Consumers in New Zealand and Australia flocked to shops last week eager to seek out the incredible deals that have come
to be associated with Black Friday. Having adopted the US retail tradition in recent years many local companies, like
online shopping site Mighty Ape, were happy to oblige customers with Black Friday deals, resulting in a win-win situation for customers and retailers alike.
To put into perspective the demand for Mighty Ape’s Black Friday deals, new orders on Thursday and Friday rolled in at a
rate of one product ordered every three seconds on average for 48 hours. During the peak sales hour between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thursday night, one product was ordered every 1.5 seconds.
Mighty Ape gave paid members of their Primate subscription service early access to the Black Friday Sale from Thursday
morning, before extending access to the general public later in the afternoon. Many customers eager for a first look at
Mighty Ape’s Black Friday offerings subscribed to Primate to take advantage of the early access. In the four days prior
to Black Friday, new Primate subscriptions were up over 1200% compared to the first two weeks of November. On Thursday
when the early access period started almost 1,000 customers became new Primate members.
Black Friday created a massive surge in orders resulting in the two biggest sales days in Mighty Ape’s 11-year history. Staff worked eagerly to dispatch Black Friday orders resulting in another record-breaking day on Monday, December 2nd
- the most orders shipped in a single day.
To conquer the mountain of Black Friday orders, Mighty Ape added additional staff and extended warehouse operation hours
from their regular 10-hour shift to 16-hours, 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. NZ Post also brought on extra planes, trucks, vans, and
staff to assist.
“Black Friday has picked up momentum in NZ and become a key shopping event for Kiwis. Many local retailers prepared for
the event this year and we were no exception. A lot of work went into our sale starting months in advance,” commented Gracie MacKinlay, Chief Marketing Gorilla at Mighty Ape.
“The high participation of retailers and the quality of the sales this year helped to make this event the biggest
shopping day for many retailers. Black Friday fell on November 29th this year; later than in recent years. Being so
close to Christmas made this year's Black Friday even more massive.”
Mighty Ape’s Christmas shopping season is off to a record-breaking start. They have just kicked off their annual 24 Days
of Christmas promotion in which Mighty Ape will give away over $30,000 of prizes. This will no doubt lead to more wins for customers and the popular online retailer in the coming weeks.
About Mighty Ape:
Mighty Ape is New Zealand owned and operated, NZ’s largest online pure-play retailer. Their 10,000m2 Distribution Centre
is based in Millwater, Auckland and currently holds about one million products. They offer overnight delivery NZ-wide
and same day delivery to eligible areas in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Mighty Ape has a 4.9/5 rating on
Google for customer satisfaction based on 26,000+ reviews.