Both traditional and online retailers spend the months running up to Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) planning their strategy for what is historically the busiest shopping day of the year.
When Black Friday comes, will you make the right bets?
As online retailers, you have an edge –– and not simply because rising gas prices will be driving holiday shoppers online in increasing numbers this year. It’s because you can plan for the day by looking at traffic patterns from the same day last year as well as from the months preceding this year's holiday blitz.
But even by making educated guesses based on what you learn, you have a problem: Your best guesses are still just that. They’re guesses. Sure, you can learn plenty by looking at analytics:
Answering questions of that type is useful. But the problem is that your shoppers, in flocking to your site on Black Friday for their first big spending spree of the season, are probably different than during the rest of the year.
They may be the same people, but they’re shopping for gifts, rather than themselves. They’re probably willing to spend more money. And they may have come to you from a different source (directed to your site via Price.com, for example, rather than from a keyword ad).
In other words, they’re behaving differently. And different behavior on their part requires different tactics on your part.
Free shipping, for example, has proven to be one of the most popular promotions during the holiday season. But at what threshold? Free shipping with an order of $75 or more may be needed to increase conversions in August. On Black Friday, you may be able to boost that threshold to $150 and still raise conversions while at the same time upping your average order value.
You can’t know for sure unless you test. We suggest one of two things:
1. Test during the run-up
During the next month, run some promotional and key item tests. Look for behavior patterns that may be changing from what you’ve seen in recent months. Try to get a sense of what is selling. Swap out items as you learn what works and what doesn’t and continue to test.
2. Make Black Friday your biggest testing day
If you think about it, you’ll realize that this option, while perhaps causing a knee-jerk, “What are you, crazy?” reaction from IT, makes the most sense. With a smart testing tool that allows you to immediately adapt to market conditions, changing and optimizing promotions and key items as the day progresses, you can literally watch as you increase conversions and average order values throughout the day.
You’ll be generating plenty of traffic, so you’re likely to reach sufficient confidence levels quickly. The traffic on that day is more relevant to the holiday season than any other day of the year. And, it can be done easily and efficiently through Offermatica.
E-retailers such as Timberland have embraced testing, not on a time–by–time basis but as an ongoing tool to improve efficiencies and overall ROI. Make a commitment to testing, and choose Black Friday –– the hottest shopping day of the year –– as your starting date. With huge traffic and motivated buyers, it is arguably the best possible day to begin.