Good sales required throughout the whole year, not just Black Friday – Malta Chamber

Shopkeepers expect good sales throughout the whole year, and not just Black Friday, the Chamber of Commerce said.

Despite the number of challenges faced by business, The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry noted that this year’s Black Friday, like in the previous years, in general left a positive impact on business particularly since the majority anticipated the challenging environment and sought to work around it. 

In fact, many businesses spread their offers over a week and even longer periods, the chamber said in a statement.  Ensuring extra precaution to avoid COVID spread, logistics and transhipment issues in respect of stock and the very bad weather conditions were just some of the few challenges experienced. 

The Malta Chamber noted that there has been a major shift in customer behaviour particularly the move from shopping-in-store to shopping online, hence the importance for business to keep abreast with and invest in digital innovation. 

Black Friday outcomes that occur once a year are not enough for business particularly given the current circumstances when business is going through a tough recovery period.  The Malta Chamber believes that there should be more incentives which help businesses to innovate and strengthen their online presence as well as further investment in well thought out infrastructure suitable for bad weather conditions.

A resilient environment will help businesses anticipate and set trends whilst ensuring good sales all year round.