Black Friday is no doubt the biggest shopping day of the year and as competition heats up, you don’t want to miss out on the sales generated this November 24th. So how can you make the most of this critical retail date?
Why Black Friday?
Originally a term used from Philadelphia in the early 1950’s to describe a pre-Christmas mayhem which ensued following Thanksgiving. Initially used by retailers to encourage sales to put get profits into the ‘black’. Black Friday takes place on the fourth Friday in November and was introduced to the UK by online retail giant Amazon in 2010 and ASDA (owned by America’s largest retailer Walmart) following suit in 2013.
Not just a one-day event
Of course, following Black Friday is Cyber Monday, taking place on the Monday immediately after. Unlike Black Friday, where retailers have offers in-store as well as on online, Cyber Monday is online only, although many stores will have deals running during this weekend (Cyber Weekend).
With a little over a month before Christmas, Black Friday is the perfect to time for any potential customers to take advantage of your offers for their Christmas holiday shopping. As Black Friday grows bigger and bigger, you aren’t just competing to slash prices on Black Friday, many retailers offering competitive deals in the lead-up to the event, too. In 2016, Currys were offering up to 50% savings in the run-up and Amazon launching their own Black Friday deals 12 days early!
Optimising your promotions
Whatever your strategy, when it comes to Google Shopping there are some specific points to consider when running promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In particular, when using Voucher Codes or Special Offers, you need to be very aware of the following criteria to meet compliance with Google:
- Submit promotional offers at least 10 days prior to the promotion going live (14 -15 Nov 2017)
- Ensure all promotions have been set up on your website prior to creating promotions in the Merchant Centre
- The Google promotion team have limited resources and may not get around to approving late entries in time for your activities
The promotion team do not work after 5pm and weekends, so give plenty of time for Google to review and approve promotions prior to making your promotion ‘live’.
Other considerations?
For hard markdowns, you also need to consider the following:
- Sale / Markdown duration times or price strategies
- Specific brands or products to push
- Any other offers? 2-4-1, Buy 1 Get 1 Free etc.
Mobile ready?
With shoppers using a combination of store visits as well as online browsing, mobile is now the most popular channel for purchasing goods. With improved apps and the ability to pay without the need to continually load card details makes for easy shopping-on-the-go. Small wonder then, the UK saw 64% of purchases made on mobile devices in 2016, up from 48% in 2015*.
As retailers across the board reported an increase in mobile transactions, the smartphone is proving to be the real gateway to the ‘digital’ high street. With this trend, more consumers shop online in the middle of the night than ever before, avoiding queues and removing the need to be present at the checkout.
For further information on how Onefeed could assist with your Shopping campaigns, please call the sales team on 01202 497077 or email sales@onefeed.co.uk
*Source: ChannelAdvisor
