Black Friday – How to prepare your retail business for a bumper sale.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just weeks away and mark the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping period for many. So, what can retailers do in the approaching weeks to make the most of this shopping bonanza?

To help you prepare, we’ve shortlisted our top tips on how to maximise your potential in the busiest shopping period of the year so let’s dive in!

1. Choosing which items to discount

Understanding which items you should be discounting and how much the reduction should be is crucial to a successful Black Friday weekend. While you may be tempted to discount across the board, a broad brush approach can cheapen your brand in the long run.

Consider discounting items which are high margin so you don’t erode your profits too much in a bid to have a bumper weekend. Loss leaders can be a great marketing tactic but if they don’t lead to repeat business then you’re simply giving too much away for the sake of making a few extra sales.

Having detailed insights into long term sales trends will help you to make informed decisions about the which products to include in your sale. For example, if you’re stuck with a large number of slow moving items, this could be a great opportunity to clear out your problem stock.

Similarly, knowing how much to discount is important and being creative with your discounts can help to sell higher numbers of products. For example, offering additional discounts for multiple purchases, instead of cutting the cost of single purchases is a great tactic to encourage higher volume sales.

Saledock’s advanced analytics can help you to make informed decisions about which products to discount and how much to give away. With detailed sales history, you can easily identify which products you need to shift so you are making the most of the opportunity, while being selective about which of your best sellers to include will help to maintain their average selling price.

2. Email marketing

Email marketing is nothing new, and with the volume of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals out there, it can be hard to make your emails stand out. However, be assured that it’s worth the effort as more than 25% of Black Friday sales begin with an email campaign.

Sending an initial teaser email about a week before Black Friday is a great way to pique customers’ interest and gives them time to think about which products they might want to buy during the sale. Follow this with a last minute reminder before your sale starts, and then a great discount on the day to maximise impact.

Email is unique in that it allows you to easily deliver a personalised message and offer to individuals, providing you have a reasonable customer database to work from. Research shows that personalised emails are much more likely to convert so it’s important that your CRM is capable of recording information such as contact details and purchasing history. This will allow you to tailor your deals to the individuals or groups of customers who are most likely to make a purchase for maximum ROI.

Saledock’s CRM helps you to get to know your customers and enables you to add new customers to your database straight from your Point of Sale. And, our 2-way HubSpot integration makes targeted email marketing a breeze.

3. Social Media

Social selling is one of the fastest growing sales channels for eCommerce retailers, with Facebook and Instagram leading the way. The detailed targeting offered by these platforms allows you to create audiences which exactly match your desired criteria, for example geography, age and interests, and is one of the most effective ways to reach new customers and drive new traffic to your eCommerce website.

Creating custom audiences through Facebook and Instagram helps you to deliver ads which are specifically designed for each demographic combination you choose to target. For example, a Black Friday deal on women’s winter boots could be delivered to the following group over the sale period:

• Women
• Age 18-40
• Living in the UK
• Interested in fashion

Another feature of Facebook and Instagram is that you can upload your existing customer list and match them to the platforms’ registered users, allowing you to target your known customers on social media. In addition, you can create a lookalike audiences which are another great way to target potential buyers as Facebook and Instagram will look at your existing customer list and create an audience which mirrors their key demographics.

However setting up products in a Facebook shop and then connecting them to your eCommerce system can be tricky and time consuming. And if you make a mistake you’ll not only lose sales but you’ll risk disappointing your potential new customers too. Saledock’s eCommerce social selling tool integrates with both Facebook and Instagram so you can manage your products from a single interface. Setup your products once for your eCommerce site and the products will be sync straight to your Facebook online shop!

4. The follow up

It’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of one of the biggest sales opportunities of the year and if you’re Black Friday weekend is a success you’ll no doubt need a breather afterwards. However, it’s important not to neglect the newly gained asset you have after a busy sale period – the new customers you have gained.

Following up sales is a great way to begin to build brand loyalty with your new customer list. Consider sending them a welcome email after their first purchase, perhaps containing a second discount to thank them for choosing your brand, or a referral discount they can share with their friends and family. Add an invitation to join your loyalty scheme and you’re on your way to building a long-term customer instead of a one-off sale.

Saledock’s extensive in-store and online loyalty features allow you to offer a range of tiered rewards that appeal to everyone, and one-click enrolment from your Saledock POS makes adding in-store customers a cinch.

Key Takeaways

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a great opportunity for retailers to boost their sales and grow their customer base. However, preparing for this weekend and managing sales can be a chore without a sophisticated POS system for your bricks and mortar, eCommerce or omnichannel business.

When you choose Saledock, you benefit from a unified system for all your retail management needs. Why not sign up for our 14-day FREE trial and see for yourself why Saledock has been named Point of Sale Technology of the year at the 2022 Retail Systems Awards. You’ll get unlimited access to all Pro Plan features for a full two weeks and there’s no credit card required so there’s literally nothing to lose and everything to gain. Sign up for your free trial here.