Having been around in America since the 1960’s, Black Friday really took off for the first time in the UK during 2014. Although some retailers had tried to bring Black Friday to the UK in previous years, it wasn’t until American owned Asda and online giant Amazon really pushed it in 2013 that people started paying attention. By 2014 it had captured the attention of British shoppers looking for a bargain before Christmas, so how can your business make the most of this growing trend?
Decide if you’re going to be involved
After the massive sales of 2014, one thing that many people will remember Black Friday for is the chaos. Designer shopping outlet Bicester Village had to deal with miles of queues and abandoned cars, Currys’ servers couldn’t deal with the huge amount of traffic, and scuffles and disagreements broke out across the country. For all of these reasons, many companies have already decided not to have a Black Friday sale. Bicester Village were one of the first due to concerns about traffic chaos. Asda have abandoned Black Friday saying they don’t want customers to be held hostage to one day of sales, and will instead spread £26 million of savings across the festive period.
With big companies pulling out of Black Friday how can you decide if it’s right for your business to be involved? First of all it’s important to understand if a day of huge sales is going to benefit your business or create a loss and extra work. If you feel that the deals you will be offering are for the sake of doing something then it’s probably the wrong decision to get involved. If on the other hand you can see real value in driving extra traffic and generating extra sales in the lead up to Christmas then there will definitely be customers waiting for you on Black Friday.
What should I offer?
Lots of retailers will simply be offering a percentage discount on their products as a Black Friday deal. This is fine if it fits in with your business strategy but for many retailers, this won’t be a viable option.
Of course most business will want to capitalise on one of the biggest days of the year, but If big percentage discounts just don’t work for you how about making Black Friday work for you over a longer period by offering discount vouchers with purchases during Black Friday, which can then be used for any additional purchase in the lead up to Christmas. Even offers such as free shipping or a discount to your members club will encourage people to shop with you on Black Friday, so spend some time thinking about what’s best for your business before you just start slashing prices.
Be prepared
Follow the scout’s motto in the run up to Black Friday and be prepared. If you’re expecting a surge of traffic either instore or online make sure that your staff and servers are prepared. Last year Currys demonstrated what can happen if you’re not prepared - their website could not cope with the huge increase in traffic and people were waiting for hours to get on the site (interestingly, if you went to the PC World site, which had the same offers, there were no issues). Other physical stores had to resort to a one in one out policy to cope with the huge number of shoppers.
In the run up to Black Friday make sure your staff understand the deals and any changes in POS systems. You may also want to consider having extra staff available for an increased number of customer service calls. Be sure your technical team have the skills and hardware they need to deal with a sudden surge in traffic and have a team ready to act on any unexpected issues that will occur.
Marketing
There’s no point in having an amazing Black Friday sale if nobody knows about it. Make sure your marketing efforts start weeks before the big day, roping your customers in with previews of some of your best offers.
Currys have set up a dedicated Black Friday landing page which allows you to sign up to their Black Friday email list. Using an existing email list and even building new ones just for black Friday is a great idea as 27% of sales in 2014 were driven by email. But make sure yours stands out as lots of other retailers are going to be sending their deals around the same time. Retailers also need to make the most of their social channels to drum up excitement. In 2014 Amazon used their social channels to announce their best flash deals throughout the day with a trending hashtag. If Black Friday is going to be one of your biggest trading days of the year, it may be worth doing some paid advertising.
Things to remember
If you’re going to get involved with Black Friday, here are our top tips for making it a success:
- Make sure your offers work for you and your customers, there’s no point getting involved if no one benefits.
- Be prepared. If you’re not ready for customers, chances are they will go and find what they want elsewhere.
- Be reactive. Make sure all your customer service channels, including social media are well monitored so you can quickly address any issues.
- Make sure you market - you don’t want amazing deals, extra staff prepared and no customers.
- Make the most of Black Friday. Use it as a great chance to gather data ready for Christmas and to show customers how great your products and your customer service really are.
