Consumer study: What are consumers’ plans for Black Friday shopping?

When it comes to Black Friday shopping, things certainly have changed. There are still deals on the actual Black Friday and some shoppers expect them. But I’ve seen Black Friday deals at the end of October – over four weeks weeks before the actual day. Some are available online. Others in-store. So we wanted to find out what consumers in the United States had to say about Black Friday shopping in this consumer study.

The methodology

The entire study of 100 consumers was conducted through Voxpopme’s Influence market research online community (MROC) of on-demand consumers and took eight hours.

We combined quantitative and qualitative questions in the study and the results were neatly packaged for me in one dashboard.

On the quantitative side, we asked:

• Will you be shopping this Black Friday?
  • Yes
  • No
• For this Black Friday will you be shopping online or in-store?
  • Online
  • In-store
• When will you be shopping Black Friday deals?
  • On Black Friday
  • Soon
  • Now

On the qualitative side, we asked:

• What items would you like to purchase on Black Friday?
• What are the brands that you are most likely to look for this Black Friday?
• Where do you think the best savings can be made?

Read next: Not sure what to ask? Check out Voxpopme’s tried and tested open-ended questions for video research.

The results

Here’s a quick highlight reel of responses, which we created directly in the platform:

The quant results

All consumers in our study said they will be shopping for Black Friday deals.

Over half of U.S. consumer said they will shop online for Black Friday deals. That’s interesting especially from the perspective that Cyber Monday used to be for online shopping and Black Friday used to be for in-store shopping.

Over half said they will be shopping on the actual Black Friday (the Friday following Thanksgiving), while 10 percent are already shopping Black Friday deals and the rest of consumers are going to start soon.

The qual results

For the qual questions, respondents recorded a quick video message – selfie style, directly from their phones.

In all, the automatic sentiment analysis showed that almost half of all statements were positive, with a 41 percent being neutral and 10 percent being negative.

Unlike the quant questions, this sentiment analysis is pulled from what consumers actually said in their video responses.

The automatic theme explorer and Word Cloud gave me an idea what some of the most mentioned topics were.

The analysis

To get started, I reviewed the theme explorer to get an idea what trends I’m seeing. I look at the Word Cloud next. Then I like to skim through the automatic transcripts and each response. 

Just looking at the theme explorer, I can tell what items consumers are looking to buy the most. Those include:

• HP computer
• PS5
• Vacuums
• Vizio electronics
• Electronics
• TVs
• AirPods
• Legos
• Fryer
• Nintendo
• Toys
• LG
• Sony
• Samsung
• Computers
• Tablets
• Smartphones
• and more…

Various Apple devices also made the top of consumers’ lists.

Shopping for gifts

Jessica, 31, of Roy

Not surprisingly, many shop for gifts for the holiday season.

“I’m really looking for Disney toys for my kids. And Shark vacuums,” said Jessica 31, of Roy.  “I’m really hoping they’re on sale for Black Friday.”

Clay, 57, of Nashville, said he’s trying to score some deals to get electronic gifts for his nieces.

“I think Walmart usually has the best Black Friday deals as far as in-store,” said Holly 38, of Langley. “I’m hoping to get a computer monitor. My son wants one of the double screened curved ones. My daughter wants the iPhone.”

A level of excitement and convenience matters

Some consumers are genuinely excited about finding deals for Black Friday.

Kelly, 38, of Tampa

“Some of the things that I want to get are electronics, which I prefer to shop for online,” said Kelly, 38, of Tampa. “I’ll probably be doing most of my shopping on the Best Buy app. I really enjoy their app and it comes with good warranties. I could pick it up in the store if I need it faster. It’s really convenient and I will be shopping for new iPads for my daughter and my fiancé this year.”

Making a list and checking it twice…

Many consumers had specific ideas what they wanted, but they were looking for a deal before making the purchase.

“So for this Black Friday, I’m seriously considering getting a new TV because one of my TVs is very old and it’s not a ultra-high definition,” said Ana, 44, of Portage. “So I would look for a good TV on Best Buy.”

Ana, like many others, is also looking for those early Black Friday deals and hopes to be done with this purchase before the actual Black Friday.

“First of all, I want to buy the new iPhone for myself, and also I want to buy a PlayStation 5 for my son,” said Yurii, 37, of Chicago. “I don’t know if Apple is going to make any specific discount, but still, I hope that they do it with something”

James, 35, of Schaumburg, offers this tip to catch deals for items you really want: “I actually have a list of things. I’ve saved them in my Amazon account just to keep checking if the pricing will go down on it. For Black Friday, I think that’s the best way to do it.”

Read next: How you can use video surveys for your next project!