Can I ask what people think about Black Friday and Cyber Monday? They are an American invention, and take place over the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is this weekend / 28 Nov & 1 Dec). You can read more about them here >>.
Lots of US sellers do promotions over that weekend, as in the US it marks the start of the Christmas shopping period. There are a few UK companies that run Black Friday sales too, like Asda (which is owned by Wallmart), but it’s still very much an American thing.
As British sellers, will you be running Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales? What do you think of it?
It’s American, linked to an American holiday, and I see no reason for us to adopt it in the UK. We have January sales, they don’t. If we go down that path, shouldn’t we start adopting June 14th, July 4th, Anzac Day and any other holiday that comes along?
My husband is American. He likes the differences between us as well as the similarities. Brits are often accused as having no real culture of our own, but surely we don’t need another reason to cut prices?
Sales used to be a way to get business during the quieter times of the year e.g. January and July, when people weren’t usually buying much. Why would anyone cut prices during the busiest shopping period of the year? Makes no business sense to me at all. Let the Americans keep their weird traditions - I’d rather run a British business the British way. It would be comparable to expecting holiday companies to offer cheaper holidays during August than the rest of the year!
Added to that, most sellers are already undercharging for their work - please don’t do anything to make them feel it’s necessary to reduce their prices even further. You should be encouraging us all to charge a fair price for our work, not compete with US companies.
I think most of us are already doing everything we can to get sales already during a very lean period ( of course I’m not speaking for some sellers who are doing fantastically well ) Personally I get very annoyed when the run-up to Christmas is referred to as ‘The Holidays’.
They’re in the summer!..
I won’t be doing anything special.
I have tried it in the past and made no difference to me. I have offers throughout the year in my shop. If Folksy as a site does something / advertise etc I might consider it.
I won’t be discounting anything as I am already running a promotion whereby all my giclee prints are just £25 instead of the usual £29-£35.
It’s something which the media has picked up on in the last few years but to be honest, I think a lot of people are getting sale weary, because they recognise they are being duped a lot of the time. The big retailers’ strategy is often to charge a ridiculous amount for an item which they would never expect to get, and just offer it for the minimum time required by law, and then introduce a ‘fantastic half price sale’ at which point the item is set at what is the usual price.
I think Black Friday is interesting if it marks the busiest shopping day of the year, as hopefully traffic will increase on this site. It would be nice if my shop was going to get a bit of extra promotion on that day, but I’m not sure how I could achieve that as I think I am already doing as much as I can!!
Is Folksy planning any advertising on that day? @Folksycontent If you are, it would be good to have advance notice so that we can align descriptions etc with any given theme.
To me, black Friday is just the last Friday of the month so payday for a lot of people.
I’m not going to be having sale/doing extra advertising but I do expect it to be busy online.
I’d rather do a random offer at an unusual time than follow the crowd and do sales when they are expected. And I don’t see why we have to do the same things as Americans.
I’d far rather the Small Business Saturday on 6th December as advertised on TV was more widely publicised, as they are trying to get people to buy from small businesses on that day rather than huge businesses.
I won’t be doing anything - I’ve got sale stuff in my shop, have promoted non stop since June/July when things went really dead and it hasn’t really increased my sales. I don’t mean to be negative but I don’t think doing a mega sale over one weekend is suddenly going to bring in hoards of online shoppers. ( although I could very well be proved wrong) Besides, 10 % of all my sales Oct - Dec is going to the World Wildlife Fund and the less money I make, the less money the polar bears get !!!
The small business Saturday thing is about spending at the bricks and mortar small shops on the high street rather than the big companies and internet shopping.
So to be honest we are internet shops we are not part of the small bricks and mortar shops in our high streets.
It’s to encourage growth in the high street as I’m sure most are aware our high street are often filled with empty units and small shops clinging on for dear life. This Saturday is meant to get Joe public to speed in those shops.
No I will not be jumping on any sort of American lead band wagon. So no no no to their black Friday/cyber Monday. lol
That’s ok I’d seen the advert for it last week on TV and an interview about it as part of BBC1 weekday lunch time news after the national bit when they do the local bit.
But we are all small businesses on here, so even though SBS is aimed at B&M shops, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon and encourage people to buy from small independent on line businesses too
Last year I reduced the prices of everything in my shops for Black Friday and did exceptionally well. OK, so I made a bit of a loss (I’d only dropped things by a very small amount), but I did have a few who come back to buy more at the higher price, so it was worked out well.
I’m not sure if I’ll do anything for Black Friday this time, haven’t decided, it was quite time consuming going through each listing and altering titles, amounts etc.
Small Business Saturday sounds good though - I’ll have a think. Now we have discount codes, it could be a bit easier.
No, I won’t be doing any promotions. It seems very much like an American thing, and to me it smacks of aggressive marketing by big retailers which doesn’t seem to fit the general ethos of handmade.
I was at a musical gig this weekend to see an American singer/songwriter and during her set she mentioned that it was weird seeing all the Christmas window displays and town decorations already up and running in the UK.
In the US, she said, up until Thanksgiving it’s all about Thanksgiving then as soon as that’s over the Christmas promo’s come in with a bang … I guess this is where the idea of Black Friday came from initially.
I would like to see more Christmas promotions going on here at Folksy. There’s not much on the front page that would signify that Christmas is only a month away.
If I sell any lower in price, I might as well give the goods away ! Many customers have no idea that you have to factor in insurances, packaging costs, printing inks and materials, overheads. If you do craft fairs too, you have to recover the stall cost, and any transport and parking.
Give the customer a reasonable discount for quantity, OK, but Black Friday is a gimmick, aimed at the big boys out there.
What next , White Wednesday Sale ! ?
