SA's follow through on their plans to shop Black Friday specials

Those who chose not to participate in Black Friday did so largely due to financial pressures with 50% saying they did not have money available while 24% did not participate in Black Friday in fear of contracting Covid-19.

It appears that once a customer has participated in Black Friday the chances that they will participate in future years are high with 79% of Ask Afrika’s sample having participated in Black Friday in the previous year. A total of 604 consumers participated in Ask Afrika’s Power Panel Black Friday research.

The top three offers that drive customers to participate in Black Friday are percentage discounts (26%), half-off offers (26%) and buy one get one free specials (22%). Ultimately, customers are looking for bargains.

Consumers were alerted to these specials online (60%), in print media (53%) and in social media (44%).

Kendall Rÿnders, Head of CX at Ask Afrika reports that not only are customers using different channels to find their bargains, they are also using different channels to make their purchases. The majority of customers - 88% - went the traditional route and made their purchases in store while 44% made their purchases online and 24% via an app.

Interestingly, the categories shopped differ between in-store and online with groceries being the most shopped category overall (79%) and clothing being the most shopped category online (62%). Electronics came up second overall and online.

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How much did they end up spending?

“In our initial study, 34% of customers claimed that they were going to spend between R2001 and R5000; 27% claimed that they would spend between R5001 and R10000,” says Rÿnders. “Looking at the actual results, these percentages were slightly lower with 30% actually spending between R2001 and R5000 and 20% spending between R5001 and R10000.”

What this indicates, she says, is that despite tough economic times customers are still making the most of the bargains that are available and consumers are stocking up on groceries, clothes and electronics in time for the festive season.

Other findings from the research include the fact that nearly all those who said they would be shopping Black Friday specials (77%) actually did participate in Black Friday (75%).

The majority of consumers (65%) bought goods on Black Friday using cash.

About Ask Afrika

Ask Afrika is a market research company that offers the full spectrum of services. We support our clients’ decisions through facts. Typically, our clients’ require information around social research and philanthropy, experience measures and consulting, and brand dynamics.
Social research decisions are required around HIV/Aids and more recently, Covid-19. Educational and early childhood development, fair-trade shopping, media and financial research are some of the areas we love to work in. NGO’s, public- and private sector clients choose to work with us to get the pulse of the nation.

Besides being experts in brand and customer experience research, Ask Afrika is well known for creating some of the most useful, go-to industry benchmarks, including the Ask Afrika Orange Index®, the Ask Afrika Icon Brands®, the Ask Afrika Kasi Star Brands and the Target Group Index (TGI). Ask Afrika’s knowledge of brands is extensive. The Target Group Index (TGI) survey, which measures psychographics, service, products, media and brands, has been used by the majority of the top 50 advertisers and media owners in South Africa for nearly two decades.

Our clients operate across various industries, including retail, telecoms, finance, and the public sector. We offer tailor-made and ready-to-use offerings for all our clients regardless of the size of project.

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