SberIndex: Online retail secures Black Friday performance

Spending on products and services in Russia added 13.7% on November 22-28, 2021, barely changing w-o-w. SberIndex analysts claim that the second wave of November shopping spree had a major effect on the spending structure.

Spending on food items somewhat decelerated (+6.7% y-o-y), with non-food categories seeing extra demand (+17.4% y-o-y vs. +15.0% a week before).

The results of the Black Friday are quite interesting. The shopping event barely had any impact on total offline expenses in traditional retail: spending was 3.7% higher than the trend levels in 2020 and topped them by only 0.7% in 2021.

The increase in offline costs becomes noticeable only if the categories with all the discounts and special offers are analyzed separately. However, the increase is still lower than a year ago by a factor of 1.5 (+8.9% last week vs. +14.1% in 2020).

The opposite is true for online retail, with the demand 46% higher than usual in the Department Stores category and spending twice as high than average (+112%) in online stores.

This means that it was online retail that secured high sales figures for this Black Friday.

Early estimates read that the dynamics of household demand will be close to October figures by the end of November despite the severe COVID-19 restrictions at the start of the month.

Staying above 71 points, the consumer activity index proves that Russian spending is generally stable.

A reference to SberIndex (www.sberindex.ru) is mandatory when publishing the materials.

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