More products discounted while Romanians had the same budget on Black Friday 2016, says study

Starcom MediaVest Group and Leo Burnett Romania published a new study, in collaboration with TNS Romania, in a bid to investigate the perspective of Romanian shoppers regarding the periods of the year in which retailers offer the biggest discounts.

The study divides the segment of online users in the urban area in four major categories, depending on their behavior related to the Black Friday promotional period. The biggest percentage is occupied this year by the Involved buyers (56 percent) – the ones that intended and bought on Black Friday. The second category is represented by the Black Friday Indifferent (18 percent) – comprising those that intended to buy and bought, followed by the Lost Buyers (20 percent) – The ones that intended to buy on Black Friday, but didn’t. The last category, the Seduced Buyers (6 percent), gathers the people that didn’t intend to buy initially, but in the end made a purchase.

Black Friday 2016 succeeded in maintaining a high level of interest amongst the Romanian shoppers. The study present a significantly higher percentage compared to last year in the category Involved buyers, while the category Lost buyers remains constant, the main reason for giving up the acquisition process being the falls or insufficient discounts at the products the shoppers in this category where looking for.

The fact that many of the retailers are starting the discounts with a week or even earlier that the known Friday considered as being the „Black Friday”, creates confusion among the shoppers. Therefore, only 17 percent of them consider this period as being different than other discounts periods during the year.

Most of the Romanian start to get informed about the Black Friday promotions with 1-2 weeks earlier, this fact becoming already a custom among the shoppers. The main sources of information are still the retailers’ websites, all the other sources redirecting them there.

The Black Friday campaign leads to growth of traffic on the retailer’s websites, but they are also a good start in creating a stable relationship with the consumer: 20 percent of the buyers subscribed to the retailers’ newsletter with the occasion of the Black Friday promotions and two of out 10 persons end up buying a promoted product in a campaign.

Moreover, this promotional period is good for the small retailers to attract new clients and to keep them active during the whole year.

When it comes to the purchase intention for products, a drop is registered in the category of expensive goods, compared to 2015. Black Friday is not that polarized towards investments for the house or IT&C products, but they are going towards the personal care products, clothes, books and toys. Therefore, the categories of available products are expanding, Black Friday becoming a period of universal discounts, not only on the expensive categories.

Therefore, even the number of the bought products grew, the buyers’ budget remained the same, comparing to 2015. Even they had budgets of RON 1001-5000 RON, they made purchases of less than RON 300. Most of the Romanians are paying the products from their savings. The study shows also a larger number of the people that are using money from their overdrafts in order to pay for their wanted goods, compared to 2015.