INTHEBLACK December 2021 - Magazine - Page 34
F E AT U R E
// H O L I D AY E C O N O M Y
Above: A family prepares “Aakash
Kandil” – lanterns made of paper
and cane – for the Diwali Festival
in Mumbai, India, in October 2021.
H O LIDAY SHOPPING
EVENTS AROUND
THE WORLD
“The prevalence of mobile payment
enables the dynamic development of
m-commerce [mobile commerce], including
but not limited to e-commerce platforms
like Tmall, JD.com and VIP.com, and also
in-app purchases on social media such as
Little Red Book and TikTok,” Tang says.
She adds that mobile devices and
technology, as platforms for marketing
tactics such as social media review posts
and exclusive coupon distributions, are
helping shape Chinese consumers’ shopping
decisions, especially when purchasing
apparel, personal accessories and travel.
GOLDEN WEEK
466 B I L L I O N Y U A N
( A$94 B I L L I O N )
EASY SELL
Retailers around the world have long
understood the power of linking sales to
major holidays.
In the West, many retailers and food
manufacturers build their budgets and
supply chains around Christmas, Easter and
Thanksgiving, while Black Friday (the Friday
after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday
(the Monday after Thanksgiving) have also
become staples of the shopping calendar.
Traditional gift-giving events such as
Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s
Day play their part, too. Then there is
Halloween – a holiday that, in the US
alone, accounts for about US$4.6 billion
(A$6.3 billion) in sales annually for the
confectionery sector alone. Major candy
makers such as Mars Wrigley, Hershey and
Ferrero reportedly plan for the holiday years
in advance.
The five-day Hindu festival of
Diwali, honouring the Hindu
goddess of wealth Lakshmi,
typically accounts for up to
40 per cent of annual
consumer spending in India.
34 ITB December 2021
In 2020, more than 637 million
residents of Mainland China moved
around the country during the
eight-day Golden Week holiday in
October, driving tourism,
restaurant and shopping sales.
Source: Chinese Ministry of Culture and
Tourism; includes all tourism revenue
D I WA L I
7 20 B I L L I O N R U P E E S
( A$13 B I L L I O N )
Source: Reuters, The Confederation of All
India Traders
W H I T E D AY
53 B I L L I O N Y E N
( A$622 M I L L I O N )
Celebrated every 14 March, White
Day started in Japan and has been
embraced by other East Asian
nations. On this day, people give
reciprocal gifts to those who gave
them presents on Valentine’s Day
a month earlier.
Source: BBC, Japan Anniversary Association;
Japan sales only
Holidays can also spur companies
and brands to make incursions into new
territories. KFC, for example, has been
known to market its fried chicken as the
perfect Christmas feast for the past 40 years
in Japan.
Blake Morgan, a US-based customer
experience futurist and author of The
Customer of the Future: 10 Guiding
Principles For Winning Tomorrow’s
Business, says retailers in the US rely heavily
on Black Friday trade. “Black Friday reigns
supreme as the biggest ‘shopping holiday’ in
the US, breaking its own record each year
for the number of sales,” she says.
Morgan says two other holiday-adjacent
shopping days are also gaining steam –
Cyber Monday and Super Saturday.
“In 2020, Cyber Monday became the biggest
online shopping day in US history, and
Super Saturday saw an estimated