Black Friday, 23 November 2018, is almost here. Are you taking part?
The Principle
Why Black Friday was started is a little confused, because there are a number of stories. But basically, it is a sale device to encourage people to start spending early for the Christmas season.
We have the Boxing day and New Year Sales to squeeze a few more sales from people at the end of the Christmas season and unload our inventory.
Black Friday is the Pre-season Sale.
So Why Join
It is simply easier to join in an event that has already created a buzz about it than start your own sale event.
Once the advertising starts, you will find many savvy shoppers are going to be looking for Black Friday events.
What NOT to do
The concept is the Black Friday Proposal is this
Black Friday is a one day, limited time, limited stock, deep discount event.
If you change any of these rules, then you dilute the offer and remove the urgency that we are trying to create. This is a grab it while you can event, so extending it to the whole week defeats the object.
How to benefit long-term
Selling items at huge discounts at the beginning of the season may help to move stock, but the key way to benefit from this event is to create connections with new customers and hope to sell them more during the season and beyond.
Shops really need to implement online offers, email lists etc. if you have an experts business or you are a service provider, then the true value of customers is their long-term value. Therefore selling one item and not following up would be a disaster.
Any discount you do give must be genuine
If you are offering big discounts they must be believable and genuine. Pumping up the price to then offer it at half that is deceitful.
You need customers to be excited both before and after the purchase. We are looking for repeat buyers. So, if your discount price is offered again in the near future, then you could easily lose the confidence of the buyer. If they have buyers remorse then you could have refunds on your hands – and lost that customer for the future.
What are discounts? – They are a sign of failure
Discounts are only there to compensate for not making a good connection to the customer. if you are able to show your product and service benefits to a person and they believe in your product or service then there would be no reason to give a discount.
Black Friday is using the pull of discounts and limited offers to create more urgency and push people into purchases that were not totally confident of before.
