Nic Pietersma, business director at Ebiquity, says:

In the midst of Covid’s second wave, it seems very unlikely Black Friday will be retail’s starting gun for recovery this year.  

At a household level, Black Friday will be very uneven. While many families have struggled financially this year because of lockdown measures, others have stayed in employment and accumulated additional savings from not going out.

However, just because some consumers can spend, it doesn’t mean they will. And even if they do, retailers have previously seen that up to 45 per cent of Black Friday revenue is simply displaced from the weeks before and after the event. Black Friday is not necessarily the saviour people would expect.

Instead of a short-term focus on Black Friday, retailers hoping for a lasting recovery should take a longer-term approach, particularly focusing on customer experience. Long-term investment in customer experience — online and offline, once shops are allowed to reopen — can be a pivotal driver of sales success. That is a much better focus for retailers, rather than prioritising one day at the end of November.

Last month, our Advanced Analytics and Data Science teams published a paper discussing “How retailers can return to profitability post-pandemic”. Download your complimentary copy here.

To read the article in full on City A.M, click here.

First featured 10/11/2020.