What is White Friday?
White Friday is a special day in Saudi Arabia that is celebrated on the fourth Friday of November each year. It is similar to Black Friday in America and was introduced for the first time by Souq, the largest Arab e-commerce website in 2014. The colour white was chosen to denote purity and the sacredness of Fridays in Islam. It is a special day for sellers and shoppers that is celebrated annually.
Most websites in the UAE start promoting huge numbers of offers 1-4 weeks prior to the actual event.
The biggest sales and offers are put forward during the grand White Friday Sale every year, resulting in huge sales across all e-commerce platforms and retail shops.
Where and When is White Friday Celebrated?
White Friday is celebrated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A lot of other Middle Eastern Countries have also started to inculcate it in their calendars. White Friday is a great opportunity for shoppers to snag amazing deals on items they may have been wanting to purchase for some time. So, if you’re in the UAE or KSA during this time of year, make sure to take advantage of all the wonderful sales!
Why is White Friday important?
White Friday is the perfect opportunity for brands and retailers to attract more customers with eye-catching offers, get their names out, increase footfall and profits.
Shoppers love White Fridays and develop a loyalty to brands that offer the best deals.
It is also the perfect time to advertise heavily and get new customers along with old ones coming back for great discounts.
2021 White Friday Report (KSA)
It was observed that promotional activity started increasing from a month before White Friday which was on the 29th of November 2021. Electronic items were highly promoted during pre-White Friday weeks. For electronic retailers, the volume of offers went up, and the electronics offer share for Super & Hypermarkets also increased, as shown depicted below:
In the chart above, Week 0 represents the White Friday week (24th Nov’21 to 30th Nov’21). It was observed that more promotions were done in the previous weeks as compared to the White Friday week and as shown below, the maximum promotions on electronic items were available during week -4 (27th Oct 2021 to 2nd Nov 2021). It is worth noting that some electronics retailers extended their sale for one more week post white Friday either as an extended sale or in order to clear their stock.
In order to increase footfall and attract more customers, within electronic category, the segments below had increased number of promotions.:
• Gaming, computer accessories and television
• Heaters, electric shavers, electric barbeques and household appliances like appliance holder & cover
White Friday Week Promotion Analysis (24th Nov 2021- 30th Nov 2021 )
Please note that the entire analysis done below is for supermarkets and electronic store chains.
It was observed that during the week of White Friday, maximum items were promoted under the segments – Large Home Appliances and, Television & Accessories with electronics category share, respectively.
Moreover, Promotions introduced within Large Home Appliances segment were of high values such as refrigerators & washing machines. The agenda was to provide maximum benefits to the customers.
Following is a chart that depicts the shares of different large home appliances during the white Friday weeks in 2021:
Post White Friday Week Promotion Analysis:
Few Retailers extended their sale and advertised it as “Stock Clearance Sale” to attract customers post the White Friday weeks as well. Segments like Heaters & Vacuum Cleaner were heavily promoted with 42.9 % & 14.3% electronics category offer share, respectively
Dynamics of user engagement around White Friday promotions:
On the Clicflyer mobile app, the percentage of weekly active users who engaged with electronics offers is shown below. The chart shows that the user engagement seems to be aligned with promotional activity done by different retailers. However, during White Friday week although the electronics offer volume was reduced (refer to image no.2), it was observed that the users did show interest in ongoing offers and the electronics users share went up for that week.
Within electronics, mobile offers were viewed the most followed by television, gaming and computer accessories, and large household appliances.
Conclusions/Expectations:
Based on customer engagement pattern, mobile phone segment is expected to be the most popular within the electronics category this year also. Moreover, customers can watch out for some great deals in segments like: refrigerators, washing machine, television, air conditioners, heaters, vacuum cleaners, electric shavers, steam iron, etc.
Historically, as it is observed that customers continue to look for electronics offers during White Friday week as well and hence, it is advisable for the retailers to maintain their promotion activity till White Friday week.
ClicFlyer is a Business Intelligence and Analytics company that provides excellent analytical tools to help businesses make better decisions. Our interactive analytics dashboard has around a decade of data from users’ and brands’ activities on the ClicFlyer App. The dashboard and the data make up for the ultimate toolkit for businesses to make analytics based decisions for higher profitability.
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