Black Friday 2017: The Romanian shopper perspective

Starcom and Leo Burnett Romania, alongside TNS Romania, launched the third edition of the study „Black Friday”, report that aims to investigate the annual Romanian shoppers’ consumption habits regarding one of the most important promotional times of the year.

As in the previous years, the study divides the segment of the Internet users in urban in four main categories, depending on their consumption during Black Friday.

The biggest percentage is registered this year in the category Involved buyers (46 percent) – the ones that wanted to and bought on Black Friday. Still, in comparison with 2016 the proportion of the segment Involved Buyers drops, most probably due to the continuation of the promotions and the growth of the buying period of time and evaluation of the offers. This phenomenon rises the abandonment rate in the categories with high investment, categories that have the highest rate of buying intention.

The second category is represented by the Black Friday Indifferents (26 percent) – the ones that didn’t intent to buy and didn’t –rising comparing to 2016, followed by Lost Buyers (19 percent) – the ones that intended to buy on Black Friday, but in the end didn’t make any acquisition. The last category, Seduced Buyers (9 percent), represents the people that didn’t intend to buy initially, but in the end were convinced to do it.

Despite the prolonged promotion communication period, Romanians are still waiting for the Black Friday weekend itself to find the best offers.

Even though the majority of them are declaring that they are waiting to buy in the traditional day known as Black Friday or the weekend that follows it, the communication around the event attracts their attention. If in 2015 only 13 percent were paying attention to the communication regarding the Black Friday with 3-4 weeks prior the event, in 2017 the percentage doubled – 27 percent are declaring they started to be attentive to the communication with almost a month prior to the event.

The Romanian shoppers are searching for information about the products they are intending to buy in the first place on the retailer website. Other factors that influence the buying decision are the newsletters, the good presence on the searching engines, the comparing websites or on Facebook. The bigger the investment is the more are the laptop or the PC being used in the search for more information about the wanted product or in order to finish the acquisition.

The mobile phone is used for more spontaneous and less expensive acquisitions; the mobile phone being considered more practical for this type of shopping.

The influencers’ content is more important before Black Friday than during the promotions.

The influencers can positively impact the Romanians’ search in the time preceding Black Friday. 39 percent say they are following the content posted by them online. In the preferences’ top are the influencers in the category „Professionals”, followed by content generated by the usual people, without background in showbiz or experts in a certain domain („Regular people”).

The full buying potential wasn’t reached this year either

Black Friday seems not to have reached its full potential in 2018 either. The category with the best conversion index (intention versus buying) are the ones with medium or low investment: personal care products, cloths, footwear, books and toys. The most profitable categories are the ones in the medium towards high investment such as TVs, electronics and mobile phones, tablets and accessories.

A novelty of this year’s study is the investigation in detail of those four categories for which the Romanians are showing a higher interest: the personal care products, the fashion products, TVs, electronics and mobile phones, tablets and accessories. In the fashion area for example, the interviewed Romanians are showing a higher interest to the winter products and are ending up spending less than they had originally planned.

Black Friday remains a good occasion to buy products they need more than to satisfy some emotional needs. Even the desire of making an upgrade to newer, better products, drops from 16 percent in 2015 to 4 percent this year. Still, Black Friday is a good occasion to buy presents for the holidays that follow and the family events.

Black Friday 2018

The asked Romanians seem to be a little more tempered regarding their taking part in next year’s Black Friday. The interest for Black Friday 2018 drops in comparison with 2017, reaching the estimated level of 2015 – 58 percent, compared to 74 percent in 2017.

The study’s infographic can be seen here: https://ro.pinterest.com/pin/348254983678219113/.

Romanita Oprea

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