It is November! The time of the year when massive discounts are offered to shoppers across various product categories, heralding the yuletides.
The Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving Day, a holiday on the fourth Thursday of November, and is symbolically seen as the start of the critical holiday shopping season.
Black Friday sales have become an important period for many retailers across the globe as they hope to offer discounts to boost their profits.
It was reported that in 2018 sales growth in the UK was highest in November, with experts attributing it to Black Friday stealing Christmas sales. Last year UK shoppers spent a reported £1.23billion over the Black Friday weekend.
In Nigeria, retail outlets and supermarkets are not left out in the excitement that comes with Black Friday sales as Nigerians are known shoppers despite the stuttering economy.
For Jumia, a major online shopping mall, it is Black Friday every Friday starting this week through November.
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According to Jumia, this year’s edition of Jumia Black Friday will start on 8th of November and it would be offering massive discounts of up to 80 percent off from its millions of products.
Shoppers will also enjoy amazing discount packages such as free vouchers, free shipping using Jumia Prime among others. There would also be Jumia flash sales.
Konga, another online shopping mall, Black Friday has been present since 2013. The shopping holiday is called “Black Friday Yakata”, and is where customers find all kinds of products at even more competitive prices.
Sadly, online scammers have taken advantage of the period to send spam emails to anxious customers promising them mouth-watering deals and requesting information about their debit cards, while awoof-loving Nigerians are set to break the bank this November.
The measures outlined below can help you maximize Black Friday while ensuring you do not go broke.
Create a budget
Right budgeting is the Holy Grail in personal finance because the goal is to get enough value for every kobo spent without jeopardising your financial future.
Ahead of the Black Friday, you must decide on your needs and wants as well as how much you can afford for shopping.
To achieve this, ensure you are not already going through online catalogues as that would influence your decision.
As a reminder, only 50 percent of your income should be spent on needs (food, shelter and clothing) while 30 percent can be spent on wants with the other 20 percent as savings or investment.
Research the best deals
The next step is to thoroughly search the internet for the most attractive deal while keeping quality in mind.
You should be careful about jumping at discounts because a website publishing a 30 percent price cut might be selling at a discount of say 10 percent if you compared the actual worth of the product.
A platform may be selling a pen for N10,000 while the average price is N5,000 on other platforms. Because there is a 30 percent discount announced, non-discerning consumers may opt for the offer instead of a 5 percent discount by other platforms. Of course, you can tell which platform benefits more.
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Use the sell-to-buy technique
It is very easy to buy and hoard when offered attractive deals, after all, there is only one November in a calendar year. To ensure you do not waste money buying what you already have, you may consider selling an old item before you get a new one.
An advantage is that you also get cash to fund your new purchases and create room for new items in your wardrobe, closet and anywhere else.
Be wary of fraudsters
By nature, humans like freebies and fall easily to scams when there is a promise of a reward for doing virtually nothing.
Make sure you make a hundred-meter dash whenever Pops ups like “Best Black Friday deal in town, click me” appear on your screen.
Those little boxes could be baits with mischievous people at the other end waiting to access information on your devices through “backdoors” they create.
You can use browsers that block adverts to reduce your chances of encountering these malicious pop-ups. It is worth mentioning that not all pop-ups are bad but it is better to err on the side of caution.
