Zalando Lounge on Black Friday and the Future of Global Retail Events
Written by Ricarda Schughart on 2 minute read
Brands following suit of Amazon’s Prime Day and creating individual sales days.
This is what the future of retail events will look like according to Craig Geeson, Affiliate Marketing Manager at Zalando Lounge. In his interview, Craig shares how Black Friday and Singles Day are being embraced in Germany, and explains positive and negative aspects of retail events for discount-based business models.
How has Black Friday been adopted in your market? Has it had a big impact upon your own business?
Germany on the whole has embraced Black Friday (roughly 6.6€ billion spent 2017), as with every major sales period this has been helped with the heavy push of big market players. As with all online retailers I feel even if you don’t take advantage of the day it will have a big impact, be it positive or negative.
What do you think of global retail events like Black Friday? Are they a positive thing for your business or do they make your job harder?
For a business model based heavily already around discounts it can become a negative thing. If consumers expect already discounted products to be discounted even further, this can prove troublesome, especially with already tight margins. On the other hand, if you can produce enough sales/gross merchandise volume (GMV), see Alibaba Singles’ Day 2018, then even with small margins this can be heavily profitable.
What value can affiliates contribute to an advertiser’s objectives during Black Friday?
Generally affiliates are one of the first touch points for consumers during this time, so overall spreading the word of sales on your site is already a great contribution.
How do you think Black Friday and the wider Cyber Weekend are evolving? What do you think these events will look like in the future?
The sales themselves are growing at an incredible rate, but this creates a need for more of these sales as retailers start to see the revenue generated in one day and want them every week. Singles’ Day is now also being adopted fairly fast in Germany as well as major company events such as Prime Day etc. I would imagine other companies start to follow suit and create their own singular sales day related only to their brand.
What one tip would you give to fellow companies participating in Black Friday activity this year?
Don’t neglect your core customers for the sake of singular sales day buyers.
Check out the rest of our Black Friday insights on our hub.
