November 12, 2014
Walmart turns Black Friday into a five-day event
According to a Walmart press release, the company is looking to take Black Friday to another level. Its solution is "New Black Friday," a five-day sales event, which starts on Thanksgiving Day at 12:01 a.m. on Walmart.com and at 6 p.m. in the chain’s stores and runs through Cyber Monday.
"Black Friday is no longer about waking up at the crack of dawn to stand in long lines and hope for the best. At Walmart, it has become a family shopping tradition where everyone shops at some point throughout the weekend," said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising officer, Walmart U.S., in a statement.
Walmart’s sales promotion is a means to address the changes in consumer shopping behavior in recent years. Black Friday has become less important from a sales contribution standpoint as consumers have discovered there are deals to be found throughout the holiday season. The growing importance of online sales has also muted the importance of Black Friday as consumers realize they no longer have to battle crowds for the holiday gifts they want.
Retailers have pushed for earlier and earlier starts to the holiday selling in recent years. Amazon.com launched its Countdown to Black Friday Deals Week on Nov. 1. Others are planning earlier opens on Thanksgiving, etc.
Spreading out Black Friday deals may actually help Walmart on the security front. The day has been known to lead to violent confrontations between shoppers and, in 2008, a Walmart employee was killed after being trampled by Black Friday shoppers.
Mr. Mac Naughton, according to The Wall Street Journal, believes that spreading out deals will have a "calming effect across the store."
- The "New Black Friday" Exclusively at Walmart – Walmart
- Wal-Mart Stretches Black Friday Deals to Reach Shoppers – Bloomberg News
- Wal-Mart Spreads ‘Black Friday’ Over Five Days – The Wall Street Journal (sub. required)
- Countdown to Black Friday Begins: Amazon Launching More Than 15,000 Lightning Deals This Holiday – Amazon.com
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Discussion Questions
Will “New Black Friday” help Walmart achieve its sales goals this holiday season? How do you expect Walmart’s competition to react?
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It’s hard not to be really, really grumpy about this. Having remade small towns in its own image and vision, Walmart is taking the lead in eliminating even more vestiges of pre-Walmart Americana.
None of this changes the fact that Walmart has saturated its market. So it will be successful in completing its goal of completely consumerizing our culture, and that’s about it.
Black Friday starts November 1. No wait, it starts the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It’s one day. It’s five days. It has no meaning.
Retailers are falling all over themselves to convince consumers to part with their money, and each is defining Black Friday for its own purposes.
When will consumers buy? When they think that prices are as low as they will go or when they think an item they want may go out of stock.
Walmart’s competition does not need to react other than to match Walmart’s prices, guarantee that items will be in stock or offer better customer service.
“New Black Friday” is simply a marketing handle meant to acknowledge the new reality of shopping patterns from Thanksgiving morning through Cyber Monday. It’s hard to say whether the idea is likely to drive additional sales, but it should help address the operational challenges of early-morning doorbusters even at the cost of some sense of urgency. Most importantly, it is an omni-channel friendly approach to a key shopping weekend that has evolved dramatically over the past decade.
It will help Walmart for sure. It seems like a great plan but the only aspect I do not like is the 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. If that was 6 a.m. on Friday I would then agree with Walmart believing in family being together and then shopping together. Now it seems like the family day during Thanksgiving has to be changed if people are to get out and shop. Almost, Walmart—almost perfect!
Some will say we are just rearranging the deck chairs. And to a degree they are very correct. The hype, extension and media profile of Black Friday will not take any more dollars out of shoppers pockets for the holiday season. It will simply move the dollars from one retailer to the other or from one day to the next.
Unfortunately, those retailers who choose to sit out this activity will be the losers as the guys in the black hats ruin American values but take their business. Hmmm, maybe that is the American value?
It’s a calculated risk on the part of Walmart. As Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) continue to grow, it’s increasingly hard to deliver a great experience to every shopper during these huge peaks. If shoppers perceive that showing up at Walmart on Black Friday will be a miserable experience, the holiday’s effectiveness as a sales driver will erode. But if Walmart can successfully spread the demand over a longer period, it makes it much easier to meet demand and keep the quality of the experience high.
The risk is that spreading the event over more days has the potential to dilute the appeal and therefore the effectiveness.
Yes, the sales strategy will help the company with sales. But no, Walmart won’t achieve its sales goals this holiday season, although it will come close. Several factors will contribute to this showing, including online competition, inventory management and assortment on the negative side, and gas prices, convenience and sale prices on the positive side. Competitors are already beating Walmart on out-of-stocks and the lack of in-store customer service, and that will intensify in coming weeks.
It’s not about Black Friday, it’s about sales for the holiday. Whether it’s one day, five days or the month of November. It is better logistically to spread the sales over a number of days and easier for the consumer. In the end it will be about if Walmart has items people want at the right price point.
The shopping environment today is crowded with many retailers trying to figure out how to snatch every dollar they can from consumers, and Walmart is the brick-and-mortar giant that will get the most of those dollars. This move is a way to eliminate the fighting for the $35 TV offers they have on Friday morning, and I can understand that thinking. Will it get them more sales through Christmas? I don’t think so. As mentioned above, consumers can wait it out until the price of something is near rock bottom before they buy anything.
I know several people who shop in late January or February buying Christmas clearances from all the major stores, and using them as gifts for the following Christmas holiday, saving up to 80 percent, and it is actually a good strategy. Isotoner gloves for $5 make nice gifts, and beautiful sweaters and shirts can be had for around $10. That, my friends, is a growing trend. Plus you don’t have to fight the crowds. I know I am off topic, but a super-smart shopper knows when to pull the trigger on a sale, and will wait it out as long as it takes to get the deal they need.
Paula said it and I do not need to repeat it. Enough is enough. Employees are people too. They can use time with their families, and Walmart’s bottom line will not suffer.
It’s all about hot merchandise at a great value. It looks like Walmart has the right items at great prices. Increasing the time frame from 1 day to 4 will allow more people to get into the stores to buy what they want and increase visits from hardcore shoppers. I have no doubt that many people will be making 2 or 3 trips to Walmart over Thanksgiving weekend and that will help Walmart meet their sales goals.
The New Black Friday is the end of what we know as Black Friday. At some point Walmart—and probably the customer—will start calling it something else. Will it help Walmart achieve sales goals? It’s different and very customer focused.
Competition will either follow, which means playing keep-up, try something different, which is taking Walmart “head on,” or just do what they have always done. Regardless of what true competition to Walmart does, they will have to stick to their customer promise, be it low prices, selection, availability, etc.
Walmart isn’t doing something new. Chains like HEB started doing this last year, making Black Friday a non-maniacal event and spreading out the investment over a period of days/weeks to keep customers coming into the stores. It’s also a better deal with scheduling labor and a plus for loss prevention and security staffs.
Now, I still dislike that Walmart starts their sale on Thanksgiving night. I believe that the holiday is something to share with your family. While it is true that family gets up Friday morning to divide and conquer the sales (at Walmart or any other retailer), moving it to Thursday blurs it, but for a lot of retailers, they jump on the boat so as to stay on the same boat as the big boys. Time will tell whether this becomes the norm for the holiday in the future.
First, if most everything else in retail has changed over the last decade, why not the notion of “Black Friday”? Does it agree with my personal sensibilities built over the last “mumble mumble” years of life? Maybe not. However, that really doesn’t matter at all. Integrated global supply chains have changed retail. The internet changed retail. Mobile technology changed retail. Retail will continue to change whether we like it or not.
So, I need to disagree with some of my very respected colleagues who have weighed in already and say:
1. This seems to be to be a natural progression and realization that online, omni-channel, or channel-less retail makes a single “Black Friday” less relevant than ever before.
2. As always, retailers must evaluate what value they can provide to their target shoppers, including timing and price, particularly if they feel they have an expiring first-mover advantage.
3. Should it not work out to Walmart’s benefit, they’ll be the first to change for next year … however, I think that possibility is fairly low.
In terms of competition, they will be forced to react. That doesn’t mean they have to mimic Walmart’s actions, but should consider how they can use their specific value proposition and unique capabilities to provide a counter offer.
I think “New Black Friday” is a great idea for Walmart and other retailers. Having shoppers camp out for a discounted TV seems like a good idea because it acts as a form of social proof, but the unfortunate violence of past years makes it something retailers want and need to prevent.
Spreading it out is a good opportunity to target different customer segments on different days. I expect other retailers to extend their sales as well because not everyone wants to get in line in the cold right after Thanksgiving dishes have been washed. More days means more potential shoppers, so I expect this to be a growing trend, regardless of the name retailers use to market it.
As someone who spent a fair bit of my adult life (so far) living north of the border, the entire Black Friday thing appeared a bit overdone to me, but I came to recognize the phenomena it represented. Beyond the large sales numbers retailers would announce, observing it has always made me wonder what was there beyond the hype. Certainly, capacity to supply and serve was pressed and when going into the stores after the epic day, it was impossible to not notice all the people that weren’t there. So, spreading out the promotion has the potential to serve better and pick up the impulse transactions from trying to pull repeat purchases.
Will it work? Depends on the strength of the deals on day 3, 4, and 5. And we’ll have to wait and see about those. But if it’s just a one-day promo now spread out over five days, it’s unlikely to achieve the desired results.
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It’s hard not to be really, really grumpy about this. Having remade small towns in its own image and vision, Walmart is taking the lead in eliminating even more vestiges of pre-Walmart Americana.
None of this changes the fact that Walmart has saturated its market. So it will be successful in completing its goal of completely consumerizing our culture, and that’s about it.
Black Friday starts November 1. No wait, it starts the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It’s one day. It’s five days. It has no meaning.
Retailers are falling all over themselves to convince consumers to part with their money, and each is defining Black Friday for its own purposes.
When will consumers buy? When they think that prices are as low as they will go or when they think an item they want may go out of stock.
Walmart’s competition does not need to react other than to match Walmart’s prices, guarantee that items will be in stock or offer better customer service.
“New Black Friday” is simply a marketing handle meant to acknowledge the new reality of shopping patterns from Thanksgiving morning through Cyber Monday. It’s hard to say whether the idea is likely to drive additional sales, but it should help address the operational challenges of early-morning doorbusters even at the cost of some sense of urgency. Most importantly, it is an omni-channel friendly approach to a key shopping weekend that has evolved dramatically over the past decade.
It will help Walmart for sure. It seems like a great plan but the only aspect I do not like is the 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. If that was 6 a.m. on Friday I would then agree with Walmart believing in family being together and then shopping together. Now it seems like the family day during Thanksgiving has to be changed if people are to get out and shop. Almost, Walmart—almost perfect!
Some will say we are just rearranging the deck chairs. And to a degree they are very correct. The hype, extension and media profile of Black Friday will not take any more dollars out of shoppers pockets for the holiday season. It will simply move the dollars from one retailer to the other or from one day to the next.
Unfortunately, those retailers who choose to sit out this activity will be the losers as the guys in the black hats ruin American values but take their business. Hmmm, maybe that is the American value?
It’s a calculated risk on the part of Walmart. As Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) continue to grow, it’s increasingly hard to deliver a great experience to every shopper during these huge peaks. If shoppers perceive that showing up at Walmart on Black Friday will be a miserable experience, the holiday’s effectiveness as a sales driver will erode. But if Walmart can successfully spread the demand over a longer period, it makes it much easier to meet demand and keep the quality of the experience high.
The risk is that spreading the event over more days has the potential to dilute the appeal and therefore the effectiveness.
Yes, the sales strategy will help the company with sales. But no, Walmart won’t achieve its sales goals this holiday season, although it will come close. Several factors will contribute to this showing, including online competition, inventory management and assortment on the negative side, and gas prices, convenience and sale prices on the positive side. Competitors are already beating Walmart on out-of-stocks and the lack of in-store customer service, and that will intensify in coming weeks.
It’s not about Black Friday, it’s about sales for the holiday. Whether it’s one day, five days or the month of November. It is better logistically to spread the sales over a number of days and easier for the consumer. In the end it will be about if Walmart has items people want at the right price point.
The shopping environment today is crowded with many retailers trying to figure out how to snatch every dollar they can from consumers, and Walmart is the brick-and-mortar giant that will get the most of those dollars. This move is a way to eliminate the fighting for the $35 TV offers they have on Friday morning, and I can understand that thinking. Will it get them more sales through Christmas? I don’t think so. As mentioned above, consumers can wait it out until the price of something is near rock bottom before they buy anything.
I know several people who shop in late January or February buying Christmas clearances from all the major stores, and using them as gifts for the following Christmas holiday, saving up to 80 percent, and it is actually a good strategy. Isotoner gloves for $5 make nice gifts, and beautiful sweaters and shirts can be had for around $10. That, my friends, is a growing trend. Plus you don’t have to fight the crowds. I know I am off topic, but a super-smart shopper knows when to pull the trigger on a sale, and will wait it out as long as it takes to get the deal they need.
Paula said it and I do not need to repeat it. Enough is enough. Employees are people too. They can use time with their families, and Walmart’s bottom line will not suffer.
It’s all about hot merchandise at a great value. It looks like Walmart has the right items at great prices. Increasing the time frame from 1 day to 4 will allow more people to get into the stores to buy what they want and increase visits from hardcore shoppers. I have no doubt that many people will be making 2 or 3 trips to Walmart over Thanksgiving weekend and that will help Walmart meet their sales goals.
The New Black Friday is the end of what we know as Black Friday. At some point Walmart—and probably the customer—will start calling it something else. Will it help Walmart achieve sales goals? It’s different and very customer focused.
Competition will either follow, which means playing keep-up, try something different, which is taking Walmart “head on,” or just do what they have always done. Regardless of what true competition to Walmart does, they will have to stick to their customer promise, be it low prices, selection, availability, etc.
Walmart isn’t doing something new. Chains like HEB started doing this last year, making Black Friday a non-maniacal event and spreading out the investment over a period of days/weeks to keep customers coming into the stores. It’s also a better deal with scheduling labor and a plus for loss prevention and security staffs.
Now, I still dislike that Walmart starts their sale on Thanksgiving night. I believe that the holiday is something to share with your family. While it is true that family gets up Friday morning to divide and conquer the sales (at Walmart or any other retailer), moving it to Thursday blurs it, but for a lot of retailers, they jump on the boat so as to stay on the same boat as the big boys. Time will tell whether this becomes the norm for the holiday in the future.
First, if most everything else in retail has changed over the last decade, why not the notion of “Black Friday”? Does it agree with my personal sensibilities built over the last “mumble mumble” years of life? Maybe not. However, that really doesn’t matter at all. Integrated global supply chains have changed retail. The internet changed retail. Mobile technology changed retail. Retail will continue to change whether we like it or not.
So, I need to disagree with some of my very respected colleagues who have weighed in already and say:
1. This seems to be to be a natural progression and realization that online, omni-channel, or channel-less retail makes a single “Black Friday” less relevant than ever before.
2. As always, retailers must evaluate what value they can provide to their target shoppers, including timing and price, particularly if they feel they have an expiring first-mover advantage.
3. Should it not work out to Walmart’s benefit, they’ll be the first to change for next year … however, I think that possibility is fairly low.
In terms of competition, they will be forced to react. That doesn’t mean they have to mimic Walmart’s actions, but should consider how they can use their specific value proposition and unique capabilities to provide a counter offer.
I think “New Black Friday” is a great idea for Walmart and other retailers. Having shoppers camp out for a discounted TV seems like a good idea because it acts as a form of social proof, but the unfortunate violence of past years makes it something retailers want and need to prevent.
Spreading it out is a good opportunity to target different customer segments on different days. I expect other retailers to extend their sales as well because not everyone wants to get in line in the cold right after Thanksgiving dishes have been washed. More days means more potential shoppers, so I expect this to be a growing trend, regardless of the name retailers use to market it.
As someone who spent a fair bit of my adult life (so far) living north of the border, the entire Black Friday thing appeared a bit overdone to me, but I came to recognize the phenomena it represented. Beyond the large sales numbers retailers would announce, observing it has always made me wonder what was there beyond the hype. Certainly, capacity to supply and serve was pressed and when going into the stores after the epic day, it was impossible to not notice all the people that weren’t there. So, spreading out the promotion has the potential to serve better and pick up the impulse transactions from trying to pull repeat purchases.
Will it work? Depends on the strength of the deals on day 3, 4, and 5. And we’ll have to wait and see about those. But if it’s just a one-day promo now spread out over five days, it’s unlikely to achieve the desired results.