Black Friday is an annual sales event that moves e-commerce in Brazil and around the world. In 2021, it will be celebrated on Friday, November 26th. The date is long awaited by consumers due to the various promotions and discounts that are available throughout the month.
The event that has always moved online commerce should be even more important in 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many people to start shopping online. A survey by Rakuten Advertising done in 2020, revealed that almost half of Brazilians scheduled their purchases for Black Friday and 86% of consumers said they would prefer to buy products through e-commerce. The trend is that in practice, this number is even higher.
The importance of meeting new customer needs
The big secret to success is to adapt to new customer needs and make payment methods increasingly easier. One type of payment that grew a lot in 2020 was payment through links made available on WhatsApp, and this trend is expected to grow even further in 2021 and beyond. Therefore, companies that have not yet included this method in their stores need to include it to meet new demands.
Another service that already exists and is very well regarded by the public, making a difference at the time of purchase is cashback. An example is Ame Digital and also the Méliuz service, which refund part of the money you spent on e-commerce at the time of your purchase.
In 2020 we had some examples of marketplaces that knew how to serve customers by presenting payment options according to the new reality of Brazilians. Americanas.com, Magazine Luiza and MercadoLivre added an integration in the emergency aid app to facilitate payment with this method, as soon as the government started making it available to people. They took advantage of the opportunity and managed to reach more customers (people from other social classes who needed products and could not make transactions with another form of payment).
How Retailers Can Increase Chances of Sales
Marketplaces are an alternative to increase retailers’ chances of sales on Black Friday. However, to really succeed on these platforms, it is important to gain prominent positions so that the products are seen by consumers, and for that, merchants must have strategies.
For those who already have a competitive and well-positioned e-commerce, the tip is to offer what customers want, in this case it is essential to know what motivates them to shop online. Many buy for the convenience and practicality, others for the price and some to avoid agglomerations in the pandemic. A survey by E-commerce Brasil revealed that 60% of people prefer to buy online for convenience. As the consumer seeks this most of the time, it is essential that your company offers comfort and facilities.
Another factor that people take into account when deciding to buy is the logistics linked from purchase to delivery and after-sales of the product. The ideal is to speed up the delivery process and have good operating systems. These details can be crucial when building customer loyalty, because they will remember that they had a good experience in your store.
Companies also need to understand that before announcing their offers, they must analyze their competitors, so as not to clash with them and lose sales. Higher and much lower values than the competition are not interesting. Don’t forget to compare delivery times and shipping costs, as these are certainly factors that the consumer will take into account (Commercial conditions).
E-commerces cannot forget to increase their inventories, because sales will grow on Black Friday and offers favor this. However, the ideal is to find what will be the most requested items based on available promotions. Demand will likely increase for items that have the biggest discounts.
The tip is to focus on specific products and offer high discounts, not offering a small discount on several products, because that usually doesn’t work. Another strategy that retailers can use to win over customers is to offer coupons and freebies. Not forgetting to be present on social networks, generating engagement and offering benefits.
The most accessed social media at the moment are Instagram and Facebook, but TikTok is also growing, so it is important to produce creative and attractive content on these platforms. But posting too close to Black Friday isn’t as recommended, because the event is at the end of the month and not everyone has the money. Planning ahead and starting publishing in advance is more likely to work because consumers can plan for the date.
The service influences the loyalty of customers a lot, the stores need to prepare for Black Friday to meet the demands, solve problems, answer questions and effectively serve consumers. After all this, it is interesting to do a survey with customers to find out how the experience was: to understand what was good and what needs to be improved in e-commerce.
Black Friday has been going on for a long time, but many e-commerces still make mistakes and lose sales. One is to offer discounts on products that are not of interest to customers. It is important to research and understand what consumers want to buy at this time. Generally the most sought after products are usually smartphones, appliances and televisions. However, a survey by Promobit revealed that the biggest discounts offered are in the beauty segment. It is clear that there is a big difference between the most sought after items and the ones with the best deals. This needs to change.
Google is the search engine most used by people to find websites (over 97% of the market share in Brazil) and for this reason, it is crucial that your e-commerce respect some rules that interfere with ranking, such as starting sites with https and have security certificates. The structure and accommodation must also be secure enough to receive visitors.
Regarding the elaboration of the marketing strategy, the tip is to analyze data from previous years to see which keywords were most requested, what was the revenue and the number of sales. It is important to know which published content generated results and which did not have the expected return. Assessing these details can help you avoid making the same mistakes. Knowing how consumers behaved in previous years to try to predict how they will behave now.
Many companies are in doubt which would be the ideal products to offer a discount at this time. To choose these items, retailers must check which ones are in stock, which have the greatest margin for discount and which sell well and are cheap (which act as a gateway to other sales). However, to attract new customers on Black Friday, the golden tip would be to choose the product that is the “flagship” of your brand and offer a good discount. Customer security in your e-commerce is also an important part of boosting sales on Black Friday.
Thus, having a well-prepared Customer Service and an efficient channel to answer customers’ questions, makes online purchases more secure. A question about a product of your brand can make the consumer opt for the competition, so it is important to resolve them all.
Creating a specific landing page for Black Friday can also be an interesting strategy for your e-commerce. There is the option of common and sales pages, which will serve to capture the contact of people interested in knowing what your company’s promotions are. There, visitors who leave their contact, for example, can receive a limited offer before everyone else.
Companies after deciding where to attract customers need to create a publication schedule, defining how the banners and promotional images will be. In addition, they need to establish a budget to be used in paid media, in the case of companies that intend to use the resource to increase the reach of their publications. Among the options available are: Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads and YouTube. The ideal is to choose more than one channel, defining well what will be done in each one of them.
The discounts offered must be real and attractive, because in previous years some companies took advantage of the event to increase the price of their products and offer discounts on higher values than usual. This caused many consumers to be alert and even disbelieve the event. On the internet there was a negative repercussion about these episodes and many people called the movement “Black Fraud”.If the intention is to win over and retain the customer, your store must maintain a correct and fair conduct with consumers, otherwise, it will have a bad image with customers.
E-commerces already know they need to analyze metrics before crafting an effective marketing strategy, but they often have doubts about exactly what to analyze. The tip is to check the number of visitors, conversion rates, sales, leads, cost of customer acquisition (CAC), cart abandonment and average ticket. But, it is clear that companies can and should check other metrics to better understand customer behavior and be able to develop optimization strategies. The important thing is to always monitor and collect this data.
During Black Friday, some specific actions for social networks should be planned, including updating the page covers with an art that catches people’s attention. On the websites, it is interesting to insert a link that takes customers to a page with all the offers on the date. And when it comes to advertising, retailers must think that it’s difficult for a customer to buy an item from an ad they’ve seen for the first time, but if they’ve already shown interest in that product, added it to the cart, or visited the page, chances are are bigger.
Therefore, it is a good idea to remarket these products. In addition to remarketing, boosting offers can be done via Facebook or Instagram. But the retailer must not forget that if he chooses to do this at the last minute, he will end up paying a much higher cost per click than if he did in advance. Therefore, planning is essential. And as the competition is big at that time, nobody loses by getting ahead.
Investing in quality campaigns on Black Friday can leverage your business, bring in new customers, build customer loyalty, and bring more visits and visibility. The date must not be neglected and retailers must take advantage of the event in every way to launch new products and generate more revenue in the short and long term.
The secret is to offer real and good discounts on products that are of interest to the target audience. In addition to ensuring fast service, efficient purchase and delivery logistics, optimized and secure websites. Good color campaigns and well-crafted artwork will also influence positive consumer responses. Presence on social networks and proximity to them will be a differential. The most important thing is to plan, define a goal and actions to prepare your e-commerce and then enjoy the results.