Prepare For Black Friday 2024

Several factors contribute to having a successful Black Friday. From ensuring you have enough stock to cover demand, to thinking about your offline and online store and different price points for various customers. This blog post should help you outline what you want to achieve this year and how you can achieve it.

Stock Levels

It seems like a no-brainer, but it can be easy to rush into the Black Friday buzz without thinking about what you already have. Take a full inventory of what you think you’ll be pushing for Black Friday, we might be biased but curating Black Friday hamper baskets could be a good gifting option.

Once you’ve taken your inventory, look at last year’s sales. What sold well? What didn’t? What could have gone better? Consider projected volumes based on what promotions you’re going to put on and your advertising plans. Ensure you have sufficient stock to meet anticipated demand. Regularly update and review your stock levels leading up to Black Friday and make top up orders of stock as and when you need to.

Offline & Online Customer Experience

You may be a business that operates both offline and online, in which case you have almost double the planning to do.

Offline planning

• Store layout and staffing. Reorganise your store layouts for easy navigation and designate areas for high-demand products. Hire temporary staff if necessary and make sure they’ve had adequate training.
• In-store promotions. Use eye-catching displays, banners and signage to highlight deals. Plan in-store events or early bird offers to attract customers.
• Stock replenishment & logistics. Pre-plan your restocking schedules and coordinate with your suppliers. We keep a lot of stock in our UK warehouse that can go out the next day for delivery with no minimum order value…not all suppliers work like this.

Online planning

• Optimise website (and mobile) experience. Ensure your website is as mobile-friendly as possible, fast-loading and well-equipped to handle high-traffic environments. Test for any bugs or performance issues well in advance.
• Digital marketing campaigns. Plan targeted ads, social media promotions and email marketing campaigns to build up anticipation. Utilise analytics to refine your targeting strategies.
• Seamless checkout process. Don’t be like Ticketmaster and crash and the most crucial moment! Simplify the checkout process with features like one-click payments, guest checkouts and multiple payment options to reduce abandon carts.
• Customer support. Enhance your support channels by adding chatbots or additional support staff to quickly handle customer queries before they shop elsewhere.
  

Pricing Amendments

The best way to start with your pricing strategy is by looking at your competitors and seeing what they have done in previous years. Utilise tiered pricing strategies such as offering deeper discounts on older inventory and moderate reductions on high-demand products.

It’s also time to think outside the box and offer customers bundle deals, limited time offers and more. Make sure that, whatever discounts you choose, you communicate them clearly across all your chosen marketing channels and pricing is consistent within these channels also.

Bespoke Gifting Range

Hampers aren’t just for Christmas! By creating a well-structured, visually appealing and customised gifting range, you can enhance the shopping experience, drive engagement and maximise sales during Black Friday.

Offering discounts on this kind of luxury item can open your business up to more customers over a crucial sales time. What’s more, if they love the product, they could become a repeat customer over Christmas and the following year.

There’s not long to go so if you’re looking to add more stock to your inventory as soon as possible then look at our hamper and gifting selection. From hamper boxes and gift trays to ribbon and shredded paper, we have readily available stock here in our UK warehouse for express delivery.