Black Friday. USA and Germany crazy for Made in Italy fashion

Black Friday is coming. eCommerce stores around the world are warming up their engines in anticipation of the traffic that online commerce will generate from 26th November. The numbers speak for themselves: according to GlobalData, 38.6% of consumers worldwide intend to buy during Black Friday. And that's just the beginning, because Black Friday opens doors to an entire week of online shopping that will continue with Cyber Monday – an appointment for technology lovers that will kick off early Christmas shopping. According to SpendMeNot, 30% of all retail sales take place between Black Friday and Christmas – an occasion that, according to the latest industry data, is increasingly digital: research by comparison shopping site finder.com found that 84% of Black Friday shoppers will make at least one online purchase this year.

But what are the trends to watch out for this Black Friday? "First of all, the flywheel effect on great Made in Italy products," says Simone De Ruosi, CEO of Go Global Ecommerce – the company that helps brands sell cross-border by dealing with all the aspects related to selling abroad, such as different tax positions, the need to provide for different languages and currencies, and, last but not least, all the issues related to logistics. "From our point of observation we see this very trend emerging: a strong push of Made in Italy fashion brands abroad, to drive the German and US markets". Footwear and clothing alone will account for almost 50% of Black Friday purchases, and according to data from the Digital Export Observatory, Italian fashion alone accounts for 53% of total B2C digital exports. “We work with many Italian fashion brands," says De Ruosi, "and our task is to help them perform in cross-border sales. In fact, more than 50 of Italy's top fashion brands have placed their trust in Go Global Ecommerce. From Borsalino – the world-famous historical company for hats – to the fashion house Vic Matié, from Bomboogie – which produces top-quality outerwear with cutting-edge materials – to Slam – the iconic brand of technical apparel – passing through Chiara Boni's shoe factory of excellence, Kocca and Camomilla.” De Rousi continues, “by analysing the results of our customers, we have recorded a significant increase in cross-border sales during Black Friday, On average, up to 40% more, with peaks of over 60%. We are talking about high export percentages during these extraordinary events, and according to our forecasts, Made in Italy fashion should benefit from shopping fever this year too.” 


So what can brands do to be prepared? “There are no magic recipes," says De Ruosi, "but we can certainly create a 'confident' environment for the foreign user.” A report by Statista shows that 13% of buyers abandon a purchase if they cannot find their currency at the time of payment and, according to a Eurostat analysis, 56% of Europeans would not buy from online shops in other countries that do not include the buyer's language of origin. "Therefore, maximum attention should be paid to multilingual, multi-currency payment systems” – continues De Rousi – “but also to payment systems that are compatible with other countries – think of Wechat for the Chinese market, or, without going too far, iDeal, used by 60% of online consumers in the Netherlands, and Sofort, which is gaining ground in Germany – incentive returns policies and, above all, customer care capable of answering questions from all over the world."