Originating from the US, Black Friday was the day, signifying the start of the festive period, where high street stores opened their bricks and mortar doors extra early to allow shoppers early access to product discounts. While in the store, why not browse another department, or take your time and grab some lunch while considering what other stores to go to. Increased footfall, brand loyalty, higher opportunity of an up-sell or a cross-sell.
A seemingly far cry from the electronic experience that we have now where you can bookmark the exact page of the product that we are interested in; or save an item to your Wish List ready to pounce on the discount when it happens.
But with the adoption of this new day in our marketing calendar, some household brands are standing their ground and publicly choosing not to join in the one-day sale. Some may call it sales suicide, while others may say they are maintaining the integrity of the brand. John Lewis, for example, have said openly that they have “never knowingly undersold”, so why should they drop their prices even further just for the one day.
If you are electing to use the ready-made marketing for your online business, how can you prepare your online store ready for Black Friday:
- Ensure your website is hosted in a secure and reliable environment. With a sudden surge in traffic, the last thing any online store wants is downtime.
- Increase page load speeds, making sure that image heavy pages are well optimised and not sluggish
- Ensure your stock levels are high, and if you only have limited stock of an item, have a contingency plan in place so your customers aren’t left frustrated
- And one of the most important points of all, ensure that your website’s user experience is of the absolute best nature it can be. This should be considered throughout the year, and not just when the traffic is there for the taking. Test, test and then test some more.
If you are unsure how to make the most out of your website come the 20th November, give our friendly team at Ultimate a call. We aren’t just experts in the look and feel of a website but have experts in-house to help develop your site further and have your products and services seen by your target market.