Australians were predicted to spend $5 billion in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, according to the National Retail Association (NRA). Yet midway through Friday afternoon, the NRA announced the sales event would likely exceed those targets.
Once only enjoyed across the pond in America to signal the start of the Christmas season, the sales event has gathered momentum internationally, thanks to the explosion of online shopping in recent years.
According to a recent survey by Finder, 13.8 million Australians had planned to shop the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, with beauty – both products and services – coming in in the top 10 purchases that bargain-hunters intended to add to cart.
And this year, salons and clinics cut themselves a large helping of the Cyber Weekend sales, keen to use the event to attract new clientele, as well as reward the loyalty of existing clients.
Industry heavyweights including Endota Spa, Ella Bache, Dermalogica and Australian Skin Clinics offered clients substantial discounts on both products and in-house services.
According to Rachel Boyle, manager at Australian Skin Clinics at Chatswood, the Cyber Weekend sales saw an increased number of bookings. “We offered a buy-one-get-one-free deal on services, and that was really popular,” Rachel said. While the deal couldn’t legally extend to injectables, clients jumped at the opportunity to snap up the savings on skin treatments and laser hair removal. To capitalise on the expected influx of sales and bookings, Australian Skin Clinics started their sale two days early, kicking off on the Wednesday.
Dominique Lamb, CEO of the NRA said that beauty salons benefitted greatly from taking part in the sales.
“The sales saw prices slashed across all parts of the retail sector, including beauty services. The giant jump in foot traffic at shopping centres over the weekend saw many beauty salons packed to the rafters with eager shoppers making appointments in between visiting other outlets,” Dominique said.
Final sales figures from Cyber Weekend will likely be released by the NRA this week.
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