Congrats, everybody, we survived.

I sincerely hope you weren’t one of those peeps caught up in a Black Friday scrum somewhere around the country.

Now we just have to make it through Cyber Monday – here’s one special that’s worth checking out, but you do you.

We’re at the number-crunching point in the cycle, and going on those, Takealot had themselves a pretty decent few days. Their 2018 Black Friday sales – or as they call it, the Blue Dot Sale – generated record sales.

Over to MyBroadband:

Within the first hour of the Black Friday sale, the retailer generated R11.5 million in sales, surpassing its gross sales revenue for the entirety of Black Friday 2017.

The total transaction value for Black Friday 2018 on Takealot amounted to over R196 million – a 125% year-on-year growth in sales and 127% growth in orders.

68% of shoppers buying Black Friday deals on Takealot placed orders on their mobile phones via the Takealot app and mobile site.

“We are humbled by the incredible support from our customers on our biggest sales day of the year,” said Takealot CEO Kim Reid.

Given that we are in a recession, those numbers are all the more impressive.

Fancy a guess at which product was the best seller? Coming out tops this year on Takealot was the Tommy Hilfiger Girl For Her perfume (for the second year running), and the Nu Camp folding table.

That would be this guy:

Despite the record-breaking success, Takealot’s big weekend wasn’t without the odd glitch.

Take for example their payment blooper right out of the gate, as TimesLIVE reports:

Despite being the trailblazer of the year’s biggest shopping day, Takealot was also hit with major glitches – a second year in a row.

Last year, the entire site crashed and customers were unable to make purchases. This year, at 1am on Friday, an apology was issued after complaints that customers were unable to make payments.

Users who tried to pay using their credit cards were met with the following message:

“Some customers are currently experiencing difficulty completing payment using credit cards. We’ve notified our payment partner and they’re working at restoring their services. Please try one of our alternative payment options like Instant EFT in the meantime.”

Customers were asked to pay via other methods, like an EFT transfer, but over on social media the whining quickly took off.

Guess it’s easier to moan on Facebook and Twitter than pay using EFT.

Takealot’s other big issue was the allegations that it bumped up prices on certain items in the days before Black Friday, in order to make the discounts seem better than they actually were.

Business Insider below:

…consumers accused the platform of raising prices before activating specials, posting screenshots of how prices changed since Monday.

Twitter user @Tumelo_Mdaka posted two pictures of how a Nikon D5300 24.2MP DSLR Twin Lens Value Bundle cost R7,489 on Monday, compared to R8,489 on Friday.

 “Meaning [TakeALot] increase prices just before Friday so they look like they drop by the time the sale comes,” @Tumelo_Mdaka said…

In one incident, sent to Business Insider South Africa, screenshots show how the price of a Phillips S7530/50 shaver jumped from R1,799 on Monday to R2,319 on Friday.

Takealot’s chief marketing officer Julie-Anne Walsh said prices regularly shift due to a change in supplier price, how prices are benchmarked to competitors, and whether Takealot sells a product directly or on behalf of a seller using its platform to reach customers.

“What we can confirm is that our Blue Dot Sale discounts (Takealot’s Black Friday deals) are legitimate – in other words, at a lower price point than the regular list price,” Walsh told Business Insider.

I say the same thing I say every year – check the prices on things you want the week before Black Friday, and you’ll know exactly what constitutes a good deal when the day rolls around.

With that, I hope we can all wave goodbye to Black Friday in the rearview mirror and move on with our lives.

[sources:mybb&timeslive&businsider]