Content navigation:
- When is Black Friday 2024?
- What should retailers expect this year?
- How Black Friday went in previous years
- The most important tips for retailers when preparing for BF
- Conclusion
Retailers have faced various challenges in the last few years, including changing consumer behavior, cost pressures, impending inflation, and recession. The current economic environment does not lift the pressure off the sector, but the shoppers are feeling much better this year, so there is still uncertainty about overall consumer sentiment.
When is Black Friday 2024?
Black Friday 2024 falls on November 29, which is the day following Thanksgiving in the United States. As one of the most anticipated shopping events of the year, the Black Friday week kicks off the holiday shopping season with unique deals and discounts in brick-and-mortar and online retail.
Shoppers worldwide mark this date on their calendars to take advantage of significant savings on everything from electronics and clothing to home goods. Businesses, too, prepare months in advance, optimizing pricing strategies and promotions to attract customers. Let's dive deep into the context surrounding Black Friday this year.
What should retailers expect this year?
There are good reasons to say that retailers can anticipate another record-breaking Black Friday in 2024, driven by increased consumer spending and the growing popularity of early deals. According to Business Insider, early discounts are already generating excitement, though the most significant price drops are expected closer to November 29.
Traditionally, retailers are preparing for heightened competition, particularly in the electronics (especially, among Apple resellers), home goods, and apparel industries. A CNBC report highlights rising Black Friday Sales, projected to grow between 2.5% and 3.5% compared to the Black Friday deals 2023, reaching nearly $990 billion.
However, concerns over inflation and consumer debt persist, influencing shopping behaviors. Some retailers are afraid that shoppers will focus on mainly essential and high-value items. Almost certainly, online sales will play a critical role in defining the success of the Black Friday campaign for omnichannel retailers. Retailers already invested in seamless in-store and digital experiences are expected to lead the race.
How Black Friday went in previous years
Black Friday has shown significant growth and shifts in consumer behavior over the past few years. Speaking of Black Friday 2023, shoppers spent a record-breaking $16.4 billion online on Black Friday offers in USA and $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday. Online shopping accounted for 68% of purchases, with mobile devices driving 54% of Black Friday online sales. Similarly to Black Friday 2022, the most popular categories of the 2023 Black Friday included clothing, electronics, and household items.
In 2022, Black Friday online spending reached $9.12 billion, and Cyber Monday saw $11.3 billion in sales. Discount levels of Black Friday in 2022 hit an all-time high, with average markdowns of 25% on Cyber Monday. Toys, electronics, and computers were among the top-selling 2022 Black Friday deals. Now let’s compare the Black Friday deals 2022 with the previous year.
Looking back to 2021, the National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasted that U.S. shoppers will spend up to $859 billion between November and December. The best Black Friday deals 2021 were marked by a significant rebound in in-store shopping compared to Black Friday 2020 because most COVID-19 restrictions were eased. Comparing the NRF 2021 projection or 2022 black Friday Sales with a $990-billion forecast in 2024, the trend becomes clear: the total sales generated by Black Friday shopping continues to grow dynamically.
The most important tips for retailers when preparing for BF
A universal, one-size-fits-all buying experience is no longer acceptable. Customers want recommendations for products that are highly relevant to them and match their interests. This Black Friday, there is no other way to engage and convert customers and provide the best Black Friday deals. Down below you can see the visualization of what Black Friday specials customers expect from retailers in terms of personalization by McKinsey.
84% of consumers say being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning their business. - Salesforce
Every Black Friday retailer gets a bunch of first-time customers. This statement was relevant while preparing the best deals Black Friday 2022 and remains the same for the Black Friday 2024. What it means is that your strategy should include activities to turn first-time shoppers into your number-one fans. To gain the best black friday sales rate, you can consider :
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giving customers a perk at the register to sign up for a mailing list or loyalty program.
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distributing a code that may be used on a future purchase.
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sending them a follow-up email with recommendations in light of their initial purchase.
Use personalization to increase upselling and cross-selling
Increase the number of customized recommendation ribbons to entice clients with a variety of choices with the Black Friday deals store.
When you give customers the best Black Friday deals that are specifically tailored to them, cross-selling and up-selling are considerably simpler. AOV growth should not be your main objective when running up-sell and cross-sell initiatives. Instead, make an effort to provide customized recommendation widgets that speak to their unique needs and foster stronger client loyalty.
Personalize ads for the best Black Friday sales
Every customer touchpoint in your Black Friday deals store campaign needs to be significant. By adding personalized content and product recommendations to the platforms that are currently bringing in the most money, social media is a direct approach to broadening your audience.
By incorporating customization into your favorite paid media channels, such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads, LinkedIn ads, Twitter advertisements, etc., you maximize your advertising efforts and increase the relevance of your communication to clients who will be inundated with offers this week.
Run an omnichannel campaign
We believe Black Friday sales will return to being mostly in-person in 2024. However, because customers will be arranging their shopping visits based on what they see online, shopping will take place across multiple channels.
The omnichannel retailer must consider demographics, geography, cross-device targeting, and viewership statistics among other factors. Customers seek for best Black Friday offers across all channels, including in-store, on their phones while in-store, from their laptops, etc. This makes using these channels easy for users and gives retailers an advantage when offering the Black Friday specials.
More reliable attribution techniques are required for omnichannel campaigns that link together offline and Black Friday online efforts. Geolocation tools may bridge the gap between physical and digital attribution by measuring campaign effectiveness and connecting your digital initiatives to actual results.
Retailers who can track their customers through several channels can give their customers a more customized experience. And you already know, personalization is a must for the upcoming black friday deals.
Businesses may utilize the omnichannel approach to obtain information on how to develop content and offers that will lead people to purchase more - not just online but also in physical locations. Therefore, you should focus on increasing client interaction after setting up these channels. Improved consumer contact increases time spent on the site, which frequently results in increased Black Friday online shopping conversion rates.
Companies can increase customer engagement in various ways, such as by running a Black Friday discount, communicating with customers on social media, holding contests, offering promo flyers and boosting referrals, raising SEO rankings, and developing content specifically for their Black Friday deals today.
Remember, to provide your customers with the best Black Friday deals despite which channel they use to shop, every marketing activity should be aligned with one another in your omnichannel strategy.
Refine your marketing strategy
There are various things that marketers need to take into consideration on pre Black Friday weeks, from website optimization to the introduction of spectacular offers and giveaways. Here are some key marketing tactics.
Optimize website performance
Examining a website's hosting is one technique to get ready for a Black Friday promotion for an online company. Upgrade your browser if the website is about to reach its resource limit.
To support the number of products and Black Friday gifts displayed, the quantity of projected monthly traffic, and a seamless shopping experience, the optimum plan should have plenty of bandwidth, memory, storage, and computing power.
Focus on lowering the cart abandonment rate
For the upcoming Black Friday deals in eCommerce stores, cart abandonment has several detrimental implications, including data skewing, lower conversion rates, higher client acquisition expenses, and more.
By taking the steps below to actively discourage users from leaving your website after adding items to their carts, you can most effectively beat this issue and increase the Black Friday sales.
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Improve your mobile shopping experience, which we’ll dive into shortly.
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Use Intent-Based Promotions to ensure your customers with high intent follow through with their purchase instead of abandoning ship early.
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Add trust signals at checkout to reassure shoppers that your business is legit and creates happy customers.
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Allow people to save their carts for a later checkout. Enable this, and you can send them a deal shortly after to help nudge them into completing their purchase.
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Offer free shipping to shoppers who meet a certain spending threshold.
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Simplify your checkout experience so shoppers can quickly make a purchase and be more likely to do so.
Review the product pages
Customers will spend the majority of their time browsing and purchasing Black Friday gifts on product pages. Consequently, improving product pages help provide a swift and enjoyable user experience driving Black Friday sales online.
Make the product descriptions better. The statement is especially relevant for black friday appliance sales. Use sensory language to let the customer imagine how the product appears and feels. For SEO, use relevant keywords. To answer the most frequent inquiries from buyers, create a FAQ section during the pre Black Friday days.
Create cohesion across presences
We’ve already mentioned the importance of an omnichannel campaign.
Thinking of eCommerce presences as distinct from in-store presences and handling the marketing as such is a mistake that many retailers and brands can make. In other words, even if you offer the best online Black Friday deals, you may not necessarily win.
Consumers see online and offline Black Friday sale deals as the same, and they are interested in knowing what is occurring in both. That was relevant for the best Black Friday deals 2022 as well as Black Friday 2023.
It is important to make sure your social media accounts are updated to reflect any in-store sales. You might post notices about an online-only deal in-store or ask cashiers to give customers a promotional card when they pay.
Last but not least, ensure that the social media advertisements you use for shopping, such as shoppable Instagram ads, accurately represent your entire campaign.
Even though the channels could be different, you should still have a consistent message, just like you do with your branding.
Deliver value to your customers with a pricing strategy
Key factors to consider when planning your Black Friday sales are sustainable and smart promotions management and defining your KVIs. Let’s look at those factors in detail.
Healthy promo management
Planning your Black Friday promo activities and aligning them with a general marketing strategy is the key to margin growth. However, some companies tend to chase immediate results and the idea of outscoring last year's results.
Such promo pressure on Black Friday could lead to the opposite, killing the margin and messing up the annual retail strategy.
Therefore, without planning, your Black Friday deals today may face such challenges as:
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Lack of good information about previous promotional initiatives
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Inability to identify each SKU's position in the portfolio and subpar analytics
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Lack of openness in the promotion schedule
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Not being able to forecast the results of specific promotional scenarios
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Competitors and vendors are putting more pressure on promotions
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Shoppers' stockpiling causes post-promo declines
Especially if you struggling with some of them even without Black Friday pressure - time to consider smart promo management. Using such a solution allows you to set up multiple promo campaigns in several clicks, get visual data about past promos, and plan future promotions. You will be able to test multiple scenarios and predict the results of different activities.
For example, using the Competera platform, retailers set up and manage regular elasticity-based markdown campaigns with predictable and controllable results.
In a number of ways, ML algorithms can improve how businesses manage different promos including markdown. The algorithms, for instance, provide data-driven evaluations of previous promotional efforts and offer insights that contribute to the sustainability of future promotions by processing historical promotional records.
Analyzing the effects of vertical and horizontal sales cannibalization is one of the most accurate ways to reveal the promotion's true business impact. Practically speaking, this involves deciding how promotions affected product stockpiling (horizontal cannibalization) and changes in the dynamics of sales for non-promotional items across the board (vertical cannibalization).
Worth mentioning once again that if you use a promo management tool, your business decisions regarding promo strategy will be smarter and more precise 365 days a year, not only during the Black Friday season.
Coordinate marketing and pricing activities
Retailers expect and get ready to greet tons of new customers during this season.
As we agreed before, the main goal is to keep those newcomers and turn them into loyal customers. So how a pricing strategy could make your customers return to your outlet or store again and again?
Let’s talk about price anchoring.
The new-coming customers would hardly notice all of your prices but would definitely compare the items they look for with other sellers. For example, if a customer is looking for a Dyson hair dryer or newly released Samsung smartphones, he or she would surely know the prices for these items in other stores and would consider the offerings in your store in comparison to the other stores.
These are the products that must be offered with the most attractive Black Friday discount. It will help you anchor the customers that have come to your store for the first time. The little compromises on margin would even be acceptable if you manage to make a substantial number of clients return to your store after Black Friday.
In most cases, the clients are well aware of and compare the prices for KVI items. But you can’t make the best offering to those SKUs without identifying the true KVIs first, right? Let’s look at how advanced software can help you with that.
How to define your true KVIs?
Being aware of every product’s role in the portfolio is crucial to making the right pricing decisions. The statement is even more relevant when it comes to KVIs. The right or wrong prices for KVIs can either sustain or undermine a retailer’s price perception.
At Competera, we offer to carry out segmentation by ranking products taking into account price elasticity and cross elasticity, product characteristics (brand/category/...), sales statistics, analysis of competitors' influence, etc. To find the best Black Friday prices, we use deep learning bespoke machine learning algorithms.
The algorithms analyze the performance of particular SKUs regarding the changes of both internal and external factors. In the end, the engine can segment products into different buckets (KVIs, Long tail, Cash generators, etc) based on particular product attributes identified as a part of the analysis.
Eventually, a retailer can apply the right pricing strategy toward each group of products, including KVIs.
In addition, your margin will not be diluted by following unnecessary competitors. Competera’s algorithm reveals the true impact every player has on sales by analyzing a retailer's and competitive historical data.
What it means is there’s no need to set the lowest price for your KVIs to outcompete rivals. Instead, retailers can craft optimal prices based on multiple factors (e.g. promo elasticity, basket analysis, competitive data) to yield profit.
Conclusion
Now that you know the 2024 Black Friday context and actions to take, you have everything in place to make it happen. Since it’s not our first rodeo here at Competera, we have strong expertise in delivering optimal prices to your customers both during the peak holiday season and throughout the year. If you are ready to take the next step in your pricing strategy, contact us to discuss how exactly can your business win with Competera.
