This is the state of play over Black Friday:
Deals. Are. Everywhere.
Preparing for Peak
How to Develop a Discounting Strategy with Moss Bros
The truth is: Retailers are facing a big challenge.
According to Which? research that came out in 2018, in the past Black Friday was all about shoppers climbing over each other in-store to grab the latest bargain. But now it's has moved predominantly online, the media needs a fresh marketing spin.
In reality most retailers AREN’T claiming their items are the cheapest they can be, it’s just good sense to get behind the biggest sales period of the year.
But this marketing is pushing consumers to take back control. Which? have strongly advised that customers do their research beforehand, read reviews, check the quality of products, and compare prices across sites.
Which means this year, the consumer is savvier and more clued-up that ever.
And even beyond deals, issues like sustainability are becoming a big factor in which brands consumers want to buy from.
For discount retailers, the quality, sourcing and environmental impacts of products is becoming more important. That’s a big challenge they're now up against.
As a retailer, you might have questions like:
- Should we offer a discount?
- What discount(s) should we offer?
- How long should we discount for?
- What are the risks if we don’t?
- Will discounting pollute our brand perception?
Here’s what Moss Bros did.
- Daily Deals in the lead-up to Black Friday. These were advertised as ‘Better than Black Friday’; deals that were not going to be beaten on Black Friday. In other words, actively telling customers to shop early across all channels. It also allowed Moss Bros to be selective on the products they wanted to discount at a heavier rate.
- Extended Returns. Giving consumers the confidence that they are able to return post-Christmas.
- Klarna. Helped drive pre-payday sales, giving customers flexibility with when they can pay. Moss Bros saw orders paying by Klarna increase by 85% in the two weeks leading up to Black Friday.
- Blanket Discount. This was a competitive offer that helped drive incrementally at a strong margin.
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Moss Bros set up a number of alerts in Contentsquare to get alerted to key metrics over Black Friday
These alerts related to top-line key metrics like conversion, traffic, bounce rate etc. But also to things like page load times and activity rates.
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“These help me know first thing exactly what I should be concentrating on for the day ahead. Did anything fall through the floor, and likewise did anything perform far better than expected, and how can we repeat that formula if so? What promo was running, can we extend? Was it timing related / stock related / price related etc.?”
And to help flag issues, Moss Bros set up a dashboard to track performance.
Top three takeaways for brands:
- Keep it simple
- Keep it on-brand
- Be prepared to react daily
Note: this article was adapted from a presentation Bryony gave at a Contentsquare event.
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