Social Influences on Black Friday

Black Friday is the busiest shopping day out of the year. It is a day filled with chaotic shoppers all fighting for the best deals that are offered for the holiday season. Not only is it crazy being one of those shoppers that are in with all the crazy shoppers, but also to witness at the shoppers as a worker at a retail store. This year for Black Friday I worked at Victoria’s Secret. Opening the doors at 5 in the morning and having tons of shoppers barge into the store for our deals was craziness. During this whole day I was able to witness the social influences that affected all the customers that came into the store. You knew that they were influenced socially by the information that they all had about our deals going on for Black Friday. They were able to find this information out by Victoria’s Secret commercials, ads, and website. Also, we as the retailers were definitely huge influencers because of how much we interacted with each customer. We were able to influence them by having the products that they were looking for, so all the products were in reach for them. Also, they had a large opportunity for two way communication because we as retailers were there to communicate to the customers face to face and inform them about our products and influence them in their buying decisions. Another thing that was in our advantage as retailers was that the customers found us to be credible in what we were talking about and we were knowledgeable on all the products we were selling. This shows how to the consumers we were known as the opinion leaders that day. We are very knowledgeable on all of our products in the store and since there is a huge variety of different merchandise in our store that is very important to a customer who wants to make the right purchase. For this reason the consumer perceives us as a credible source to them and as a socialite since we can easy initiate a discussion with the consumer so that they can buy what they were looking for. Victoria’s Secret products really can affect normative influence as well. Product characteristics in our store are very important the consumer since a lot of the time they are purchasing personal items that cost more than usual necessity items. Even though a lot of our merchandise is person necessity items, I feel that consumers are still influenced because they see us as the experts so our approval is very important to some consumers but not all. Also, some of our products are for the public to see so of course the consumers’ reference group influences have a lot heavier affect on their buying decision. We as the retailers and experts on our products really try to create that tie-strength reference group, so that we are able to have a strong relationship with each customer that we come into contact with because we want to make each of their shopping experiences the best. Especially at a store such as Victoria’s Secret, since it is a more intimate and personal store for consumers we really take an emphasis on creating a tie-strength relationship to each customer. Even though Black Friday is one of the craziest and hectic days to work in a retail store, it also gives an opportunity for major rewards to please many customers by just influencing them in the correct ways.