Getting Ready For Black Friday? We Are Here For You.

Friday, November 24, Black Friday 2022  An extremely important date (or prolonged weekend, also known as BFCM, Black Friday – Cyber Monday) for most of the merchants, both offline and online. Some say that up to 10% percent of their annual revenue happens in those few days.

Therefore, preparing a good offer for Black Friday is crucial for every merchant.

What does ‘a good offer’ mean?

It can mean different things to different type of merchants, but end customers are generally considering it through one lens: discounts.

So, the first step is to create an offer that shall attract significantly more customers in store or on your eCommerce website. The universe is inclined to you in this case. :) Since the customers are expecting discounts in that period, they plan to visit shops, both offline and online. So, your job is to create a good tagline to attract them to enter the shop (or to click online).

How can merchants’ approach to this topic to create a successful outcome?

There are a few methods you can choose and here are some of them:

  1. Choose your top-seller product(s)

This might be a good approach if you have one or few products that are generally best sellers. By focusing your marketing budget to create a significant discount on those products (depending on your industry this can mean different things, from 20% to 70%), you can attract a lot of customers to your shop.

Then it’s time for your second task: upsell and cross-sell.

Be ready to offer additional products that go along the best-selling one, or to offer additional smaller discount on second product purchased at the same time. Now is not the time to improvise – prepare a specific products to offer along with the main offer, work with your sales people of web development agencies to implement it properly and timely.

 

  1. Discount a part of the portfolio

If your portfolio is divided in product categories, you might want to choose one or two and focus your marketing budget to make them stars of your Black Friday offer. Whether you discount the whole category at the same rate (e.g., 20%) or you have a few levels of discounts (e.g., 20-40%), be sure to communicate it clearly and keep your promise. If the advertisement says all ovens 30% off, then every oven must be 30% off, because putting a small asterix (*) next to it, and leaving one premium brand out can disappoint your customers and create a counter-effect.

Again, like in the first case, when you have your customers’ attention, offer something additional –

 a complementary product or an additional 5% or 10% to the second product.

 

  1. Create an all-around discount (e.g., 10% off everything or 20% off for purchases larger than 50€)

Depending on your product portfolio and type of goods you sell, you might want to choose to discount the whole portfolio, with or without conditions (e.g., cart size). This shall work only if the offer is attractive – if you usually offer discount like this every first Tuesday in a month, it shall not be perceived like something special. But if it is very rare or never seen, it might be a win!

What are other benefits from this type of offer?

You will probably attract part of customers that don’t usually buy at your store. Make sure that your employees (or your eCommerce website) are fit and ready to serve them with a smile on their face. Good service shall make those customers to come back again, even when there is no discount.

EXTRA ADVICE FOR PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES:

  1. If you use dynamic pricing during Black Friday, be careful when designing your banners and other marketing materials. Avoid placing exact percentage or price to a single product on a banner, since this may change frequently. Use dynamic ad formats to deliver currently valid prices.
  2. Use eCommerce integrations with Facebook, Google and other PPC services to optimize ads according to product’s availability. You do not want to pay ads for products out of stock, right?
  3. The Black Friday marketing message must be clear and specific, because 99,9% of the merchants will have Black Friday offers. Create your own logic, keep it few years in a row and you will become recognizable and memorable for your customers.

How to prepare the offer? KLIKER can help you

Depending on the industry and the lead time for the goods you sell, you might have started with BF preparations already in August. This last month is crucial.

Few tips on how KLIKER market can help you while creating a Black Friday offer:

  1. TIMING
  2. COMPETITION MONITORING
  3. PRICING

 

1. Timing

First decision to make are the dates for BLACK FRIDAY promotion start and end. It would be useful to know what your competition did last year, right?

Well, with KLIKER market it’s possible!

There are two ways to research what the competition was doing last year this time.

  1. PRICE HISTORY GRAPH for every product
  • observe when and how much have retailers changed prices for products during the last November and December

*NOTE: this feature is available through My Market for products that are still available to buy.
If you would like to obtain this data for products not listed on the market anymore (EOL), we are able to generate a custom report for you.

  1. PROMOTION BRAND SHARE for each product category per retailer
  • get a broader picture – from product level we suggest jumping to category and brand level and observe each brand’s share in promotions on total market, or for a specific retailer

*NOTE: this feature is available through Promotion Brand Share graph on your Dashboard

If you don’t want to spend advertising budget too early, or at the same time as your strongest competitor, use KLIKER market to research last years’ trends.

2. Competition monitoring

Competition monitoring should be a standard activity in any commercial team. To maintain a competitive offer, you must be always aware of your competitive landscape. KLIKER market enables you to have the whole overview of competitors on one place in real time.

My Market screen in KLIKER market is showing current market situation in one table view, with advanced filters:

  • Lower Pricesfiltering only products where at least one other retailer has lower prices than me (assuming I am a retailer or a brand with my own brand store)
  • Best Pricefiltering the products where I have the best price on the market
  • Promotionfiltering the products currently on promotion
  • Exclusivefiltering the exclusive products in my offer (no other retailer has it in their offer)
  • Missingfiltering the products available on the market, but missing in my offer
  • Stockfiltering only the products on stock (hiding the unavailable ones)

Tracking all brands and products on the market, through all key retailers and eCommerce sellers, with daily market changes can become your competitive advantage.

How?

Using the availability information and combining them with promotion and pricing information, every seller can optimize product offers during Black Friday period.

3. Pricing

Pricing strategy is extremely important in eCommerce and retail because it directly creates expectations in your customer base.

Read more about top pricing strategies for successful brand management.

Example: if you regularly offer 20% off on all purchases once a month, most of the customers will quickly notice this pattern and wait for promotion. Your sales in the days prior to the promotion day(s) will, most probably, be very low, since customers will wait for the discount patiently. Believe it or not, but the same goes for yearly patterns – customers remember well what happened last year or the year before that. Some buyers even have lists of Black-Friday-to-buy shops, where they buy once a year, during Black Friday sales promotion.

 

How to optimize your pricing strategy during Black Friday period?

  1. Availability – track product availability for products on promotion throughout the retail channel – if you notice the availability is low for a certain product, reconsider having it on promotion or adjust the discount percentage

 

  1. Price Difference – analyse price differences between the best price and the second-best offer – Example for product A
    - average price on the market for this product is € 300.00
    - second best on the market is € 280.00
    - the best price (your price, promotion) is € 200.00

Why wouldn’t you raise it to € 225.00, earn extra € 25.00 and still have 20% lower price than the rest of the market?

OK, but how can I do this for every product on the market?

With our automatized competitiveness report – Excel sheet ready to download with one click, with price differences calculated for every product. This feature is available on Dashboard, next to the Boost your profit graph.

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To summarize, here are a few simple dos and don’ts when creating a Black Friday offer:

PROs: DON’Ts: 
  • Create a simple and memorable offer
  • Be consistent year to year, so customers can remember you
  • Prepare upsell and cross-sell offers to your main offer – don’t let your salespeople improvise
  • Keep an eye on your competition during the BF offer and adjust your offer to be even more competitive – KLIKER is here for you
  • Up to 40% off everything – not sending a clear message, customers have prejudices that you will have 2 items 40% off, and others on 10% or 15%
  • Discount only old stock – this is not a garage sale; the customers expect relevant discounts for regular offer

 

Is it time to start?

We believe it is!

Use your KLIKER market login credentials and check last year’s movements in November, and start to plan your best Black Friday offer ever.

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If you do not have a KLIKER market account yet, contact us and we will create a demo account for you promptly.

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