Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2021: Is Your Retail Business Ready?

We're delighted to welcome Excellent Zephyr to guest blog on our website. They're an eCommerce Agency that specialises in digitally transforming retailers.

Over the past 5 years, they’ve seen Black Friday and Cyber Monday take the retail world by storm, rapidly growing each year and clocking record-breaking sales figures.

So, they've come to help our clients prepare their business for the next big sale.

Take it away, Excellent Zephyr.

“In 2020, Black Friday’s sales revenue hit $188.2 billion” - Adobe

As a retailer, it’s essential to be prepared for the biggest retail event of the year and position yourself to take full advantage of the market. A question that we always ask our clients is:

“Are your existing systems going to cope with the influx of store traffic, purchases and returns?”

We’re going to take a look at the most important factors that can make or break your Black Friday - Cyber Monday 2021.

Returns

Did you know that the average eCommerce return rate is around 25%? That’s a lot of extra stress on your return management systems for the weeks following Black Friday – Cyber Monday.

From a back-end perspective, returns are a complicated process that involves data being pulled to and from multiple systems such as your online store, warehouse and ERP. This creates a “spiders web” of data that is easily mismanaged, delayed and even lost. Having a reliable data integration platform in place to efficiently manage data flow is essential for a successful returns network.

“92% of consumers surveyed said that they will buy again if the product return process is easy. So, to keep customers coming back, it’s important to allow returns—and that requires a strong online returns management system.” - Shipbob

Volume of Orders

The reality is that you’re going to have a vastly increased number of orders to process over the BFCM period. This presents an unmissable opportunity to deliver a positive purchasing experience and expand your customer base.

Year after year, we see the same problems with the retailer’s online store crashing and failing to process orders due to the sudden increase in traffic. Not only does that negatively affect the retailer’s pocket, but it leaves the customer frustrated and disappointed.

Online Store Performance

As an eCommerce retailer, your online store is the face of your business. Having an attractive, easy-to-use and fast store will help keep your customers happy and returning for more.

“Black Friday 2020 - 21% of shoppers said that an easy-to-use website influences their decision to purchase a product.” – National Retail Federation

Additionally, your online store is an invaluable tool for collecting customer data that can be used to fuel future sales and marketing campaigns. If your online store and CRM aren’t reliably integrated, then there’s a huge opportunity missed to gather customer data for future campaigns.

Shipping Speed

An inability to fulfil the customers’ shipping expectations during the frantic sales activity can inflict long-lasting damage to your brand image. Retailers are at risk of experiencing a “bottleneck” of data at various points of their supply chain: from checkout to warehouse and customer support.

By implementing tried and trusted 3PL data integrations, you can rest assured that orders will be efficiently processed and sent out on time.

Inventory Management

Preparing your inventory before Black Friday and Cyber Monday is essential. Having your buffer stock and product backups in place is going to help your retail business when the madness begins!

However, when large amounts of orders come flooding in, it can cause delays between purchases and stock updates. This is because the information can’t be efficiently passed between your online store and ERP/inventory management systems. This can cause a knock-on effect that results in faulty orders, incorrect stock count and lost revenue.

Alleviate the pain of redundant data entry throughout the Black Friday sales period: unify your retail systems with reliable and automated data integration from Patchworks.

Want to transform your retail business in time for Black Friday? Then head over to our website to learn more about our eCommerce services.