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Unlock Black Friday Success by Elevating the Customer Experience

Unlock Black Friday Success by Elevating the Customer Experience

Unlock Black Friday Success by Elevating the Customer Experience

With summer coming to a close, thoughts quickly turn to the festive season, which means Black Friday is just around the corner. This checkpoint in the retail planner is seen as the date when spending for Christmas kick-starts. Sparked by American tradition since the 1950s, this special Friday follows Thanksgiving, which falls on the fourth Thursday in November.

This customary event has transformed a huge retail opportunity, with a fest of deals and offers. In response, many States in the US have chosen to lengthen the event and refer to the extended weekend as Cyber Five. This includes Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sunday (which has no name) and Cyber Monday to provide a 5-day retail-focused event.

In the UK, we may have been late to the party but in recent years this Americanism has made headway in the retail calendar and headlines in retail spending. First to support this growing phenomenon on the other side of the Atlantic, were US-owned stores such as Asda (previously owned by Walmart) and universally established, Amazon. They offered massively discounted prices on a range of products, enticing Christmas shoppers to spend, spend, spend, and using loss-leader techniques to bring in hordes of customers. Following their lead and announcement of handsome profits generated throughout the campaign, it wasn’t long before other retail giants and astute e-commerce sites followed suit.

With a vast number of retail businesses participating in Black Friday, here are some tips for improving the customer experience both online and offline, meaning more happy customers, increased sales and success this Black Friday.

Start Promoting Early

The Christmas shopping season seems to start earlier each year, with some businesses promoting their Black Friday offers as early as October. It’s not that strange of a sight to see Christmas decorations and the like in shops from as early as September! This coincides with the fact that consumers are starting their shopping research earlier as well, with Google Trends showing that the search interest for the term ‘Black Friday,’ steadily increases from the end of August.

With customers researching and planning early, make sure that they’re aware of your offers by promoting them in advance. Timing is crucial to avoid getting lost in the sea of emails and content from other businesses.

Maximise the number of people who will see your promotions by targeting both online and offline audiences. Use emails to reach those who are already subscribed to your newsletters and take advantage of social media to reach out and promote offers to new, potential customers. Considering that there are 56.2 million active social media users in the UK, which is about 82.8% of the population as of January 2024 (1), this is a huge market that can be tapped into.

In-store signs and flyers can show customers a preview of your upcoming Black Friday offers. Posters and outdoor signs can also be prepared in advance and are useful for informing shoppers of key details such as your BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) opening times, as well as the duration of the offers.

When discussing online and offline approaches, you may have heard of the term ‘omnichannel’ commerce. This is a strategy aiming to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience; a topic which we have explored previously.

Read more on the topic of omnichannel: The Changing Face of Retail: Unified Commerce, Omnichannel and Hybrid Shopping

Make Your Offers Clear & Simple

Any uncertainty or misunderstanding can deter customers when it comes to sales, so make sure that your offers are clearly communicated. You don’t need to come up with completely new or overcomplicated ideas to be successful. Take Amazon, for example, who played a significant role in popularising Black Friday outside of the US; their deals primarily consist of percentage discounts. Consider what offers you want to promote, whether it’s bundles, an amount off a product, a free gift, to name just a few.

Display plenty of posters and signs in-store so that customers can easily find products on sale with the relevant details. It can also be a good idea to use promotional signs outside your store, to attract shoppers to check out what you have on sale.

Use a variety of signs from standing sign holders to advertise the main offers in your window or to direct customers around your store, and use smaller slanted sign holders to highlight specific discounts.

View all Literature Holders

On your website, notify visitors of any limited-time offers in high-traffic areas such as the home page, top categories, and dedicated sales pages. If possible, add small banners to products/categories to make visitors aware of any specific offers. Ensure that the terms and conditions are easy to find (link them from any offers) to minimise frustration before customers reach the checkout, which leads on nicely to our next tip.

Minimise Checkout Frustration and Abandonment

One of the biggest factors for shoppers abandoning their carts is related to delivery. Slow shipping causes 23% of shoppers to abandon their carts, while expensive or hidden costs (whether from shipping or fees) influence 48% to also leave their basket. The average documented online shipping cart abandonment rate is a significant 70.19% (2). While there will always be abandoned carts due to influences beyond your control, there are some things you can do to help reduce this issue around BFCM.

If you don’t usually offer free delivery, consider making it a limited-time offer as part of your Black Friday sales. Or you could create a promotion where customers get free delivery when they spend a certain amount, which can help increase the average order value and encourage more sales. Another popular incentive businesses offer around Christmas is free returns, giving customers that extra peace of mind, especially for any gift purchases.

Aside from helping to manage the shopping crowds, rope barriers can also help to elevate your space and adding a luxurious touch.

View our Rope Barriers range.

In-store, arrange your store layout to help customers navigate and make their shopping experience more comfortable. For particularly busy shops, you could consider using a queuing system outside to limit the total number of customers inside at a time, allowing for better customer care. This is more often seen in luxury or high-end shops such as jewellery or beauty brands. Alternatively, it may be more helpful or relevant to extend the till queuing area inside, to mitigate frustration and give you more control over where customers will be standing. Using barriers also allows you to add in-queue merchandising for small essentials and stocking fillers.

In addition to using signs to highlight offers, extra signage can help direct people to key areas such as the tills/checkout, changing rooms and customer service desk.

Consider store layout as well. Place complementary or related products next to or close to each other to encourage additional sales.

View our blog: The Psychology of Retail: How Placement Influences Purchases

Keep the Momentum Going After Black Friday

While many shoppers who visit your store or website during BFCM may be familiar with your business, this is an excellent time to attract new customers; a point which we’ve touched upon earlier.

Use BFCM as an opportunity to grow your email list by offering incentives such as sign-up discount codes or information on upcoming offers. After the event, you can encourage customers to return and make additional purchases by providing referral or loyalty incentives.

Personalised emails, such as related or complementary products based on past purchases, can be even more effective. Studies have shown that 78% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend the brand to others if they receive personalised communications. Overall, companies that actively use personalisation have been found to generate 40% more revenue through those activities compared to those that don’t (3)(4).

When looking at in-store actions, providing a smooth and thoughtful shopping experience (akin to online stores) can help create loyal and returning customers. The added benefit of physical shopping is that staff can directly interact with shoppers and add that personal level of service that consumers value.


Traditionally, Black Friday lent more towards in-store shopping and Cyber Monday to online shopping, However, the lines have become more blurred with the same offers generally running throughout the weekend, with some starting their sales earlier and finishing later. And while online shopping has increased over the past few years, in-store shopping remains steady, so it’s important to give attention to both platforms, where applicable. It’s not enough to wing it, especially with the number of businesses getting involved with BFCM.

Attracting new customers can be challenging, and BFCM provides a prime opportunity to showcase your business to a wider audience. By investing attention to the overall shopping experience, you can give yourself the best chance for a successful Black Friday and continue the momentum long after the hype of the retail event has calmed.

References:

  1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/507405/uk-active-social-media-and-mobile-social-media-users/
  2. https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
  3. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
  4. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231208-the-art-and-science-of-hyper-personalised-shopping

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