But in retrospect, disillusionment is widespread, even in e-commerce, which has so far been so used to success. As an analysis of the sales of 6,500 German online retailers, which is available exclusively to the Handelsblatt, shows that the sales figures have even declined slightly on average compared to the previous year.
The data was collected by the e-commerce software provider Billbee; it is based on a total of four million transactions. And they show that sales in “Cyber Week” this year were 1.5 percent lower than in 2020. For comparison: For the whole of 2021, the retail research institute IFH predicts online retail growth of between 16 and 27 percent.
“Cyber Week is clearly reaching the limits of its growth,” confirms e-commerce expert Mark Steier, who runs the largest Facebook community of online retailers with more than 23,000 members. Numerous dealers have reported disappointing sales.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
The extent of the consolidation is, however, quite surprising, he emphasizes. In advance, many retailers had expected that in view of the delivery problems for many goods, consumers would bring their purchases planned for the pre-Christmas period forward to Black Friday. “Actually, everything should have gone in the direction of Cyber Week,” said Steier. But consumers were rather reluctant.
Amazon had already dampened expectations beforehand
Amazon Germany boss Ralf Kleber had probably already had corresponding fears in advance and, in an interview with the Handelsblatt, dampened expectations. “It’s not our job to set records,” he said in the run-up to the sales event. He saw his company well prepared, but emphasized: “How successful it will ultimately be – that is decided by the customer.”
What the Billbee figures clearly show: Sales are less and less concentrated on the big event days, while customers are looking for good offers over longer periods of time. Last year, Black Friday accounted for 20.6 percent of sales in Cyber Week, this year it was only 18.8 percent. At the start of the Black Friday euphoria in Germany a few years ago, the event was largely limited to one day.
“Black Friday was very mixed for us this year, sales are roughly at the level of the previous year,” says Andreas Müller, head of the Deltatecc company, which mainly sells consumer electronics via marketplaces and has annual sales of around 100 million euros . “We had hoped for a little more from Cyber Week,” admits the co-owner of the family business.
“In the past few years, Black Friday was always a big bargain event,” remembers Müller. That has largely ceased to exist this year. Because the higher purchase prices and overall increased costs would have significantly narrowed the scope for discounts.
Experts had already forecast this development. “The prices will be higher overall this year,” predicted Pini Mandel, boss and founder of Quicklizard, a provider of pricing software for retailers. “The problems in the supply chains and the higher procurement costs for retailers will have a significant impact on Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” he justified his assessment.
Also in the USA less sales on Black Friday
Even the dealers themselves had little hope of high discounts. In a survey by Sapio Research and Coupa Software of 600 retail supply chain managers, 82 percent said they would offer fewer discounts this year.
This has now apparently had an impact on sales – and not just in Germany. Figures from Adobe Analytics have shown that this year, for the first time in the USA, sales on Black Friday did not increase compared to the previous year. According to this, US online retailers would have only turned over 8.9 billion US dollars on Black Friday – after nine billion US dollars the previous year.
Only the software provider Shopify and the payment service provider Klarna report increasing sales of their affiliated retailers. But this is likely to be largely based on a base effect. Both surveys have a large proportion of stationary retailers in their numbers. And last year, due to the effects of the pandemic, they had the worst sales in years.
Deltatecc boss Müller gives other reasons for the decreasing attractiveness of Black Friday. “I see general uncertainty among customers,” observes the dealer. In view of the generally unclear situation, many are rather reluctant to spend.
Pandemic depresses the mood to buy
This is also reflected in the consumption barometer that the Handelsblatt Research Institute collects every month on behalf of the German Retail Association (HDE). The index fell significantly at the beginning of December.
The HDE barometer is now at 95.36 points, almost three points lower than in the previous month. The mood plummeted even more than in December of the previous year. The HDE stated that consumers reacted to the infection process and the current corona measures with reluctance to plan their purchases.
In addition: in the past year, many consumers indulged in major purchases. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that the lockdown meant that they could spend less money on travel and dining out. On the other hand, the temporary VAT cut had the effect of an economic stimulus program for online trading.
“That is why many major purchases have not been made this year because the people are already well looked after,” suspects Deltatecc boss Müller. And many consumers are probably so overwhelmed by the huge marketing effort that more and more retailers are doing that they tend to buy less than more.
More: Amazon Germany boss Ralf Kleber: “It’s not our job to set records”