The Black Friday Debate - How Does It Work For Businesses

Buying & Selling on Black Friday

With Black Friday showing no signs of going away it makes sense to embrace the benefits it can bring to your business both as a buyer and a seller. Some of the big-ticket items that you need to buy make sense to time with the big sales. With around 30% of annual sales taking place over this period it’s not to be ignored as a commercial opportunity for you to not only make substantial savings on purchases but also gearing your own business up to take advantage.

Traditionally businesses spend on new equipment when it wears out, needs to be upgraded for technologically reasons or simply because it’s that time where you spend your annual budgets to time with your tax year end. However, now with many more services, contracts and actual merchandise being purchased on a range of flexible payment solutions it may be wise to review your current schedules to take advantage of the savings on offer at this time of year.

A few tips for buying over Black Friday:

Decide what you need

Think of what your business needs now, as well as what you’ll need in the near future in order to execute your overall strategy—office essentials, computers, etc. Classify everything else as a secondary need—these would be less integral purchases, like a coffee machine for the kitchen. That way, you know exactly what your main priorities are and can limit impulse purchases which could lead to overspending.

As well as considering your core business needs, you might also think about the following:

• Legal & accounting solutions: It’s not the most obvious or glamorous subject for a sale, but many legal and accounting firms offer their services to businesses at a significantly reduced cost on Black Friday.

• Learning and Development: Black Friday sees many training providers slash the cost of video courses that would normally be out of scope. Gaining free access now could give you advance access to something you know is going to come up later. 

Do your research

Now that you’ve decided what you need, it’s important to know what the normal prices of these items are (so you know what you’ll save on Black Friday), and devise a safe buying strategy. Price comparison sites like Google Shopping are also useful tools to determine baseline prices.

If you can, pop into your nearest stores to test products in advance of the day—especially electronics. This will allow you to choose products ahead of time that you know will meet your needs.

Deciding whether you’ll get better deals at brick-and-mortar stores versus shopping online can also pose a challenge. Smaller items tend to be better-priced in-store once you factor in shipping, although many large online retailers now offer free shipping.

Also remember that many online retailers offer their best sales on Cyber Monday, while Black Friday is traditionally when brick-and-mortar stores have their deals. If you’re buying online, make sure you’re on the mailing lists of all your target suppliers so you can pick up the offers as soon as they’re released.

Get your timing right

Some retailers have specific time limits on offers or limited stock availability. While it may be a little extreme to create yourself a Black Friday timetable of offers, keeping your fingers on the pulse as the day progresses is a good strategy.

Social media is also a great way to track live updates for businesses that may not have comprehensive apps. Follow the feeds and pages of your favourite stores for the latest!

SELLING ON BLACK FRIDAY

1. TAKING PART

Remember that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year, so whatever your business, your participation is worth some serious consideration. It can be a great way to gain loyalty from existing customers and acquire new customers, but it will require extra work on your part to be ready for the onslaught.

Taking part in Black Friday sales is not a necessity by any means. For some businesses, however, your customers may expect it—and you don’t want to disappoint.

2. DECIDE ON YOUR DEALS

What you offer on Black Friday will depend on what kind of business you run. Don’t automatically think it’s all about bargain basement deals. Customer insight suggests that most shoppers are after more premium products at reduced prices. If something’s not selling when it’s competitively priced at the moment, is further discounting really going to make a difference?

If you sell physical products, think about bulk buying in advance so you can pass on savings to your customer. You can even pick loss-leaders to entice people into your online store, but if you do this, always aim for an upsell. Don’t overbuy, especially if you already have stock sitting around and going nowhere quickly. Be especially careful if you stock perishable products.

If you normally offer a service rather than a product, think about what makes sense to offer. Perhaps instead of discounting your gold-tier service, instead, offer a free or reduced-rate  ‘Trial’ or ‘Consultation’ call to pull more potential customers into your circle.

3. TEST YOUR SYSTEMS

Test that your store or website, payment processes, and fulfilment systems can deliver before the big day. How are you going to handle the extra site traffic and customer feedback? It’s all worth considering.

Are you sending out an email promoting your sales? Make sure you’ve included a great subject line and all of the fields are completed, and you include all of your terms and conditions. Send a copy to yourself and a friend as a test.

If you expect a lot of traffic on your website, make sure the server and your hosting account can handle the extra bandwidth. It’s worth a call to your website developer and/or your hosting provider to see if there are any steps you should take to make sure your website doesn’t crash.

Perhaps most important is compelling sales copy. Most people will get the product in their shopping basket, but not proceed with the transaction. Make sure you have some really enticing call-to-actions to really push them through to completion with the sale.

4. GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT THERE

It takes only a few minutes to set up some social media posts. Make sure you have some eye-catching imagery to go with your posts to stand out amongst all the other content which will be flooding media streams. Get your sales emails crafted as soon as possible, and schedule reminders and follow-ups throughout the day.

Think about your customer’s buying journey, and optimize your store/site to guide them along the path that seems most likely to drive revenue. Copy and layout are hugely important; try to group related products, and automatically offer accessories with the main purchases.

5. FINALLY, HAVE FUN!

Let’s face it, you’re in business not only to make money but to do what you love. In all the excitement of the Black Friday phenomenon, make sure that you use the time to unite your employees and make it an exciting part of the trading year – don’t just get lost in the stress of retail chaos!