Black Friday, once the crucial kickoff to the holiday shopping season, is losing its power. In-person sales are down. Holiday traditions are down — last year fewer people said they would celebrate Thanksgiving than in 2012, and fewer planned to watch the annual Macy’s parade. And for many of us, marketing budgets are down. Black Friday sales dropped 13% last year, and one Walmart executive joked that the new Black Friday should simply be called “November.”
Yet even as shopping patterns change, people still have the same desires: to surprise and delight their families, to watch a child experience a sense of wonder, to create lifelong memories. Businesses simply need to adjust their approach to help customers fulfill these goals.
You may believe you’re adjusting to the new retail reality by moving from a Black Friday to a Cyber Monday mentality. But even that trend is passé — all Mondays are Cyber Mondays now. Throughout the year, Monday is the busiest day of the week for e-commerce, and retail website traffic tends to peak at lunchtime, when workers are at their desks.
I enjoy shopping as much as the next person, and I’m a Black Friday veteran. About 15 years ago, I woke at 3 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving to line up in a cold, dark parking lot for the privilege of buying an electronic arcade-style basketball game. I recall the sense of adventure: leaving the rest of the family fast asleep, grabbing one of the limited items in stock at a deep discount — and anticipating how much my kids would enjoy it.. After the endorphin rush of scoring a deal came the challenge of hiding the huge box in the garage behind the snowblower, sneaking it into the house a few weeks later.
Retailers like Barnes & Noble are going beyond Black Friday — and Cyber Monday — to engage... [+]
Santa set it up on Christmas Eve, and it was a hit. But in 2014, there’s no reason to set the alarm to go off before dawn, scrape ice off my windshield and wait outside a store with hordes of other sleep-deprived parents. Today, with price-comparison apps like PriceGrabber and ShopSavvy, free or nearly free shipping, and more competitors matching prices, few customers need to drive to your store.
What does all this mean for your business? You need to give customers reasons other than a Black Friday discount to shop with you. Here are some suggestions to create excitement around your products:
Throw a family reunion. Leverage the community spirit of the holidays to engage your extended family of customers. In the 1990s, Saturn’s “homecoming weekend” brought tens of thousands of Saturn owners across the country for bands, musicians and a fireworks display. Harley-Davidson has anniversary reunions spanning 11 countries. It’s important not to blast customers with sales pitches during such events — instead, trust that you’re building goodwill. When their old product wears out, they’ll come back to you for a replacement.
You can develop a similar idea for product families. Ask customers to use social media to share holiday meals they’ve created using branded products such as butter, sprinkles or frosting. This year, Kraft is hosting a #PintoWinSweepstakes that invites customers to post recipes on Pinterest for a chance to win a tablet.
Even better: Host your customers’ family celebration, and make them feel good about it. Wildfire restaurants in the Chicago area are donating a portion of their Thanksgiving Day sales to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Focus on feelings. Happiness comes both from pleasure and from purpose. Last year’s National Research Council report “Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience,” edited by Arthur A. Stone and Christopher Mackie, reveals that neither an enjoyable experience nor material wealth were enough to determine happiness. Creating meaning matters, too.
You can meet customers’ needs for both. For 20 years, Bon-Ton Stores, which owns regional department-store chains, has been accepting Goodwill donations twice a year, rewarding customers with a coupon for 25% off a new purchase. Accepting old sneakers, electronics or washing machines, with state-of-the-art recycling or repurposing, helps you, your customers and the larger world. The gesture also reminds shoppers to get rid of the old and make way for the new.
Help customers feel connected to your brand by giving them something they can’t find anywhere else. To compete with Amazon, Barnes & Noble recruited 100 authors — including George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton and The Goldfinch author Donna Tartt — to each sign about 5,000 copies of their latest books. As a result, Barnes & Noble will have nearly half a million autographed books available in stores on Black Friday.
Make wishes come true. People feel frustrated during the holidays when their desire to make loved ones happy stretches their budget. You can help by recommending substitutes. A father may not be able to afford a pony for his daughter, but she might like the movie National Velvet, a week at a riding camp or a chance to volunteer at a ranch for rescued horses.
Just don’t embarrass yourself by installing an algorithm that suggests “ponytail holder” when a customer asks about ponies. This is one of those cases where human imagination outperforms a bot. Help customers see how what you offer will meet the emotional needs implicit in an over-the-top wish. If a shopper’s sister would like a million dollars, can you make her feel like a million bucks with a spa day or tickets to a popular musical? If a mom would like a trip abroad, can you show her new horizons through ballroom dancing classes, Rosetta Stone language lessons or a gift certificate to an Ethiopian restaurant?
Keep secrets. The last thing consumers want to worry about is how much information you’re broadcasting about their shopping habits. Now that our search history follows us across the Internet, the traditional gift receipt that omits prices is no longer enough. If a customer is browsing for herself for a rare print by a favorite artist, then she might welcome information on its availability in nearby stores. She’ll be less thrilled if she’s buying it for her spouse, and a pop-up ad on her computer ruins the surprise. And if she’s looking for One Direction concert tickets for the niece whose name she drew for her Secret Santa, she may not want ads for that boy band to haunt her for the next two years.
Offer those who want to share their purchases the option to do so, but show gift buyers clear ways to opt out. (And for consumers, here are some tips to keep your browsing history private.)
Black Friday was always a cop-out, a downward spiral of price and product quality that forced customers into uncomfortable and even dangerous circumstances to maximize their Christmas budgets. Now that it has lost some of its luster, take this opportunity to differentiate your products and the shopping experience. Reinforcing existing ties, emotion, engagement, desire and discretion provides authentic benefits to your customers. Not only will you win more of their business, you’ll help them have a more joyful and abundant holiday.
