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by Celia Guimaraes November 27, 2019Black Friday is upon us and the trends of what has become the most important shopping event of the year, both for consumers and for Italian companies are growing: eBay, for example, estimates that over 20.5 million Italians will make purchases during the next Black Friday and will be ready to spend over 2 billion and 380 million euros, for an average of 116 euros per person.

For Codacons, Black Friday will generate this year in Italy, along with the whole week of discounts and special promotions linked to the event, a turnover that will reach 2 billion euros, with an expected growth of + 20% on 2018. The lion's share will once again be e-commerce, with 1.4 billion euro of online transactions, which will involve a total of about 17 million Italians, with a constant increase compared to last year.

The repentant of compulsive e-commerce
But there is a problem, the bargain hunting does not often lead to the desired results, at least according to the results of a research on the buying habits of Italians in one of the most important days of the year for shopping, conducted by Hmd parent company of Nokia phones, between 15 and 21 November.

The most relevant data highlights how in our country there is a tendency to buy impulse, often for articles that we regret: in fact one third of Italians intend to make purchases during Black Friday, but the same percentage of respondents (30 percent) he claims to act very often with impulse, buying items that are often not needed, with negative consequences on pockets and mood. The per capita expenditure forecast, according to Hmd, ranges from 120 euros to 300 euros.

Before the click, ask yourself a few questions
A tradition increasingly widespread in Italy to hunt for special offers, capable of gratifying on the spot, but often not in the long run. Here are some tips (by Fastweb) on how to make the most of Black Friday on e-commerce sites, business favorites and questions to ask before clicking "buy now": do I really need it? Is it the latest model? Because often, during discounted sales at an advantageous price, a warehouse waste is hidden.

And then it is not enough to look at the first available site, but it is worth checking if it is for sale somewhere else and how the price has changed over time, monitoring the trend with free tools found in many platforms to compare offers.

We are the country of word of mouth
How do Italians decide to buy on Black Friday? Word of mouth and online reviews, for 70% of customers, are essential for deciding whether or not to buy from a company: this is the result of a Trustpilot survey, an online review platform, conducted in collaboration with YouGov, an international research company of the market.

According to the survey, in Italy 75% of respondents trust the advice of friends and family; not trusting word of mouth is only 2%. A figure that highlights how Italy is the European country that has the most confidence in the judgment of known people, followed by Holland (68%) and France (64%). Almost on the same level, 72% of Italian respondents say they read the reviews before buying a product.

64% of respondents trust a lot or enough of reviews on unbiased sites, only 46% trust reviews managed directly on the official website of the brand. Finally, 53% of Italian consumers trust the comments left on a company's social pages.

Taken Marketplace
Black Friday is confirmed throughout Europe as a driving force for large online sales platforms. This is clarified by another survey, this time on behalf of UPS Pulse: among e-shoppers we find ourselves all or almost - with an average of over 95% - on the marketplace to choose our purchase.

Between Italians and Spaniards, then there are different affinities: 13% like loyalty programs to save money; 41% are willing to wait for longer delivery times to get free shipping. The Italian e-shopper is aligned with the French one regarding the return of goods: 67% consider it a determining factor to decide whether or not to continue their shopping experience.

The weak link: security
Black Friday becomes more popular each year and for this reason, as revealed by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky report, online users are increasingly exposed to the risk of falling victim to cyber attacks. E-commerce attacks targeting customers have increased by 15% compared to last year. This year, Amazon announced a week of discounts in anticipation of the big day, an opportunity also for cyber criminals, with additional opportunities to move ahead.

Scammers, for example, try to convince online customers to be someone else, remembers another computer security company, Barracuda. When intercepting an online bargain, the first thing to do is to verify the source. Many online scams start with 'phishing' emails that pretend to come from popular brands.

Ads and offers that arrive via social media should also be viewed with suspicion. Scammers, or scammers, often use sites like Facebook and Twitter to reach their goal.

Other safety tips, this time from the Proofpoint company: use strong passwords (with numbers, letters and special characters) and do not reuse the same password more than once. And again, avoid open (public) wifi networks: they are not secure and hackers can intercept transferred data passing through unprotected networks, including credit card details, passwords, account information and much more.