Dubai: Online retailers in the UAE have launched their pre-holiday sales promotions in a bid to give the e-commerce sector a shot in the arm by offering discounts of up to 80 per cent on certain products.

Many retailers are bringing the tactics that America’s biggest retailers use for Black Friday to the region. However, some are launching their promotions using a different name — White Friday.

Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving (November 25), has emerged as the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, with retailers offering huge discounts and attractive time-constraint deals. Black Friday also launches the Christmas shopping season.

Retailers in the UAE defended the practice saying that most consumers would not understand a Black (or White) Friday event. Usually, Black Friday sales last for 24 hours but many retailers in the UAE are holding the event for three days — November 25-28 — and some for more than a one week to coincide with the National Day.

An industry analyst said that the ‘Black Friday’ concept is gaining traction in the Middle East. Moreover, as there is a slowdown in the economy, the retailers are trying to boost sales by offering discounts wherever and whenever possible.

Omar Kassim, CEO of JadoPado, said that Black Friday has been gaining importance in the region and prices remain a very big factor for these kind of events. Consumers wait for these kinds of events to avail good discounts.

JadoPado is calling it Black Friday.

“We are offering about 60 per cent off, depending on the category. Weak oil prices haven’t impacted our online sales and the next two months are usually good for us,” he said.

The fast moving items for JadoPado are the usual stuff such as mobile phones, MacBooks, fashion, beauty, games and toys.

Ahmad Bakr, a research analyst at Euromonitor International Middle East, said that online consumer electronics retailing, which is growing from a low base, will touch $540 million (Dh1.98 billion) this year (around 5 per cent of the total market value) compared to $440 million last year.

The consumer electronics industry in the UAE is expected to grow by around 3 per cent this year to $11.8 billion compared to $11.5 billion last year.

He said that e-commerce is growing very fast as big retailers are pushing towards omnichannel strategy [unifying online and physical retail stores to lure shoppers] by offering big discounts. This is pushing consumers to buy products online rather than going to the store.

By 2021, he said that internet retailing will be around 10 per cent of the total sales value, around $1.1 billion. It will double in the next five years.

“We keep the concept of Black Friday. We are offering between 70 per cent and 80 per cent discounts on 100,000 products for three days (November 24-26). We expect around 500 per cent increase in sales during the three days,” said Ulugbek Yuldashev, owner and CEO of Awok.com.

Awok is also holding a National Day sale on December 2.

“We are going with the Mideast term as ‘White Friday’ and it is a great opportunity for us to showcase our new products. Because of the holiday season, we are focusing more on cosmetics as it is gaining traction in this part of the world,” said Venkat Reddy, chief experience officer at AlShop.online

Apart from cosmetics, AlShop.online is also offering discounts on electronics. The sale is for eight days, starting on Friday.

Reddy said that the company is offering between 35 per cent and 70 per cent discounts.

“As always, electronics are going to steal the limelight but this time I feel the latest range of cosmetics is going to give us the extra push to bring the sales up due to the holiday season,” he said.