South African Black Friday Trends

It's almost that time of the year again, stores across the country are ramping up their efforts for the final quarter of sales and to get those festive numbers rolling pa ram pa pum-pum. Over the past 3 years, South Africa has adopted this American-born shopping trend and boy we have grown since then, to hosting over 60 stores on the Black Friday bandwagon this year. Naturally to the thrill of the consumer and to the benefit of anyone marketing during this time, but what does it actually mean? Can we quantify what is actually going on? We decided to take a look at the numbers behind this shopping trend phenomenon. Break down what it means for consumers and what it means for retailers.

Year on Year Growth

If we take a look at the search growth for Black Friday related terms on google.co.za you will notice 2015 was a huge step up from the year before. While we don't yet have the complete data trend for 2016 you can see it as already surpassed 2014 and we're pretty confident it will surpass 2015 as well. Queue a lot of sites going down tomorrow, so stay calm.

Search Trend Growth For Black Friday

Who is talking about black Friday

Black Friday related Social Media posts and mentions between genders are slightly more female driven. Gender

1. 56% female
2. 44% Male

Age Groups Ranking the most popular age groups for Black Friday related social media posts

1. 34-44
2. 25-34
3. 45-54
4. 21-24
5. 18-20
6. 55-64
7. 65+

Leading Black Friday Retailers

So who are the big retail winners in terms of interest around Black Friday? The Top 5 South African retailers are:

1. Checkers
2. Pick n Pay
3. Game
4. Dischem
5. Hifi Cop

This is based on the most popular related queries for example "nichemarket black friday"

Top Black Friday Interest Regions

Where are the biggest interest spikes around Black Friday? The top 5 Black Friday regions in South Africa are:

1. Eastern Cape
2. Mpumalanga
3. KwaZulu Natal
4. North West
5. Western Cape

The top 5 Black Friday cities in South Africa are:

1. Midrand
2. Johannesburg
3. Krugersdrop
4. Genadendal
5. Durban

This is based on how popular black Friday queries are related to the total number of searches within that region and not based on pure search volume. Source: Information based on google trends and Salesforce.com results South Africa seems to be accepting the Black Friday Trend with open arms, how do you think BF in South Africa will fare this year? Let us know in the comments below.

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Tags: Data Analysis, SEO, Social Media, retail