Black Friday 2017 failed to impress in terms of high street sales, so retailers are looking towards the fast-approaching 2018 Black Friday and may well be wondering whether it will be another “bleak” Friday. Duncan Keene, ContentSquare’s UK MD, discusses how, and why, the winners and losers have already been decided.
Although Black Friday 2017 failed to impress in terms of high street sales, online retailers’ sales surged with Black Friday online sales spending up 11.7% compared to 2016. Despite empty shops, the American-inspired discount shopping day is still one of importance for all retail brands to prepare sooner rather than later for success.
Looking ahead and planning approaches for this shopping period is essential, but the winners and losers have already been decided. The winners will be those retailers that have considered and implemented practical ways to give themselves an edge, and are able to extract actionable insights without drowning in data.
Actionable insights enable a proactive approach
Having moved on from their reliance on legacy tools, the winners will already have the tools in place to provide them with the ability to quickly access detailed, in-page insight about the behavioural aspects of their visitors, for every segment, device and across any date range. Having this means that they can drill down to in-page detail, and use that to understand how and why visitors behave ahead of any shopping period. Using this comprehensive data, they can be more proactive in their Black Friday approach.
They’ll know the areas of their sites which performed well from last year’s period, those that didn’t, the copy that worked, the content that drove the most purchases, the items that were most popular and much more. By conducting a detailed audit of their previous Black Friday events, and applying all of the learnings to their site structure and product features this time around, the winning brands will be those that have the tools at hand to be reactive on the day.
Not only will the winners be able to make live changes within minutes of Black Friday promotions going live, based on behavioural insight available at the click of a button, but their teams will be improving conversion and the overall experience for users as sales are happening, by making on-the-fly optimisations.
On-the-move purchases
Having a visual overview of every visitor segment and how they flow through your site is critical to reactivity. The winners will be retailers that can easily analyse on-site visitor journeys to identify where, if anywhere, their visitors are losing interest, which pages drive journeys leading to conversion and how visitors from different sources navigate their site.
39% of last year’s Black Friday shopping was completed on a smartphone and our own research indicated that mobile conversion rates increased by 167% on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2017. So, offering a seamless experience on all websites and design formats is essential to avoid cart abandonment.
Mobile cart abandonment rates fall by 7% on Black Friday, but mobile visitors are 35% more likely to abandon their cart than desktop users. For maximum success, retailers need minimum load times, alongside a smooth and easy to complete checkout process.
Engage rather than frustrate visitors
The winners are able to easily identify and resolve visitor frustrations, of which slow load time is just one. 40% of people will leave a web page if it takes longer than three seconds to load while 79% of online shoppers won’t return to make a purchase if they have to wait too long. One prime example of the 33% bounce rate average on Black Friday, across all channels, is the checkout. On average, the typical checkout process requires 14.88 fields, which is twice as many as necessary.
To mitigate this, the winners will have an efficient checkout process and with the minimum number of steps necessary to complete a purchase. They will also know, in advance, which form fields cause the greatest visitor frustration and have those resolved before Black Friday. Errors are fatal on Black Friday, so if a certain image is unclickable or a certain form field is preventing visitors from checking out, the cost of not having resolved them beforehand could be significant.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt Black Friday is an important time for ecommerce businesses, but it shouldn’t act as the annual clean-up of your optimisation processes. The winners of Black Friday will apply the lessons here year-round, maximising their returns at every opportunity.
Advanced technologies like UX analytics are crucial to empowering digital teams to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently. This creates breathing room to prepare for ecommerce events like Black Friday well in advance.
By Duncan Keene
UK Managing Director