The many colours of shopping

Have you heard of Black Friday? On a recent visit to the US, I discovered the power of this phenomenal day, which is entirely a creation of that country’s marketers and retailers. It is the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, and falls on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day (which is on the fourth Thursday of November). Big retailers in that country – including Target, Macy’s, Big Buy – all open their doors to shoppers by 6 a.m. on that day, and some stores, which don’t wish to wait until the big day has dawned, have even opened at the dot of midnight. Huge sales and discounts offered, and millions of Americans head to shop on Black Friday, which is a holiday for most offices and schools. All this has created many chaotic scenes and stampedes in stores, and, of course, brilliant sales at the cash tills.

I was intrigued by the name Black Friday, since the colour black often evokes shades of mourning or sombre moods, rather than bright celebration or wild shopping. So I asked a colleague in New Jersey to explain this to me, and he had an interesting story to narrate. Retailers in the US, he said, normally operated in the “red” (made losses) from January until November. However, on this peak shopping day, sales are so high that they moved into the “black”, and thereafter their net income normally continued to stay positive into the strong Christmas shopping season. Hence the colour associated with this day is clearly black.

Passing through the UK a couple of days after my brief sojourn in the US, I noticed that the concept of Black Friday has crossed the Atlantic Ocean with ease, and retailers are now actively promoting it in London too – despite Thanksgiving Day, the origin of this shopping frenzy, being primarily an American festival holiday, with little or no presence in the UK. Newspapers featured full page advertisements by British retailers, with lines such as “Black Friday. Don’t miss it. With earth-shattering prices, it will be an event like no other!” And shoppers responded enthusiastically, showing us that some shopping habits cross national boundaries effortlessly.

‘Native’ shopping days Back in India, I reflected on peak shopping days in our country. Most of us shop for the Diwali festival, and Dhanteras is a big day for most retailers. So are the traditional festival days of Pongal, Ugadi and Durga Puja in various parts of the country. Valentine’s Day has also become quite large, particularly amongst youth. But it struck me that the big shopping day created entirely by our own marketers is Akshaya Tritiya – the day on which all Indians are urged to buy gold and jewellery, to their heart’s and credit card’s content. It falls during the summer month of Vaishaka, and is one of the most auspicious days in the Hindu calendar. ‘Akshaya’ means “never diminishing or ending” in Sanskrit, and jewellers have promptly interpreted this to say that the buying of gold jewellery on Akshaya Tritiya will lead to wealth that never diminishes, always an attractive concept. The day is heavily advertised, and its popularity has only increased dramatically over the past decade, with men and women thronging jewellery stores to buy their piece of good fortune.

Similar to Black Friday in the US and Akshaya Tritiya in India, Japan celebrates White Day on March 14, a huge shopping day on which men buy gifts for the women they love. And I was most impressed to read about Korea, which appears to have surpassed all other countries. It has twelve peak shopping and celebration days, one for each month. They fall on the 14th of each month, and here are their unique names: Candle Day, Valentine’s Day, White Day, Black Day, Rose Day, Kiss Day, Silver Day, Green Day, Music Day, Wine Day, Movie Day and Hug Day. I suspect it won’t be too long before our marketers and retailers also ensure that Indians don’t lag behind Koreans in this regard!

Ridding shoppers of guilt So what has led to the emergence of these huge, unprecedented peak shopping days? Retailers have invented these special days to stimulate sales, and have invested heavily in advertising them. Undoubtedly, this is a key reason for their sustained success. But for anything to succeed big time in marketing, there has to be a big consumer insight. The fundamental driver has to be rooted in human needs and behaviour, not merely in concerted actions by marketers or retailers. What then is the peak shopping insight?

In my view, the fundamental insight lies in the fact that most human beings love buying new things and acquiring new assets, but the act of purchase is often accompanied by explicit or subliminal guilt. Days such as Black Friday, Akshaya Tritiya and White Day, on the other hand, enable us to shop without feeling any guilt. At the very least, they minimise the guilt associated with shopping. Let me pause, and explain.

Women may like buying garments, shoes, perfumes and jewellery. Men may like buying new cars, electronic gadgets, wrist watches and, increasingly, even mountain bicycles. Kids may love new toys and sneakers. In many such cases, we want to buy things that we desire, but don’t necessarily need. A new smartphone or a new diamond necklace is not an essential purchase, yet we want these products, and we often lust after them.

Hence, when we shop for all these things, there is a lingering feeling of guilt – sometimes expressed, sometimes deep within – that we are spending our hard earned money (and very often, borrowed money) on things which are not essential to our lives. We may rationalise these purchases in many different ways to assuage such guilt, but I think the feeling is fundamental, and never goes away.

Peak shopping days such as Black Friday and Akshaya Tritiya do their best to remove all such guilt from our minds. You can shop for gold jewellery on Akshaya Tritiya with no guilt at all, because you are reassured several times over by marketers that you are buying such jewellery primarily to create “never diminishing” prosperity for your family, which is, of course, a worthy ideal. You can shop for multiple products on Black Friday with little or no guilt, because this is the day that offers you “earth-shattering prices” which will never again be available during the year. Therefore, by undertaking big shopping expeditions on this special day, you are not spending recklessly; on the other hand you are saving valuable money for your family and yourself. And you can shop guiltlessly in Japan on White Day, because what is more important and noble to men than buying a fitting gift for the woman you love, on the day designated for that selfless act of gifting?

Armed with this basic and powerful consumer insight of “taking the guilt out of the pleasurable act of shopping”, I am sure marketers can create many more peak shopping days that will appeal greatly to people everywhere. Will we soon see frenzied queues of shoppers on Grandparents’ Day or Teacher’s Day or Monthly Super-Duper-Sunday? Watch this space!

(Harish Bhat is Managing Director and CEO of Tata Global Beverages, and author of Tata Log: Eight modern stories from a timeless institution. These are his personal views. bhatharish@hotmail.com )