Superbalist.com, Kalahari.com, Dion Wired, Mr Price and takealot.com were among local Web sites that climbed on board the Black Friday wagon last week, to the delight of shoppers.
Black Friday is a US shopping tradition and marks the day when retailers move into profitable territory - the black - and falls on the day after Thanksgiving. Although generally a bricks-and-mortar sale day, this year saw several e-tailers get in on the game, even though their sale day is usually today - Cyber Monday.
Local sites were not to be left out of the action, with entities like Kalahari.com and Superbalist.com taking part in Black Friday - and reporting such unprecedented volumes that their servers could not cope.
Mammoth traffic
Superbalist.com marketing manager Megan Biebuyck says the site saw 60% more traffic thanks to its tiered discount promotions, despite being down for five hours on Friday. She explains the portal lured shoppers in by offering escalating discounts, and consumers could buy immediately, or wait for a higher discount - but risk the item being sold out.
Biebuyck explains discounts went from 10% off, then to 15%, 30% and 35% off, and ended on 40% off site-wide. Today, it is also offering Cyber Monday deals, with as much as 75% off. Superbalist.com picked up on the day because it saw a few local sites take on the concept last year, and "realised it would be a big deal this year," she says.
Superbalist.com ran aggressive campaigns throughout the week, staring on Monday to "seed the campaign with users early on, as well as educate on the kind of behaviour that so many US and UK online customers are accustomed to," says Biebuyck. The result, she says, was that traffic increased 60%, and orders were up 250% compared to a usual Friday.
Taking strain
However, Superbalist.com's day was not without its drawbacks. Biebuyck says the site experienced two issues, which led to it being down for five hours. One problem was solved on the day, and this week it is putting in an enterprise firewall to allow it to cope with traffic, she adds.
Kalahari.com also experienced issues, with site volumes being "unprecedented" on Friday, causing its servers to take a bit of strain. It added more capacity and pushed sales out to midnight on Sunday as a result of the demand.
World Wide Worx Arthur Goldstuck expects the "feeding frenzy" to gain traction locally, as last year only two to three sites punted Black Friday, while 2014 saw this number gain to around 12. He notes, however, sites have reported record traffic, but not record sales.
In addition, notes Goldstuck, the online shopping base locally is not as big as in the US, so the effect would not have been as noticeable. He notes the sites could have held the sale on any day, and still seen massive volumes because of the "absurd" discounts offered, which would have pleased customers.
"The whole thing is we don't have a Black Friday culture here because we don't have Thanksgiving here."
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