The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

LOCAL businesses do not anticipate a decrease in sales this Black Friday, despite the rise in inflation and other recent financial challenges faced by consumers.

This year’s Black Friday, which falls on November 25, promises to be very fruitful for two local businesses that spoke with The Tribune yesterday.

Shawn Gomez, marketing director at CBS Bahamas, said with savings up to 75 percent off, she anticipates an influx in customers at their Robinson Road and Southwest Plaza locations, which will both have live entertainment throughout the day to keep the customers happy.

“So we’re anticipating and we’re actually really prepared for the influx of customers that we know we’re going to get and we will be ready at 5am to receive our customers with open arms. Also, we’ll be sure to keep the entertainment going throughout the day,” she said.

Ms Gomez said that this is the first time CBS Bahamas will be offering Black Friday specials at two stores at the same time.

“We recognise that a lot of Bahamians are definitely struggling as the price of things continue to rise. And in truth, there is not much a lot of businesses can do about that, because as long as we’re bringing in items from the States and stuff like that, inflation would always be a thing for us,” she said.

“The feedback that we’ve been receiving from our customers, they are very excited about the Black Friday sale. They like the prices. I mean, we’ve had massive reductions. So the pricing has been received well, so I don’t anticipate that there will be much decrease (in demand), if any. But I think that our turnout will be great, regardless of the inflation and things like that,” Ms Gomez said.

“At the end of the day, the economy and how Bahamians make money is assuming that they’re going to spend it, you know, they feel like you don’t have it, then they’re not going to spend it,” she said.

“This is an annual event for us. So most people anticipate Black Friday too. But customers can expect to get up to 75 percent savings on selected items that we have. Unfortunately, this year is the first year that we will be doing in-store only as well. We want to make sure that people who tried to go online to our website, that they wouldn’t have any issues,” Ms Gomez said.

Black Friday, the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday, is regarded as the first day of Christmas shopping in America. It’s a day when US retailers normally have big sales and the trend has caught on locally.

The public relations manager for Aliv, Jennifer Basden said she anticipates a strong Black Friday for the company this year.

“We’re expecting a strong Black Friday. And really just because we’ve been working with our partners, to make sure that we’re able to offer the best prices available. So without giving you like an exact amount, I can just tell you that we are very optimistic.

“We have strong partnerships with PCL and with Samsung and very aggressive pricing that we do believe our customers are going to be able and excited to take advantage of,” Mrs Basden said.

She said shoppers can enjoy Black Friday specials starting as early as 6am on Friday.

“There are actually supposed to be 11 great ways to stop and save with Aliv. It’s going to be at all locations,” she said.

“We will be having I guess some special guests in store, at our Southwest Plaza, Harbour Bay and at key locations here in Nassau. So not only are we offering great prices and great selections, but we’re making it extremely easy for our customers to shop either in store, through our affinity van or they can also shop online,” Mrs Basden said.

On Tuesday, Tribune Business reported that Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, on a webinar on “economic resilience” organised by the TCL Group, warned that The Bahamas will be on an economic “roller coaster for a significant period of time” as the United States Federal Reserve and other central banks take swift action to combat inflation.

“We still have a significant period of time where The Bahamas will be going through a roller coaster of ups and downs, and we need to prepare ourselves for not just a recession, but a change of mindset to prepare ourselves for all events in the future,” Mr Bowe said at the time.