Black Friday statistics 2020

‘Tis the season to spend and save, with festive sales events like Black Friday and Boxing Day fast approaching. So how many people in New Zealand are planning to hit the sales this year? And how much of a discount will entice them to shop? We polled 1,210 Kiwi adults to find out.

53% of Kiwis will be shopping this year’s festive sales if the price is right, the equivalent of almost 2 million people. On average, it’ll take a discount of 47% to make Kiwi customers purchase an item.

Women need a bigger discount to motivate a purchase

Men and women are equally likely to shop the sales (54%), however, it will take a slightly bigger discount to entice women to make a purchase. On average, it’ll take a discount of 50% off to make women purchase an item, with men needing slightly less of a discount at just 45% off.

35-44-years-olds most likely to be enticed by a discount

Kiwis aged 35-44 are most likely to purchase a discounted item in the sales compared to all other age brackets. 63% of those in this age bracket say they’ll purchase an item on sale at the right price, while just 53% of 55-64-year-olds and 44% of those 65 and over said the same.

25-34-year-olds need the deepest discounts to entice them to shop, needing a discount of at least 53%. Other age brackets say they’ll purchase an item if it’s discounted by anywhere from 42% to 52%.

Which country is most likely to be enticed by the sales?

Of the 12 countries included in this study, New Zealand has one of the smallest percentages of people who will be enticed by the sales at 53%, with only Italy seeing a smaller percentage at 50%. Overall, South Africans are most likely to shop the holiday sales events (70%), followed by France (66%).

However, in terms of the discount required to entice shoppers, Spanish adults actually require the highest discount of 60% off to motivate a purchase. People from France and Mexico also require steep discounts to entice them to shop, at 59% off and 58% off respectively. Meanwhile, Canadians say they’ll need the smallest average discount at just 42% off, followed by people in Hong Kong (44% off) and Ireland (45% off).

Which country has the most Black Friday shoppers?

Black Friday is synonymous with hoards of Americans breaking through the front doors of stores all across the country. But as far as the Internet is concerned, the US no longer has the top spot for Black Friday shoppers.

Brazil is the country with the highest search interest in Black Friday, according to an analysis of historical search data from SEMrush. Interest in the shopping holiday peaked and hit new highs in November 2020, jumping up 22.36% from the previous year. Brazil also accounts for 13.20% of all global searches for the term “Black Friday”.

The US doesn’t place silver either: that post is taken by France. Like Brazil, France also saw a jump in search interest year-on-year, jumping 22.22% between November 2019 and November 2020. France makes up 10.78% of all searches for the term “Black Friday”, which is quite impressive, considering that France only accounts for 0.84% of the population.

The US doesn’t even get the bronze on its own, sharing the podium with Germany for the second year in a row, with search interest in both nations increasing by the same amount over the last 12 months (22.28%). Both nations made up 8.82% of the search volume for the term “Black Friday”, but Germany is far outperforming in terms of its population size, with Germany accounting for 1.07% of the world’s population, compared to the 4.25% that the US represents.

New Zealand ranked equal 38th overall for Black Friday search volume. Search volume has increased by 49% from November last year to November 2020.

Want to know how New Zealand stacks up? View the top 20 countries searching for Black Friday in our map below, or use the table in the tab to see where your country ended up:

• Infographic
• Data table

Which are the most popular retailers in New Zealand?

Search volume data from Ahrefs suggests one of the most popular places to go for Black Friday deals among Kiwis is PB Tech. Other popular retailers include Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming, Briscoes and Farmers.

New Zealand’s most searched retailers

Which are the most popular retailers in the world?

It may come as no surprise that three of the most popular retailers that people are searching for on Black Friday are Walmart, Amazon and Best Buy. This is based on the top 1,000 “Black Friday” related searches from Ahrefs for the 20 countries we analysed.

All of the top 10 retailers were in the top 10 in 2019 too.

10 most commonly searched for retailers for Black Friday worldwide

• Methodology

  Finder polled 18,933 adults across 12 countries. All countries were polled in November via Google surveys. The sample sizes are as follows:

  • Canada, nationally representative, 1,201 respondents
  • France, nationally representative, 1,505 respondents
  • Germany, nationally representative, 2,004 respondents
  • Hong Kong, convenience sampling, 1,204 respondents
  • Ireland, convenience sampling, 1,235 respondents
  • Italy, convenience sampling, 1,536 respondents
  • Spain, nationally representative, 1,509 respondents
  • Mexico, nationally representative, 2,002 respondents
  • New Zealand, convenience sampling, 1,210 respondents
  • South Africa, convenience sampling, 1,524 respondents
  • The United Kingdom, nationally representative, 2,003 respondents
  • The United States, nationally representative, 2,000 respondents

  Top keyword searches were determined through data pulls from SEMrush and Ahrefs.

Image: Getty