Well, it’s been a few minutes since Black Friday and Cyber Monday and it’s a bit like stumbling home with your shoes in your hands and the sun’s out. It was a big one. And things are still a bit of a blur. So what better time to give a post match report!
It’s probably sensible to give a bit of a caveat from the top – there are a few things we know, and a heck of a lot we don’t. Yet. But the things we do know are worth sharing.
First – November has a lot of sales packed into a month – Click Frenzy, Singles Day, Black Friday/Cyber Monday and probably a few bonus ones because, why not?
There’s about 5 tiers of approach the very intelligent and extremely awesome clients of WebSavvy fall into.
- The “I want no part of this” crowd. No sale – No nothing. Strong non conformist move here. Don’t cheapen your product and you’re going to get a natural bump since people are just ready to spend on the BFCM weekend. That bump might not be big, but the risk is small
- The “ALL MONTH LONG” crowd. Why fight it? For November it’s one thing only “you get a discount and you get a discount and you get a discount…”
- The “Just the highlights please” crowd. Participating in Click Frenzy and BFCM only.
- The “Traditionalists”. Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s the biggest weekend for a reason and that’s it. A mix of approaches of big discounts, site wide sales or value adds (sometimes through charitable donations for every product sold).
- The “Minestrone” (Muligatone? Minnestrawny?) I didn’t want to use “miscellaneous” so I went with the soup that you throw in whatever’s left. This is where you see a lot of different takes, things like a specific product launch, a sale in the week between or something that’s potentially unexpected.
There simply isn’t a ‘correct’ or ‘best’ approach, every brand makes the decision based on their unique experience, values and intuition. And guess what? They all pay off.
So far, an amazing 87% of our ecommerce clients met or exceeded their forecasts for the sales heavy month of November. See our Data heavy chart below.
Those few that didn’t are a combination of it being too soon and an unfortunate credit card issue (luckily they were a “I want no part of this” tier). Which is a great reminder to double check all credit cards and back up cards before major promo’s.
Going into the month contrasting views of increased spends against record low consumer sentiment didn’t have any one confidently suggesting this was going to be a record breaking month. Now that the dust has settled – it has been a record smashing time for a number of WebSavvy Clients.
Phew. Feet up. Good thing there’s no more sales to come. Other than Christmas.
And last minute gifting.
And Boxing Day.
And New Year, New You.
And a few others than may sneak in along the way….
