From year to year, we see more and more activity and creativity of brands and brands linked to the preparation of promotional offers in the second half of November. This year, the high point of this important day for the world of commerce was to be November 25, when Black Friday fell. And indeed it was, although the interest and increased traffic in malls could have been noticed two weeks prior.

Analysis of data from 260 shopping centers and shopping parks in Poland, conducted by dataplace.ai, shows that Black Friday was characterized by 21% more traffic. than the average of the previous days of this week (Monday-Thursday). It was also higher due to traffic than “regular” Fridays, but only 1.32 percentage points.

Dataplace.ai also checked the weekly development of the number of visitors to shopping malls.

– After analyzing the available data for the last 8 weeks, it can be seen that the footfall in shopping centers during Black Week and the week preceding it (second half of November) is 3.65% higher than the average for the 6 weeks from early October – says Tomasz Władziński, co-founder of dataplace.ai, a company specializing in geolocation services. – In turn, the first two weeks of November were characterized by quite significant drops in the number of visits to shopping centers, which was certainly caused by two long weekends, which this year fell in the first fortnight of November – he adds.

In its analysis, dataplace.ai also looked at mall traffic on the Fridays leading up to Black Friday. The list shows that the Friday with the highest percentage of visitors was November 25, i.e. Black Friday – it attracted over 18%. weekly traffic. Last year, Black Friday lost in this regard to the long weekend of November 12, but this year, Black Friday attracted the most customers. In the other weeks analyzed this year, this percentage hovered around 17%, with the exception of Friday, November 11, when shopping centers remained closed (with the exception of restaurants and entertainment venues).

Dataplace.ai’s analysis shows that high inflation and the economic situation have not contributed to the drop in the number of visits to shopping centers in recent months. On the other hand, the period of the big sales did not attract many more visitors to the shopping malls than in the previous months.

One would expect that the high rate of inflation and the general economic situation would increasingly discourage people from visiting malls. Although we don’t know if they are spending as much money as before, but looking only at the number of visits, we don’t see rapid changes since the middle of this year, as was the case with the pandemic developing coronaviruses in 2020 and 2021 – says Władziński. However, this year’s big sales period around Black Friday attracted fewer visitors than the same period last year.