Black Friday kicks off the Christmas shopping season

Galeries Lafayette inaugurated their gigantic Christmas tree, all in rhinestones and transparency, in the dome of their flagship on Boulevard Haussmann, in Paris. Here and there, stores are starting to adorn themselves with Christmas decorations while behind the scenes, battalions of temporary workers are joining the ranks of distributors and logisticians.

Amazon has just recruited 6,500 people to prepare Black Friday and Christmas orders. JouéClub will welcome 1,000 between November 1 and the end of the week. “We are starting to see Christmas lists arriving in our stores,” observes Jacques Baudoz, president of the toy distributor. Some parents came to look for gifts during the All Saints' Day holidays. But from Black Friday, this will accelerate.”

This American commercial holiday marks the start of the Christmas shopping period in France. This year it falls on November 24, but few merchants waited until this date to offer discounts galore. Customers have become familiar with a whole range of “black” terminology. They knew about “Cyber ​​Monday”, which follows Black Friday, and “Black Week”, which precedes it. This year, they discovered promotions branded “Black November” from the start of the month, on a growing number of windows and websites.

Also read: Black Friday, a remedy for overstocking

Distributors and retailers play very big games at this time of year. At Cdiscount, November and December are months that count double. At Fnac Darty, the last quarter represents a third of annual turnover. It’s even 80% in the toy sector. The coming weeks will be all the more crucial as the atmosphere has been rather gloomy in the stores since the start of the year. The sharp rise in food prices has strained the budgets of the French, who have given up on treating themselves to “pleasure” products that they can do without, such as a decorative object or a new dress. In volume terms, sales of clothing and home equipment are down 2.5% to 3% since the start of the year, notes the Procos brand federation. Only the beauty sector and distributors whose image is associated with low prices, such as Action or Ikea, survive.

Anticipations for the end of the year are not more encouraging. All the surveys agree on painting a portrait of French people who are cautious in managing their budget. According to an interactive Harris survey for the Federation of e-commerce and distance selling (Fevad) published Thursday, they have set an average budget of 369 euros this year, compared to 404 euros in 2022. More than half of those questioned will limit themselves to their loved ones when it comes to giving gifts. “This trend is more marked in France than in other European countries, probably because food inflation is higher there today,” also notes Olivier Salomon, director at AlixPartners.

In this gloomy context, it is not surprising that the advertising from the agency for ecological transition (Ademe) encouraging the French not to take advantage of Black Friday “to relieve the planet” goes down poorly with traders. “Not very nice,” also judged Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy.

On the contrary, retailers should fully play the game of this commercial holiday to stimulate demand, even if it means letting their customers buy their Christmas gifts at reduced prices - which is what they clearly intend to do. Their participation in Black Friday should be massive. “Customers are currently so addicted to low prices and promotions that I can't see the brands taking the risk of not offering them, even if they sacrifice their margins,” underlines Emmanuel Le Roch, the general delegate of Procos. “Customers remain buyers as long as we offer them attractive offers,” confirms Julien Peyrafitte, the commercial director of Fnac Darty. This year, the two brands will focus on high-end televisions, PCs for gamers and new products in the field of telephony, such as the new iPhone range or foldable Samsungs. Cdiscount similarly notes that promotional times “work as well, or even better than in previous years”. “This makes us confident for this Black Friday. We will respond to demand by offering tens of thousands of promotions,” explains Hugo Larricq, the commercial director of Cdiscount.

Even the toy sector is getting in on the action. “Every year, we do additional promotional operations at this time of year. For this edition, we will, for example, offer discounts on board games,” confides the president of JouéClub. Just taken back to court, La Grande Récré will place even more emphasis on promotions than its competitors. “We are going to offer 100 toys at more than 50% off to celebrate our “Color Friday”,” explains Francis Héron, the brand’s new general manager. We will then, over the next weekends, carry out targeted operations on Lego and Playmobil.” Kingtoy will offer discounts until Christmas. Specialized distributors are hopeful of making up for the poor sales observed so far in the coming weeks - the toy market is down 7% in volume.

Also read “I dream of a Green Friday”: Christophe Béchu pinpoints Black Friday and its “model of unsustainable overconsumption”

To try to capture as much as possible a gift budget that they know is constrained, brands are tempted to bring forward their promotional calendar. “You have to be sure to attract the consumer’s attention early,” explains Olivier Salomon. Offering promotions too late risks the customer having already spent their budget. This explains why Black Friday starts earlier and earlier, sometimes as early as the beginning of November.” Starting early also allows customers to smooth out their gift budget over two entire months, underlines Cdiscount.

The brands have also understood that promotions are not the only lever to encourage the French to consume. Many of them offer payment facilities. Some expand existing possibilities. “We recently offered iPhone 15 with a 24 or 36 month payment. It was one of the best sellers on our site. We therefore repeated the operation with Samsung phones, the Sony PlayStation and even Dyson vacuum cleaners. This corresponds to a request from our customers to be able to take power over their spending,” analyzes Hugo Larricq, of Cdiscount.

Opportunity is another lever to put yourself within reach of all budgets. At Fnac Darty or Decathlon, these products are no longer grouped in a separate corner but presented on the shelves alongside their new equivalent. Offering a refurbished product for the holidays is no longer taboo. “They are more and more attractive, even for Christmas,” explains Hugo Larricq. A sign of the times, this year the e-retailer will offer 300 exclusive repackaged offers as part of Black Friday. Among them, an iPhone 12 at 349 euros or Legos 40% cheaper than their new version. “It’s another way of offering a quality product at an affordable price,” confirms Simon Ilardi, marketing director of Fnac Darty.

The group is convinced that during these Christmas holidays, many customers will resell the products they have previously purchased, when purchasing new ones or giving a gift. “The recovery in exchange for vouchers will be significant this year,” predicts Julien Peyrafitte. We take back computers, telephones, among many other items. And we will soon launch a specific promotional offer for these customers.” Yet another new way to reduce the cost of Christmas gifts and encourage customers to buy more.