Are Discounts Real: A Huge BF / CM Analysis for 2019
We get asked about this a lot.
Are Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals a myth?
This has been asked and argued over a million times each year polarizing both consumers and retailers.
Each side is preparing for this season as they’d be preparing for a great battle. Retailers set up dynamic pricing according to IP, education, job, income, browsing history, and so on. While consumers clean up their browser cookies and sessions, checking prices from multiple comparison shopping engines, change devices, and most importantly save money to get the most bang for the buck.
Undeniably, both sides are getting smarter each year and come up with many tactics that weren’t done before. Although we cannot decipher every action from both sides, we can include our own perspective in this arena.
Our results are in for Black Friday and Cyber Monday which is intended to show you how retailers act before, during, and after the biggest sales campaigns of the year.
Overall Pricing Movements
Amazon
On regular days Amazon had lower prices than the market average.
Increased prices by 28% from 24-28/Nov.
Decreased prices by 14% on 29/Nov.
Net price increase of 14% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
On regular days eBay had the lowest prices than the market average.
Increased prices by 33% from 24-28/Nov.
Didn’t change prices after the price increase on neither BF nor CM.
Target
Target followed what Amazon did before and after BF (ahem! competitive repricing) with a net price increase of 9%.
Increased prices by 24% from 24-28/Nov.
Decreased prices by 15% on 29/Nov.
Net price increase of 9% for BF.
Increased prices by 11% on 30/Nov.
Decreased prices by 11% on 01/Dec.
Made false discount for Cyber Monday.
Bestbuy
Bestbuy had above-average prices than the market average.
Increased prices by 3% from 24-28/Nov
Decreased prices by 3% on 29/Nov.
No net price change for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Walmart
Walmart had above-average prices than the market average.
While Amazon and Target partially followed each other in terms of pricing movements on certain dates, eBay followed them and had lower or higher prices than the two. Bestbuy and Walmart were competing on a different level in both having higher prices than the others. Among the 5, Walmart had the most unpredictable price changes on different dates than the rest.
Camera & Photo Category – Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 35% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 17% price decrease.
Net price increase of 18% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 2% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 2% price decrease.
No net price change for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Cell Phones & Accessories – Category Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 33% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 14% price decrease.
Net price increase of 19% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 47% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 21% price decrease.
Net price increase of 26% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Computers & Accessories – Category Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 25% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 10% price decrease.
Net price increase of 15% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 45% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 4% price decrease.
Net price increase of 41% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 10% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 9% price decrease.
Net price increase of 1% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Electronics – Category Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 28% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 22% price decrease.
Net price increase of 6% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 0% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 0% price decrease.
No net price change for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 9% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 12% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 3% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Video Games – Category Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 25% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 14% price decrease.
Net price increase of 11% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 38% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 2% price increase.
Net price increase of 40% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 24% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 16% price decrease.
Net price increase of 8% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Bestbuy
From 24-28/Nov 3% price decrease.
On the 29th Nov 3% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 6% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Walmart
From 24-28/Nov 29% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 5% price decrease.
Net price increase of 24% for BF.
Decreased prices by 18% on 03/Dec Giving Tuesday.
2K Games – Brand Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 43% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 5% price increase.
Net price increase of 48% for BF.
On the 2nd Dec 7% price decrease.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 88% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 10% price decrease.
Net price increase of 78% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 32% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 81% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 49% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Bestbuy
Gone out of stock for 2K Games specific to our research.
Microsoft – Brand Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 8% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 18% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 10% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 53% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 9% price increase.
Net price increase of 62% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 17% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 18% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 1% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Nintendo – Brand Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 25% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 17% price decrease.
Net price increase of 8% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 40% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 1% price decrease.
Net price increase of 39% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 33% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 4% price decrease.
Net price increase of 29% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Bestbuy
Gone out of stock for Nintendo specific to our research.
Walmart
From 24-28/Nov 29% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 5% price decrease.
Net price increase of 24% for BF.
Decreased prices by 19% on 03/Dec Giving Tuesday.
Playstation – Brand Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 39% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 28% price decrease.
Net price increase of 11% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 28% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 1% price increase.
Net price increase of 29% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 15% price decrease.
On the 29th Nov 8% price increase.
Net price decrease of 7% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Roku – Brand Results
Amazon
From 24-28/Nov 60% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 26% price decrease.
Net price increase of 34% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
eBay
From 24-28/Nov 1% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 2% price decrease.
Net price decrease of 1% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Target
From 24-28/Nov 60% price increase.
On the 29th Nov 41% price decrease.
Net price increase of 19% for BF.
No significant change for CM.
Were the deals a myth?
According to our methodology, category selection, product assortment, and thousands of price points, it seems so.*
It was a hard time collecting and analyzing these prices since prices change constantly, by large amounts, based on many factors.
If you’d like to conduct near real-time research, select your own competitors, and gain an advantage in specific on or off seasons give our 14-day free trial a shot.
* We have no affiliation with any company in the research and keep in mind that this data resembles a small part of the whole.
Part 2 – Update Before BF
The Black Friday madness is almost starting and before that we wanted to share a 15-day historical pricing analysis.
Please keep in mind that this research methodology was based on Amazon’s product assortment and we have no affiliation or connection with Amazon in any terms. The only reason we’ve selected their assortment is that they have the largest inventory size which increases accuracy for our top-down approach.
Prices hike before BF
As you can see from the chart above the top 5 retailers have increased their prices 2-3 days before Black Friday. Amazon and Target have matched their prices to each other and Bestbuy joined the game last minute. Walmart seems like their preparing for great discount rates.
Video games have the highest competition
While Amazon and eBay have set their prices close to the average (Index: 100), Target and Bestbuy are going for the lowest prices in the video games category. Walmart is pursuing its overall strategy in this category.
Popular brand: Nintendo
Every retailer increased its prices for Nintendo. Amazon, eBay, Target are following each other in the lower price spectrum while Bestbuy and Walmart are in the higher ground.
Part 1 – Methodology
Everyone in the world is waiting for the biggest sales campaigns of the year and speaking about two things.
Are discounts going to be real?
Who will have the best prices?
As we are saving ourselves for these days remembering the times when iPhones were sold for $45 hoping for something similar, others are discouraged by rumors about how retailers hike prices a few days before going on sale.
Needless to say, either you’re a consumer or business we couldn’t stay silent about this controversy anymore. It’s time to shed light on these two questions with the power of data.
In no more than a few weeks, we’re going to share our findings with you to shed light on this long-lasting mistery.
A quick peek to our methodology
Looking back to a 2-month (Aug 04 – Oct 12) Google Shopping Trend data, we have determined the best categories to collect prices on. This helped us see where the competition is the highest. Competition means more sellers and prices.
This method narrowed us down and helped pick 266/400 products from Amazon’s best sellers on the high competition categories except for shoes.
If you ask what happened to the rest of 134 products, they were either unavailable or exclusive to Amazon so we’ve left those out from the analysis just like any researcher would’ve done to set neutral grounds.
By the time we finish collecting the prices from October 29th to December 31st, 2019 there will be a total of 1,080,828 price changes happening in the USA’s e-commerce competitive pricing landscape according to our selected categories.
You heard that right.
1,080,828 price changes will be tracked until the end of this year!
Because we know that high competition leads to more than daily price changes we make sure we don’t miss anything by tracking those prices 4x/day.
But here comes the hard part.
Thanks to our brilliant developers and auto-matching engine from 266 products, 1571 sellers and 4289 matching prices were found in approximately 8 hours. This would’ve taken an approximate of 9 days* if we’ve tried to find these prices manually**.
For detecting price changes more accurately, we’re going to track 4289 prices 4x/day for 63 days. Btw, doing this manually would’ve taken more than 2 years***.
A preview of what we’ve collected and tracked so far
Below, there is our daily report converted into a Google Sheet.
While we collect the data we’re observing which retailer is making its move to gain competitive advantage. So, in the following days let’s see what will actually happen before, during, and after BF/CM to see who changes prices when.
* It takes approximately 3 minutes to find a competitor product page for a certain product and record its price to a sheet. Multiply 3 minutes with 4289 prices and you’ll get 12,867 minutes. Divide that with 60 and you’ll get 214 hours and divide that to 24 you’ll get close to 9 days. This is a very optimistic approach because it idealizes finding a competitor without any roadblock or cognitive fatigue.
** Don’t try this by yourself or with your team members as it will permanently harm the nervous system of any human.
*** After having the competitor product page URLs it would take an average of 1 minute to open up a URL, copy the price, and enter the data in a spreadsheet.
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Thanks for sharing this useful information! Hope that you will continue with the kind of stuff you are doing.