E-commerce platforms and brands are preparing for strong Black Friday sales as analysts and platform executives anticipate the event’s growing influence in the Indian market, despite its American origins.
Nykaa, Tata Cliq, and Myntra, a Flipkart-owned platform, along with brands such as H&M and Zara, are hosting these sales in India.
Sales in both online and offline markets in India are projected to surge by more than 70% during the Black Friday week this year, as per estimates provided by the market research firm 1Lattice, in comparison to typical business-as-usual (BAU) weeks.
Black Friday in the United States falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving, serving as the busiest shopping day of the year and signaling the commencement of the Christmas shopping season. This sale period often extends to the subsequent Monday, known as Cyber Monday.
Ashish Dhir, the Executive Vice President for Consumer and Retail at 1Lattice, suggests that Black Friday sales will be more advantageous for online sellers in comparison to their offline counterparts. However, some offline sellers are also expected to explore sale events. The enhanced benefit for online commerce stems from its consolidated nature, enabling more effective creation of narratives, advertisements, and discounts for less familiar events like Black Friday compared to the more fragmented offline ecosystem, explained Dhir.
Tata Cliq, the e-commerce company, aims for a 50% boost in revenue from Black Friday sales compared to the previous year across all three of its platforms—the main platform, the premium-focused Tata Cliq Luxury, and the beauty and personal care-focused Tata Cliq Palette, according to CEO Gopal Asthana.
“On Tata Cliq Luxury and Tata Cliq Palette, we are in fact seeing a 5x and 4x jump, respectively, over the non-sale period,” Asthana added.
According to 1Lattice’s Dhir, this year’s Black Friday is anticipated to outperform the previous year, with sales during the week expected to be around 50% to 60% higher than typical business-as-usual (BAU) weeks.
Asthana reported that Tata Cliq experienced a 70% overall growth during Black Friday last year.
In 2022, the e-commerce platform Nykaa recorded 800,000 orders on the initial day of sales, marking a 40% increase compared to the previous year. While the company did not provide estimates for this year’s sales, it mentioned offering discounts of up to 50% on over 2,100 brands.
The momentum is also growing in smaller towns.
“At the end of the day, if you offer a customer certain deals and discounts, he/she will act on it even if he doesn’t fully understand what the offer is for,” Dhir said. “57% of the purchases were made by shoppers from tier-2 and tier-3 cities collectively … Besides metros, the highest orders came from Lucknow, Chandigarh, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Guwahati and Jammu,” Nykaa said about its 2022 Black Friday sales in an emailed statement.
While Black Friday sales already compete with other events such as Valentine’s Day or Republic Day, they still lag significantly behind the flagship sales during Dussehra and Diwali, and even trail behind Christmas sales, according to Dhir.
