Published
The retail trade is benefiting from the pandemic. Discount days are also becoming increasingly popular. 50 percent of consumers could do without the campaign battle.
Many criticize that Black Friday encourages excessive buying behavior.
20min/Simon Glauser
Many retailers would also like to abolish the discount days.
20min/Matthias Spicher
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The retail trade generated more sales in 2021 than before the crisis.
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Discount days such as Black Friday have continued to gain popularity.
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But for many retailers, the discount battle is not really worth it.
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Half of the consumers no longer feel like hunting for bargains.
The pandemic has made discount days such as Black Friday better known: Around 97 percent of the Swiss are now familiar with Black Friday. This is shown by the latest “Retail Outlook” study by Credit Suisse and the consulting firm Fuhrer & Hotz.
Generation Z – i.e. those under 24 years of age – particularly take part in the discount battles. “The majority of people buy online and rely on products that they would have bought anyway,” explains Tiziana Hunziker, CS economist and retail expert. So many wait until the goods they need are in action. Impulse purchases are rather rare.
Businesses fear losing customers
This is a problem for retailers: “No additional sales are generated, as the majority of retailers say,” explains Martin Hotz, Managing Partner of Fuhrer & Hotz AG. Many therefore doubt the usefulness of the discount days.
Some retailers would like to abolish the discount wars. Nonetheless, most businesses adhere to it: “Because many fear that they will otherwise lose their customers to the competition,” says Hotz. In addition, the majority of retailers are convinced that customers want discount days.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Around 50 percent of the Swiss would like to abolish Black Friday, as the study shows. “Many criticize the fact that the discount days encourage excessive buying behavior,” explains Hunziker. Abolition would lead to more sustainability early on.
In general, the Swiss retail trade benefited from the pandemic again in 2021: The Swiss consumed more than they did before the crisis. “The food trade in particular benefited for several months – also because the catering had to close,” explains Hunziker.
Sales are 4.5 percent higher than in 2019. Compared to 2020, however, there was a decrease of 5.5 percent. The non-food area also recorded a slight decline in sales of 2.8 percent compared to the previous year.
According to Hunziker, this is due to the fact that the positive effects of the pandemic on retail are decreasing: “Shopping tourism is possible again and no severely restrictive shutdowns are to be expected.” This development is likely to continue in 2022. Overall, however, sales will continue to be higher than before the crisis.
The most famous bargain day is Black Friday. This takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which usually falls at the end of November. Cyber Monday takes place on the Monday after. Then bargains are traditionally only offered online. The bargain season starts with Singles’ Day, which always takes place on November 11th. In Switzerland, the discount days are mostly online: retailers now have sales of around 170 million on Black Friday alone.
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