Black Friday isn’t what it used to be. Some shoppers might line up while their Thanksgiving dinner is still digesting, but one retailer so far has opted out. REI will keep stores closed on Black Friday instead of luring shoppers with doorbusters and encouraging the “open, open, open!” mentality. A logical question from anyone who knows basic economics might be “are they crazy?!”
Not in my opinion and I’ll explain why.
A recent study from Deloitte shows that shoppers simply don’t find Black Friday as important, as 52 percent of consumers don’t rely on the shopping day as much as they used to. Cyber Monday is in a similar boat, with 41 percent saying they don’t rely on it, compared to 36 percent in 2014. While this might make retailers nervous, it’s really just an indication of a longer holiday season and 44 percent of retailers report that Black Friday is the most profitable day of the year for them.
Retailers started “holiday deals” as early as July and 59 percent of retailers had already started their promotions by September, according to a ChannelAdvisor survey. Shoppers are catching on to the numerous sales they can take advantage of instead of concentrating their purchases on a few days.
I’m not saying that it will be a lackluster holiday season by any means, but the National Retail Federation’s projections are telling. They predict that during November and December retail sales will increase by 3.7 percent, down from the 2014 jump of 4.1 percent, but still better than the 10 year average increase of 2.5 percent.
Deloitte’s data, on the other hand, is a bit more optimistic. It illuminates the fact that consumers plan to spend 12.5 percent more this holiday season. They’ll spend an average of $487 on gifts, representing a 6 percent growth from last year. However, self-gifting and other purchases will represent a much larger chunk of $976, a boost of 16 percent over 2014.
What Retailers Can Do to Make the Most of the Holidays
- Improve product descriptions and images: 54 percent of shoppers choose to go in-store because they want to fully experience the product. Also, before committing to a purchase, 82 percent will research items online.
- Now’s the time to improve product information offered online to make sure shoppers feel like they know everything they need to in order to make the purchase.
- Provide strategic free shipping: 72 percent of shoppers plan to make use of free shipping offers this holiday season and 31 percent of shoppers opt to check out in-store in order to avoid shipping costs.
- Have a free shipping threshold that is above your average order value and incentivizes shoppers to spend a bit more.
- Optimize for new and returning customers: shoppers plan to spend 75 percent of their total holiday budget at stores and on websites they’ve been to before. At the same time, 72 percent will try out new stores that they haven’t purchased from previously.
- Reward returning customers with personalized offers that show how much you appreciate their business. It’s also useful to have appealing pricing and promotions overall that get shoppers to check out for the first time.
- Align selling channels: multichannel retailers have it made this holiday season because shoppers are using all available channels to make purchases. About 69 percent of shoppers will webroom this holiday season, or browsing online, then making the final purchase in-store. Alternatively, 52 percent will showroom, or start in-store, but go online to compare prices and check out there as well.
- Improve brand and customer experiences across channels to make checkout seamless.
