Black Friday’s worth is due to its proximity to Christmas, as consumers seek to save; capitalising on Black Friday deals for Christmas gifting. When looking at demand data, represented by out-of-stocks on a week-on-week comparison, this is evidenced in the highest spikes in OOS being shown in the typical gifting categories. Accessories and gifting apparel such as sleepwear, take the crown for the most demanded products during the Black Friday frenzy across both the US and UK markets.
Alongside this, high-price tag, season-specific items also demonstrate a significant demand, with consumers looking to make proportionate savings. With the knowledge that the demand lays heavily within these two categories, retailers can start to channel a more strategic approach to markdowns – avoiding the blanket discounting of recent years. By channeling mark-downs into items that consumers are definitely going to be looking for, these items can be utilised as hooks to harness site and store visits through discounting and communications strategies.
By identifying where the demand lays, retailers can identify areas where margin can be protected, maintaining items, such as dresses, tops and jeans – that have demonstrated a lower demand level during the week – at full price. Instead of discounting, demand can be driven to these categories through embedding them into both Black Friday marketing and merchandising to drive desire based, impulse purchases alongside Christmas gifting. In a market that is plagued with heavy promotions, protecting margins through these kind of strategies will be imperative for survival, benefiting retailers’ bottom line and brand perception.
You won’t know what your competitors have up their sleeve for this November, but seeing what they did last year can help you prepare. We’re offering exclusive reports from our daily e-commerce platform, Instock, to help you benchmark strategies against competitors.
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