Retailers are currently grappling with various challenges, including shifting consumer behavior, potential inflation and recession, and intense competition. Despite the ongoing economic tension and lingering uncertainty, shoppers are expected to feel more confident in 2024. Let’s explore how to make the most of Black Friday 2024!
When Is Black Friday 2024?
Black Friday 2024 will occur on November 29, the day after Thanksgiving. It remains one of the most eagerly awaited events, kicking off the holiday shopping season.
What Can Retailers Expect This Year?
Retailers will likely see record sales, driven by increased consumer spending and a rising demand for early deals.
Preparation for Black Friday begins well in advance, as competition typically intensifies. This is especially noticeable in fields like electronics (especially among Apple resellers), clothing, and home goods.
According to a CNBC report, sales are projected to rise by 2.5-3.5% compared to Black Friday 2023, potentially reaching nearly $990 billion. However, inflation and consumer debt could influence these figures, leading buyers to focus primarily on essential and high-ticket items. Additionally, online sales are anticipated to be crucial for retailers’ success.
What Was Black Friday Like in Previous Years?
In recent years, consumer behavior has change dramatically. On Black Friday 2021, as COVID-19 restrictions began to ease, US shoppers spent around $8.9 billion. It was a slight decrease from 2020 when spending was about $9 billion. Moreover, many retailers started advertising campaigns and sales as early as October, extending the traditional discount season.
By 2022, online Black Friday sales climbed to $9.12 billion, with toys, electronics, and computers among the most sought-after items.
In 2023, Black Friday saw an impressive surge, with shoppers spending a record $16.4 billion! Online purchases accounted for 68% of total sales, and 54% were made via mobile devices. Like in 2022, the top categories included electronics, clothing, and home goods. The trend is evident: Black Friday sales are continuing to grow remarkably.
How to Prepare for BF: Tips for Retailers
In today’s world, a one-size-fits-all shopping experience just doesn’t cut it. Customers now expect a personalized approach and product recommendations aligning with their interests.
According to Salesforce, 84% of consumers believe treating them as individuals rather than just numbers is crucial for securing their business. So, how can you transform shoppers into your biggest supporters this Black Friday?
Focusing on Personalization Can Enhance Your Additional and Cross-selling Efforts
Personalized recommendation feeds serve as an excellent way to engage customers. You can streamline cross-selling and upselling by presenting options tailored specifically to their preferences.
Why is this effective? The reason is straightforward: you acknowledge the customer’s individual needs, which fosters increased loyalty. Where should you incorporate personalized content and recommendations? Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are among the best venues. They can enhance interactions with customers and help recover your advertising investments.
Conduct a Multichannel Campaign
Even with the continued appeal of offline shopping, many customers base their buying decisions on information they find online. It highlights the importance of facilitating purchases through various channels — whether in physical stores, smartphones, or laptops. Additionally, it’s crucial to consider factors like demographics, geographic location, browsing habits, and cross-device targeting.
So, how can you boost customer engagement in a multichannel campaign? Among other strategies, engage with customers on social media, run contests, provide promotional flyers, create personalized content, and encourage referrals.
Enhance Your Marketing Strategy
Boost website performance
One of the key steps to prepare for Black Friday is to check your website hosting. Ensure you have sufficient bandwidth, memory, storage, and computing power to deliver a seamless and enjoyable shopping experience.
Reduce cart abandonment rate
What can you do to prevent users from leaving your site after they’ve added items to their cart? Here are some effective strategies:
- Streamline the checkout process;
- Incorporate mobile shopping options;
- Implement promotions that align with customer intent;
- Build trust by showcasing the legitimacy and integrity of your business;
- Introduce cart-saving features for later checkout;
- Provide free shipping on orders over a certain amount.
Assess your product pages
A better user experience translates to increased online sales. You can enhance this by refining product descriptions, using engaging language, using relevant keywords, and adding a FAQ section.
Keep information current
Customers must receive timely information both online and offline. Therefore, all social media accounts should reflect in-store updates, ensuring a consistent brand message.
Product Value vs. Pricing Strategy
When planning for a sales season, it’s crucial to manage promotions wisely and identify the brand’s Key Value Items (KVI).
Effective management of promotional campaigns
Planning for Black Friday and ensuring it aligns with the overall marketing strategy is essential for margin growth. However, brands often end up doing the opposite in their quest for outstanding results, which can harm margins and undermine the annual trading strategy.
The best approach for Black Friday is to manage promotional campaigns intelligently using platforms like Competera. This tool allows you to set up sales quickly, visualize data from past promotions, plan future ones, test various scenarios, and predict potential outcomes.
Coordinating marketing and pricing efforts
The primary goal for every retailer is to attract new customers and convert them into loyal ones. Pricing plays a vital role in this process.
Customers may not scrutinize all your prices, but they will compare the prices of products they are interested in with those from other stores. It’s the retailer’s responsibility to present these products with the most appealing discounts on Black Friday.
Often, customers are quite familiar with the prices of KVI products. Advanced algorithms, like those offered by Competera, can assist retailers in applying the right pricing strategy for each product category, including key price offers. This way, you can avoid setting the lowest price for KVI and instead create optimal prices based on various factors to maximize profit.
Conclusion
Now, you have a clearer picture of what to expect from Black Friday 2024. We hope our suggestions will assist you in reaching your goals and even surpassing your expectations!
