Christmas is no longer able to sustain December’s sales level, which is so far above the annual average. November, its neighboring month, is to blame. With , the month saw its seasonality pattern compared to the rest adopting a growth trend over the last 15 years.
Although November did not surpass December with the biggest deviation from the annual average in retail activity, the two months followed opposite directions in the period, shows a study carried out by the Mastercard Economics Institute. To measure the impact of Black Friday, an indicator called the seasonality index was used, which helps to check whether a month performs worse or better than the average.
Basically, the index calculates how retail activity in a given month compares to a typical month. When the result is equivalent to 1, that period is in line with the annual average. A value above 1 represents above average performance, while numbers below 1 show a weaker month.
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From 2009, the last year before Black Friday started in Brazil, until 2024, the indicator jumped from 0.98 to 1.07 in November — growth is practically constant, with a drop from 2020 to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. December on the other hand, fell from 1.32 to 1.19. The analysis takes into account official retail data from the Monthly Commerce Survey (PMC) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and Mastercard SpendingPulse.
The research carried out by Gustavo Arruda and Raphael Rodrigues concludes that Black Friday “has become a powerful force in the Brazilian retail scene, reducing, in general, the relative importance of Christmas sales and reshaping consumer behavior”.
Another phenomenon was the extension of Black Friday beyond just one day. In the electronics segment, for example, the research concluded that the peak of purchases in the last three years was lower than in previous years when analyzing sales 20 days before and 5 days after the commercial holiday.
“However, total sales during the broader period analyzed (20 days before and 5 days after Black Friday) have increased over time. Notably, 2020 stands out as an atypical year, reflecting the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak”, the research points out. From 2021 to 2024, total electronics sales rose annually in Brazil, from R$9 billion to R$10.2 billion.
In the case of supermarkets, the behavior shows greater stability in the distribution of sales throughout the month and a more pronounced and constant growth over the years. From 2018 to 2024, this increase is 82%.
