Black Friday set to be worth £10.4bn in the UK

Black Friday sales are forecast to grow faster than the UK retail market in Q4 2018, as the promotional period draws in spend from before and after the event, data and analytics company GlobalData has suggested.

Zoe Mills, retail analyst at the firm, predicted fashion and beauty will be the “best performing” sector, forecast to grow by 3.8% on 2017. It was also predicted that while the electricals sector would see strong growth of 3.2%, it would not outperform other sales.

She said: “While the discounting event has primarily focused on this sector in the past, budget-friendly devices and softer demand for big-ticket items will ensure that certain categories such as major kitchen appliances and small domestic appliances are increasingly more of a replacement purchase, with fewer consumers looking to upgrade these items ahead of them breaking.”

The home sector is expected to be the weakest, remaining stable with B&Q confirming it would not be partaking in this year’s sale event.

In 2017, spend during the Black Friday period accounted for 10.5% of Q4 spend. GlobalData predicts growth will continue to slow year-on-year due to discounting throughout 2018 so far.

Mills added: “The Black Friday event has a big impact on the timing of purchases over Q4 – 39.9% of 2,000 UK shoppers surveyed in November 2018 stated that they intend to purchase an item on promotion during the discounting period and of those shoppers, 55.8% are delaying a purchase to benefit from anticipated reduced prices.

“It highlights how Black Friday is encouraging shoppers to hold back buying full price items and purchasing during other discounting periods prior to the event as shoppers predict that retailers will drop prices even further during Black Friday, heavily impacting retailer sales in the weeks prior to the event.”