In Australia’s Cost-of-Living Crunch, Black Friday Becomes Santa’s New Workshop

No one is immune to cost-of-living pressures, not even Santa Claus.  

In a previous post, we explored how tightening economic conditions in Australia were causing consumers to close their wallets, but with Christmas on the horizon, a new eCommerce trend has emerged.

Rather than cancel Christmas, our analysis shows shoppers are becoming more savvy. Increasingly, Australian consumers are taking full advantage of the bargains available in the lead up to Christmas – most notably during Black Friday.

Key takeaways

• Online searches for sales-related keywords almost tripled in October.
• Analysis of search engine queries for Australia’s major sales events shows Black Friday has been front-of-mind for shoppers since July.
• Despite its growing popularity, many Australians are still getting acquainted with Black Friday.
• An ice cream maker may be this year’s most popular item.

Bargain hunting goes ballistic

When combining the seven largest events (Amazon Prime Day, AfterPay Day, EOFY, Click Frenzy, Boxing Day, Cyber Monday, and Black Friday), searches began spiking in May with a 223% surge in sales-related queries.

While this initial spike in activity was likely buoyed by the tax-time specials on offer during EOFY sales, there have consistently been more than 340,000 sales searches every month since.

Last month, however, this activity went into overdrive with almost 1 million individual sales event searches – driven largely by interest in November’s Black Friday sales.

In 2023, Aussies were highly interested in retail events—searches surged by 223% in May and a solid 190% in October, signaling an early start to holiday shopping & increased anticipation for upcoming events.

Black Friday has been on shoppers’ radars since May

In comparison, Boxing Day sales see relatively little interest. Our assumption here is that because Boxing Day is after Christmas Day, it is held too late to feature in Santa’s shopping plans.

Black Friday consistently gains traction, surpassing other key retail events in terms of share of voice. This trend underscores its widespread popularity and suggests a growing anticipation that has been evident since May.

When we dug deeper into the search terms around Black Friday, we found the nascent nature of the event means Australian consumers are still coming to grips with its logistics.

Unlike Boxing Day, which is tied to December 26 every year, Black Friday’s date shifts each year. As a result, some of the leading searches were around general information like “when is black friday”, “black friday date”, and “when are black friday sales.”

Marketers can leverage this information to tailor their promotional strategies, enhance online visibility, and optimize their websites for these key terms.

But one search term that kept appearing took us by surprise.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Top  & Trending Product Searches (Oct 23) Consumer Electronics & Home Appliances Category

With a 4,500% surge in searches, the Ninja Cream ice cream maker seems to be at the top of many shoppers’ wish lists.

Typically for appliances like these, it is rare to see a specific brand feature so highly – we’d expect to find the generic term ‘ice cream maker’ as we see in this data with ‘coffee machine’, ‘microwave’, and ‘rice cooker.’

So why has this particular product seen almost 4500% growth?

TikTok.

There is a TikTok trend that has featured prominently in feeds over the past few months of influencers sharing their Ninja Creami recipes. From ice cream and gelato, to smoothies and protein bowls, videos of people using this appliance are seeing massive engagement.

When it comes to the perfect gift this Christmas, it seems you can’t go wrong with ‘infinite ice cream’.

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Methodology

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