It’s the concentrated selling period that can make or break a retail business’ year, online or offline, and whether we view through the lens of Quarter 4, Christmas Trading or (heaven forbid) we hang our hats on the single weekend juggernaut that is BFCM (Black Friday/ Cyber Monday), the facts remain the same – successful Peak Trading does not happen by accident. It takes detailed planning, careful execution, and data-based decision making.
With that in mind, here are your 8 Must-Do’s for a successful peak period, with emphasis on Black Friday
1. BRAND
The first, and most important consideration for your business is your Customer, and how they perceive your Brand. Are you a premium or luxury retailer, who doesn’t do discounting? Are you a socially-conscious brand who doesn’t like to promote over-consumption? Are you already offering great value and don’t have much room to manouveur on price? There are miriad reasons why dialling up the marketing volume, or getting more aggressive with discounting, may not be right for your brand. This is a decision for your business, and our view is that it’s AOK not to ‘do Black Friday’ provided you have an alternative plan to drive trade and hit your targets, during this very noisy period in the market.
2. DATA
For any type of retail success, but particularly eCommerce, you must consult the data! This means a couple of things:
Last year: Look back at last year’s trading data. What categories, subcategories, brands and products sold well? What marketing channels drove the most traffic, the highest conversion rates and the best return? What dates did you deploy your key campaigns? When were the traffic spikes, and importantly, when did you cut off Last Delivery in time for Christmas? How many orders were you averaging per day and did your Ops team manage this volume. This is not to say you need to do everything identically to last year, but it will give you a roadmap to work from, for this year’s trading
This year: What are your targets for this year, and your current run rate? If you’re targeting X% more orders, then have you upweighted the Ops team to deal with this increase?
A simple calculation that can help with this is to take your Sales Target (let’s say per week) and divide this by your Average Order Value to get the Number of Orders that you will be required to fulfil during that week.
You can also take use this Number of Orders to calculate a Traffic forecast, by multiplying by Conversion Rate. When you know your Sessions target, you can allocate a realistic budget, decide on resources, and plan campaigns accordingly.
3. STOCK
Do you have (or can you secure) the necessary Stock to hit your forecast? Again, your Last Year data will give you an idea of what is selling when, and your current run rate will help contextualise for this year, but now is the time to map out what you think you’ll sell and make sure you have it to hand.
4. CAMPAIGN CALENDAR
It’s happened to all of us at one time – you’ve had an amazing idea for a marketing campaign or piece of content, but the moment is NOW and it needs to be done TODAY, with the result that execution wasn’t as good as it could have been, or you’ve missed a sales opportunity that you didn’t foresee. This can be avoided with better planning. Our advice is:
- Sit down with your team now (like today!)
- Get collaborative and creative, and start the ideas flowing
- Clearly surface your monthly forecasts and your stock position
- Plan out your campaign activity to the end of the year (At a minimum, you should have a Campaign focus, a hero product/collection and a promotion mechanic per week)
- Communicate this plan widely. Share with the team and any external resources, agencies, freelancers.
- Use the plan as your Marketing Operations driver for these weeks.
- Golden Rule: It is easier to iterate and be reactive, when you have a proactive plan in place
5. DISCOUNTING:
Profitability has been the topic of 2024 in eCommerce, where retailers are increasingly focused on true contribution, versus Gross Sales. This raises the million dollar question for Black Friday – what will your discount strategy be? Will you go for the high peak of BFCM weekend and just do a large, blanket discount for a few days? Or, will you be tactical and start early with several weeks of strategic offers, promotions and campaigns, that spread the Sales risk and (crucially) protect margin. We’d advise the latter.
To the earlier point, it’s also fine to opt out of aggressive discounting, if it’s not for you – provided you have an alternative in mind. Can you add value for your customers with a free gift/ chance to win a prize/ VIP experience? Could you surprise and delight your top customers with clever use of data? Can you put in place a bounceback mechanism that will bring customers back in the New Year?
6. RESOURCES:
Central to all of our advice for Retailers (at Peak and indeed throughout the year) is the importance of being realistic. For retail businesses to function successfully, it’s critically important they have a realistic lens on the job at hand. If you’ve followed the earlier points and formulated your plan, then you know what needs to be done and when – but have you adequately considered by whom?
You’ll need to have the right team in place across:
- Website: Do you need an extra pair of hands on your team to get products online, descriptions written, images sourced, website optimised?Remember Outsourcing is always an option – if you need help with this aspect of your workflow, contact us today for flexible, affordable outsourcing options.
- Digital Marketing: Can you manage some channels e.g. organic social internally? Who will look after Email Marketing? Do you need to engage an agency or freelancer on your Paid Search, Paid Social? Do you have the budget?
- Operations: For many of your customers over Peak, it will be the first time they’ve shopped with you. With that in mind, you need to make sure it’s a great experience and that there are no delays/ mistakes/ problems with their order. Have you adequately resourced Pick & Pack to get your forecasted volume of orders out in a timely fashion?
- Customer Care: Similarly, is there sufficient resource on the phone, email and social media moderation to handle the volumes that might arise?
LIttle Rock Digital can offer support on any aspect of your eCommerce business. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation conversation or brain-pick about your business’ needs.
