Black Friday sales plummet

Nino Bergfeld, Salesforce trade expert, reports: “Cyber ​​Week and especially Black Friday was sobering for retailers in the German market.” Sales fell in the entire week after Black Friday, which marketers call Cyber ​​Week compared to the previous year by six percent.

In recent years, online retailers around Black Friday have regularly achieved new sales records with high double-digit growth rates. But the euphoria had already slowed down in 2021. An analysis of the sales of 6,500 online retailers by the e-commerce software provider Billbee had already identified a slight decline at the time. This trend now appears to be continuing.

One reason: Due to the difficult economic conditions in times of high inflation, many retailers can no longer afford high discounts. “On average, retailers gave less discounts because the pressure on margins is very high due to the high costs and increased purchase prices,” explains Salesforce manager Bergfeld. A picture that is unlikely to change fundamentally in the further course of the Christmas business.

Stationary retail is also noticing a negative trend. A survey of 400 retail companies by the German Retail Association (HDE) showed that a majority rated the sales development in the week before the first weekend in Advent as unsatisfactory.

Few retailers are satisfied with the Christmas business

“Retail is feeling the uncertainty of consumers,” observes HDE General Manager Stefan Genth. The number of customers in the inner cities, which collapsed during the pandemic, has not increased again to this day. In the survey, only every sixth retail company was satisfied with the course of the Christmas business so far.

When asked, individual retailers did not want to give any concrete results on Black Friday business. Most of them have to analyze the numbers anyway before they can draw precise conclusions.

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Especially since the situation in retail looks different. The payment service provider Klarna, through which around eight percent of Internet payments in Germany are processed, reported sales growth of seven percent on Black Friday among its customers.

Shopify, like Salesforce, an e-commerce software provider, reported a higher value of the average order, but could not provide sales development for Germany.

I have never experienced a year like 2022 in my many years of work in retail. People pay more attention to their money and at the same time want to shop more sustainably. Ebay Germany boss Oliver Klinck

The drugstore retailer Rossmann, who advertises Black Friday bargains both online and in the branches, was cautiously optimistic in an initial reaction. “Even if we cannot draw a final conclusion at this point in time, the strong progress has been very satisfactory so far,” said a spokeswoman on Monday. Changes in purchasing behavior are hardly detectable.

“Black Week was a business highlight in 2022, which has so far been characterized by reluctance to buy,” said Marc Opelt, the Otto Group board member responsible for the otto.de platform. The action days would have worked well. He left it open how sales developed.

The electronics retailers Media Markt and Saturn also speak of a “successful” course of the Black Week, without specifically going into the sales development.

Ebay gives discounts on second-hand products

The Ebay platform had already adjusted in advance to a change in purchasing behavior and a lower willingness to pay on the part of consumers. “I have never experienced a year like 2022 in my many years of work in retail,” said Ebay Germany boss Oliver Klinck to the Handelsblatt. “People are more careful with their money and at the same time want to shop more sustainably.”

Ebay therefore decided to focus more on remanufactured products and second-hand goods and also to specifically draw attention to these offers with discounts. Ebay does not want to say how this affected the numbers. Klinck explains only cautiously: “Overall, we are satisfied with the result and Black Friday, which was better than last year.”

The Berlin Brands Group, one of the major German online retailers with sales of more than 400 million euros, was not particularly euphoric. However, a spokesman emphasized: “We are satisfied with Black Friday Week this year.” The company at least managed to exceed the level of the previous year.

The Berlin Brands Group benefits from the fact that it offers inexpensive alternatives to electronic products from the big brand manufacturers under its own brands such as Klarstein or Auna. “That fits into this time,” explains the spokesman. That’s why the company recorded double-digit growth throughout November compared to the previous year.

Black Friday records in the US

The Salesforce figures also show that many customers in Germany used the week before Cyber ​​Week for targeted early Christmas shopping. Sales this week were five percent higher than in the previous year.

However, this did not come close to making up for the losses of the previous months. According to Salesforce data, sales in online retail have fallen by eight percent since the beginning of the year – a value that corresponds to information from the online retail association BEVH.

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In view of these figures, many German online retailers are likely to look enviously at the USA, where despite similarly difficult economic conditions, new records are likely to be set again this year in Cyber ​​Week. The Salesforce figures for this week in the USA show a sales increase of nine percent.

This is consistent with other analyzes that also see growth. The “Holiday Shopping Report” by the data service provider Adobe determined sales of 9.12 billion US dollars in online trade in the USA – at least 2.3 percent more than in the previous year.

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