Black Friday Post Analysis – Public Opinion

In 2016, first ever whopping “Black” or “White” Friday sale hit the roads and internet of Pakistan this week for which thousands of promos and advertisements attracted public attention online and on social media for more than a week before.

The sale included all the products ranging from home appliances to mobile phones, clothes and jewelry promising customers a never-before shopping experience however, general public wasn’t really happy at the end of the day and the turn-out of the sale didn’t fulfill the expectations. Majority of the people weren’t really satisfied with discounts and people were quite furious over “deceitful promotional on social media”, “re-marked price tags” and especially not to mention “out-of-stock products”.Daraz projected the traffic load on website earlier yet failed to dimension the website properly since the traffic rose exponentially and customers had to face page loading error, unavailable products flashing on the screen, issues with product orders and payments etc. It’s not only with Daraz but same issue was faced with other shopping websites like Yayvo, Homeshopping and Symbios due to unexpected traffic rise and poor dimensioning. A lot of offers were also halted since the products ran out of stock. For example, Huawei Mate S Black Friday sale price was 30,000 PKR instead of original price 50,000 PKR and they mobiles went out of the stock early morning Friday on Daraz and Metro stores.

Coming to the stores and other clothing brands, there was a clear dishonest in sale publicity and majority of the sale was on summer stock. Other than that, once again, the price tags were re-labelled and then discounted. People gave quite irate reviews and comments on social media pages to express their anger. Majority of the stock at clothing brands was sold out during the first half of Friday and people weren’t able to find good stuff during the evening.

After witnessing keen interest of consumers, it goes undoubted that e-shopping has already strengthened their roots and have gains customers trust but customer shopping experience should be top priority. Brands should dimension demands properly and definitely avoid dishonest publicity.