Little silver in the lining as Black Friday sales a mixed bag for some Nelson retailers

Friday, 30 November 2018

Black Friday sales have been popping up throughout the country.

The emergence of Black Friday and other November sales is changing the way Kiwis shop for Christmas, but not everybody is buying into the new trend.

Paymark figures show non-food retail spending on Friday, November 23 was at $69 million, surpassing the 2017 Boxing Day sales of $68m.

Black Friday and its counterpart Cyber Monday have their origins in the United States, as sales beginning the week after Thanksgiving.

In the past 10 years, similar promotions have spread mainly through the Americas and Europe.

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Volume book shop owners Stella Chrysostomou, left, and Thomas Koed don't buy into the sales mentality that is shown by bigger, national retail chains.

First Retail managing director Chris Wilkinson said Black Friday was helping to better define the start of the Christmas shopping season, which traditionally ramped up from the end of November until reaching its peak on Christmas week.

In the past decade, traditionally busy times had lost their edge with consumers waiting for Boxing Day sales.

'Black Friday now gets people into spending mode which typically continues steadily – helped by getting over that initial hurdle of those first festive purchases.'

This year big retailers such as Rebel Sport and Briscoes started offering deals, Wilkinson said.

In Nelson, small business owners said although super sales were changing the retail landscape, it wasn't necessarily the right model for them.

Taylors Shoes owner Craig Taylor said while his business had some deals during the Black Friday period, in general, small businesses didn't have the resources to compete with the same level of discounts as bigger retailers.

Black Friday sales had been popular in Nelson this year, but it was mainly the domain of larger national retailers, Taylor said.

The trend was creating consumer expectations for discounts across all retail sectors, he said.

'As small retailers you do tend to avoid it, the big retailers are discounting heavily – it's almost continuous.'

Taylor said with the rise of online shopping, there had also been a split created between those more interested in sales and the overall shopping experience.

'Because of that, it's vitally important shopping areas are attractive to consumers, to ensure bricks and mortar retailing is successful in the future.'

Volume bookstore co-owner Stella Chrysostomou said providing strong customer support and a shopping experience was better in the long run for small retailers.

She said because their business was trying to attract a long-term, loyal customer base, the changing sales landscape hadn't affected them.

December 21 was NZ Post's busiest day of the year in 2017, with 338,596 parcels delivered across the country.

'Some small businesses feel the need to buy into the sales mentality – we think it's better to keep right out that.'

Gustaves Menswear owner Gus Beullens said events like Black Friday were disrupting the regular pattern of trade leading up to Christmas.

'It seems retail is becoming more Americanised every few weeks.'

'These national retailers are on a merry-go-round now, as soon as they stop discounting they go quiet.'

Beullens said the answer for small retailers was to 'stick to their knitting', focusing on good service and the shopping experience that online and large-scale retailers couldn't provide.

Retail NZ general manager of public affairs Greg Harford said while the trend was good news for those both buying and selling, retailers needed to keep pace with the changing landscape.

'It's really important for small businesses to have a digital presence these days.'

Harford said that didn't necessarily mean selling products online, but could be as much as providing information for Christmas shoppers to research what they were buying.

While more bricks and mortar stores have been promoting Black Friday this year, much of the growth has been driven by online shopping.

In the past few years courier companies have noticed an explosion November freight volumes, on top of an already growing Christmas market.

Between 2014 and 2017, NZ Post reported a 50 per cent increase in parcel volumes during the month of November on the back of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales (compared to an annual increase of 21 per cent).

Early indications from nationwide courier Fastway showed parcel volumes for the week of Black Friday this year were up by 22 per cent on 2017.

Harford said the growth of the November spending window had caught many by surprise.

He said it had been consumers, rather than retailers, who were driving the trend.

'The reason it's come is because we're now in a globalised shopping environment.

'Consumers have been seeing ads for sales overseas, so New Zealand companies have had to come in and compete with them.'

Research from NZ Post's 2018 e-commerce report has predicted the growth in online shopping may only just be getting started.

While in the United Kingdom and China e-commerce sales accounted for roughly 20 per cent of retail sales in 2017, in New Zealand that figure was at 8.1 per cent.

The online market is growing however, with a 13 per cent growth in online sales in New Zealand from 2016 to 2017.

While during that time the number of people purchasing online remained unchanged (about 4 in 10), the amount of transactions per shopper increased by 20 per cent.