When you go shopping online you have no idea what happens behind the scenes to make sure your item gets to your door. Black Friday is what kick starts the Festive Season and is the busiest day for so many businesses. This trend started in America during the 1960's when shoppers hit the stores the day after Thanksgiving.
This Black Friday is now a world wide trend with many retailers using this key date to move unwanted inventory by reducing it's sale price. This needs to happen in order to make room for the new ranges which will fill up the warehouses leading up to Christmas.
In South Africa Black Friday only started to become something in 2014 so it is still a fairly new trend. R88 billon is expected to be spent with an average saving of between 20% and 34%.
Once you understand how retailers work whether they are bricks and mortar or online even if they sell at cost they are already making profit. Rebates are built into every product which covers the cost of the item, shipping and all logistics costs such as warehousing and delivery. Cost is slightly misleading as it is the total cost plus a small profit margin built in. This is how Walmart ad many other retailers operate and the most profitable department in their entire business is the rebate section as they make profit no matter what.
Today at work it would be an understatement to say it was busy as we had one online retailer have over 300 orders to pick and dispatch ad that was the first batch. When we closed the doors this evening at 6pm there was already another 230 orders that required picking and that number will be far more by tomorrow morning. This means everyone has to work the entire weekend. Black Friday is a little misleading as this will see specials the entire weekend right up till Monday evening.
We have 24 hours to fulfil orders and in most cases like tomorrow we will have 2 collections with one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The collection takes time as every item has to be scanned so a collection team could be busy for a few hours each time which is basically a handing over process. No one wants to make a mistake as there are penalties and someone will be liable. We had a case this week were 2 items went missing and could prove we were in the clear through scanning, documentation and photographs. Hard to believe there is a photograph of every item and it's labels as proof.
One of our staff who has been with the company for longer than 20 years as a new role now and this will be is first weekend he has ever worked. He is now seeing the other side for the first time and it is demanding.
I enjoy walking around to see what everyone is purchasing and this year bicycles and gazebo's seem to be very popular. Bicycles will no doubt be the main Christmas gift for the kids with parents getting their Christmas shopping out the way early.