Originating in the US, concepts like the Black Friday sales and Halloween sales have picked up in India over the past 4-5 years. This year, especially both offline and online brands are reporting a big surge in orders.

On day 1 of its Pink Friday sale (Nykaa’s interpretation of Black Friday Sale), the beauty e-commerce retailer recorded 8 lakh orders, a growth of 40 per cent from last year. Similarly, the D2C brand Wellbeing Nutrition saw a 3-4x growth over BAU (business as usual) on marketplaces and a 4x growth as compared to last year’s sale.

Activewear D2C brand BlissClub saw its website traffic rise by 3x and orders witnessed a 4x jump during its ongoing Black Friday sale event. Alkaline drink brand EVOCUS also saw its sales increase by 300 per cent and almost 80 per cent of its sales came from GenZ and millennials.

“The West-influenced phenomenon is a win-win situation for both: customers get good deals and brands improve momentary sales,” said Pavandeep Singh, VP Growth Strategy of Woodland.

Drawing inspiration

Commenting on this trend of India adopting western sale events, Harish Bijoor, a business & brand-strategy specialist said, “Black Friday is as alien to India as anything. It is an import and like all the days that we import to celebrate, it is yet another addition in the kitty of marketing days.” He added that the market has now become flat because of social media platforms like Instagram. In this flat market, consumers see exactly what is happening in every corner of the world and naturally emote with it.

Varun Chopra, co-founder of D2C-focused marketing firm The Teaser Company said, “Even though there are significant differences in how Indian and western markets function, there are many Indian brands that get inspiration from their western counterparts.”

According to research firm 1Lattice (erstwhile PGA Labs), brands in the fashion category are expecting 3X growth on e-commerce for week-on-week (w-o-w) sales during the Black Friday sale period, w-o-w growth during weekdays for offline stores has been around 30 per cent, and is expected to be 100 per cent w-o-w growth in the coming weekend.

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