy traders: To protect yourself from fake shops and scammers, you should mainly buy from proven and well-known traders on Black Friday. Fake shops entice shoppers with false offers, especially on social media platforms, which is why you should inform yourself about the provider beforehand if it is rather unknown. It can help, for example, to search for the online shop and check whether the imprint is properly and competently set up. Influencers also advertise discounts on this day. You can read about how influencer marketing works here.

In a nutshell , it can be said that savings can be made during Black Friday, so that the purchase of expensive products can be worthwhile. Nevertheless, one should not be deceived by supposedly large discounts and consider that there are clever marketing ideas behind the campaign.