No doubt the 27th November 2015 has been etched on your mind for several months now. It is the date upon which Black Friday falls this year and if some predictions are true, it will be the first time that sales during this relatively new phenomenon in the UK will have topped the one billion pound mark.
Many of the major promotions that you will be offering on Black Friday and Cyber Monday (30th November) will have undoubtedly been planned for some time now, with the events just several months away. It is now all about refinement. Learning the lessons from the previous year, ensuring systems and processes are able to cope during and after, ensuring the right levels of stock have been ordered to meet expected demand and finalising the marketing effort in readiness to attract and drive visitors to the site.
You may think that now is not the ideal time to be throwing new ideas in to the mix, but it really is. In fact, there are several techniques that are relatively simple to deploy but could make a huge difference to how you feel on the 1st December when you look at the figures.
Counting down in real-time
One technique that worked extremely well for retailers last year (in the run-up to and during the flash-sales) was the use of real-time countdown timers, both on the website and in outbound email messages.
Because these timers can be embedded in an email it means that whenever it is opened or reopened it only ever displays the up-to-date time until the beginning or end of the event. This can be especially useful given that in the UK Black Friday and Cyber Monday fall on working days of the week for most of us. For example, sending an email at 11am with a one hour countdown to a lunchtime promotion, or at 4pm before the rush-hour can be great way to entice visitors to the website, especially if it accompanied by other fresh and relevant content.
A queue is a sales opportunity
Another popular occurrence last year was the implementation of queuing systems in an attempt control the flow of traffic on to the site. Of course, it also works to create a sense of urgency in the mind of the visitor. If you have queued for 15 minutes (and as Brits we are ever so disciplined) you may have a higher predisposition to making a purchase, as well as making a quicker decision. Afterall, you don’t want to miss out, or go through the queuing process again for that matter. One ‘trick’ that retailers using these systems miss out on is using this time when you have a captive audience to push information and sell to them.
This isn’t a new idea, but implementing it in this way is. Organisations have been using this technique for many years, to engage with customers that wait in on-hold on the telephone. Using the same technique online makes perfect sense. Whilst they are waiting you can present information to them that will not only pass the time but also provide valuable information based on their personal preferences, what people are looking at and buying right now based on crowd-sourced data, new product-lines that will be available at the time they are given full access to the site, or stock updates to further entice or avoid disappointment. The list is exhaustive.
Don’t forget your cart abandonment
As I said earlier, a one-day sale on a work day can present a challenge for would-be customers. Queuing to get access to the store and browsing can leave little room for getting through the checkout before the end of the lunchbreak. Cart abandonment rates can be expected to be higher on these two days due to the increased traffic. So, it stands to reason that if you can get your abandonment strategy right the recovered sales will also be greater. The ideal email will arrive within the hour of abandonment and will display the content of the basket (product images work better than plain text), availability information (or alternatives if out-of-stock), a countdown timer to when to place an order needs to be placed in order to meet a specific delivery date, and a link directly to the checkout that circumvents or places the customer at the front of the queue.
All of this can be realistically implemented, tested and perfected well in advance of the 27th November. It is looking to be the biggest spending online shopping weekend we have ever seen in the UK, and one of the most hard fought. Giving yourself even the smallest competitive edge could reap some of the biggest rewards.
By Mike Austin, CEO of Fresh Relevance.
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.
comments powered by Disqus