EP048 Maximizing Post-Thanksgiving Sales - Insights from October's E-commerce Boom! 
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[00:00:00] Darin Newbold: 

[00:00:06] Oh my, and welcome to Commerce Today. This is going to be a fun one for sure. My name is Darin. As always, my awesome co host here is Josh, and we're excited to, uh, to be with you here to talk about maximizing that post Thanksgiving sales. We're going to look at kind of some insights that came from that October e commerce big boom.

[00:00:27] So Josh, this is going to be a fun one. 

[00:00:30] Joshua Warren: It is it is one for those watching the live stream. There's a bit of a time warp here. So if you're watching the live stream, it is the week before Thanksgiving. If you're listening to the podcast, it is the week after Thanksgiving.

[00:00:41] So having a little bit of fun with that and already imagining my Thanksgiving dinner. 

[00:00:46] Darin Newbold: Exactly. Exactly. Well, yeah, let's just run with it. All right. So first up. there's a big prediction out, actually not prediction, it's already happened, October. So, huge e commerce surge, 76. 8 billion, that's with a capital B, uh, spent online.

[00:01:02] So, what do you think about that, Josh? And, what does that start to look like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, all the grooviness? Yeah, 

[00:01:11] Joshua Warren: so that's a 6 percent increase from last year. So, that's higher than was predicted. So, There's one of two things happening here, depending on if you're pessimist or optimist, the pessimists are saying, oh, e commerce sales are still going to be, you know, they're not going to grow that much.

[00:01:25] It's just a lot of people spent their money early. They already did their holiday shopping. They're done. The optimists, and I'm usually in that camp, they're saying, wow. So if sales are already up 6 percent in October, they're going to be up even more in November and December. Um, so maybe those projections we talked about oh, so recently, those may have been a little too low.

[00:01:45] Darin Newbold: there is an argument to say that people spent money early, because I think it was you that was telling me about, almost a week ago that Black Friday started in Walmart, and they were already at Black Friday, and it was a Wednesday, 

[00:01:57] Joshua Warren: if I remember right. Yes, it was, it was. That was a lot of fun.

[00:02:00] Yeah, apparently, um, some Walmart stores are... Having their associates greet people to cash register and say, do you know it's Black Friday today? Because they already started their deals despite the fact that it was not a Friday and it especially wasn't Black Friday. So it's interesting. 

[00:02:15] Darin Newbold: This is not for this, this podcast, but I do at some point want to research when did Black Friday switch from Black Friday to basically think November 1st and on actually October sometime and just start anywhere.

[00:02:27] There's probably some trends on that, but talking about trends. So. All right. What did we see, Josh? What were any of the trends that we saw in October that we can at least predict and even look at going into now Black Friday and Cyber Monday? 

[00:02:45] Joshua Warren: So if you've listened to our podcast for more than a few weeks, then you already know this.

[00:02:49] And if you haven't, then shame on you. You need to keep listening. Basically, October's results were driven in large part by Buy Now, Pay Later usage and by discounts. So... That is what consumers are looking for. They're looking for something that at least makes them feel like they got a good deal and something that allows them to defer the.

[00:03:09] Spending hangover from the holidays and the next year, do we know at 

[00:03:13] Darin Newbold: all or have any idea on what, what kind of a breakdown there was between the buy now pay later and the, and the discount. I haven't 

[00:03:19] Joshua Warren: seen exact numbers yet. A lot of these numbers are still coming out just because we're kind of, everybody's a little busy right now in the e commerce world.

[00:03:25] In case you haven't noticed the 

[00:03:28] Darin Newbold: important safety tip. Well, all right. So buy now pay later. Those are awesome. Uh, I'm sorry. Buy now pay later is, is, is a great. Uh, tool to use, obviously, and we've talked about it in the past discounts, they can work, but you got to be careful you turn into a JC Penney where they only sell things when they're on discount and you can never sell it at regular price.

[00:03:48] So, what are beyond that short term? Hey, right now, grab at this moment. What's that long term growth strategy that we can think about? 

[00:03:56] Joshua Warren: You know, one thing I want to talk about with that on the long term side, and this is where I may surprise people be a little less than the optimist. I usually am.

[00:04:04] Um, all of us in the industry. We love to talk about. Oh, 13 increase. 7 increase. Look at all these increases. Those aren't spread evenly among all retailers. So, there's been some years, um, Some are more equal than others? Yeah, well, there, there were some years, I know back like 2020, um, Amazon was the increase and small retailers were not.

[00:04:26] And so, realizing that, if you didn't hit these numbers, know, there, there's a reason and you need to dig into why. But it might not be you, it might be the competitive landscape. So, I know that sometimes people will take these numbers and say, Hey, if sales are increasing, 10 every year, then I need to increase my plans, my sales projections, etc.

[00:04:46] by 10%. That's not always accurate. Um, you may want to increase it actually by 20 if you're going to take a greater market share, or if you have a really strong competitor that's taking market share from you, you might have to, you know, step down to like a 5 increase. Makes 

[00:05:01] Darin Newbold: sense. Makes sense.

[00:05:02] Well, obviously, we always talk about good planning and good preparation and strategy around that. So, I mentioned discounting as part of, uh, what had happened and, and that's what you had said. So, what is an effective discounting structure? What's a way to do that in the most effective way? Because you can discount yourself into, you know, out of business.

[00:05:23] What's the best way to do that? Well, this is 

[00:05:24] Joshua Warren: where you have to have a really strong e commerce platform and really solid product data and know how to use it all. And what I mean by that is the discounts have varied greatly depending on the product category. So there's certain categories. Um, electronics are always a big one where.

[00:05:39] Sure. Everybody expects actually that same Walmart associate that told me happy Black Friday also said, you know, every year I just buy a TV because I figure I can give it as a gift because TVs are so cheap at Black Friday. So which that I wish I was on his gift list. Yeah, well, apparently the Walmart employee discounts pretty solid if he's buying TVs as gifts.

[00:06:00] But yeah, so electronics, TVs, especially people are going to expect huge discounts. Certain other categories, especially luxury categories. The discounts might be a little here. So if you sell across categories on your website, you can't have a one size fits all discounting strategy. 

[00:06:17] Darin Newbold: Got it. All right.

[00:06:18] Well, What's kind of our reflection if you week, uh, if you will on post the cyber week, I mean, kind of reflecting on what happens, some strategies and, and how do you maintain and keep that momentum going, going afterwards? Cause you know, it doesn't, doesn't stop and you can't just go take a nap or go to your beach house and.

[00:06:39] Stay there. 

[00:06:41] Joshua Warren: Retire to your yacht. Retire to your yacht. Exactly. One, one Cyber Week. That's going to be me. But, no, I, I mean, especially this episode is going to air during Cyber Week and we're talking to some people then that are incredibly busy and are just trying to keep their website going, keep fulfillment going.

[00:06:56] Um, and I would say the biggest thing is, is to stop and pause and reflect and basically look and say, okay, are we meeting our numbers or not? And if we're not meeting our numbers. Don't just immediately jump to discounting. Don't assume that's where the problem is. Kind of go back to that, that same formula I always talk about with e commerce.

[00:07:13] Um, Do you have the right number of people coming to your site? Are those people converting at the right rate? And are you retaining them at the right rate? And so, discounting can definitely help with the conversion rate, but if you're not getting as much traffic, if there's some sort of drop, you know, in your traffic for some reason, then discounting's not necessarily going to help.

[00:07:32] If anything, discounting might hurt the case. Might hurt 

[00:07:33] Darin Newbold: it, yeah. Well, and, and something you said there, Josh, and I just want to, this is a little bit of a side note to this, but, If you have listened to this podcast more than once or whatever, there is a pretty common theme that, that is reflected through all of it.

[00:07:46] One, one is take some time to reflect, take a moment. It doesn't have to be hours or weeks or days or whatever, but it can be take 30 minutes pause. Think about it. Just, just look at it and then always strategize, always kind of get yourself. And a pen and paper or get other people in a smart room in a room smart people on a whiteboard and and and strategize and look at the numbers and do some analysis.

[00:08:09] So that's a common theme that I think almost every one of the episodes that we've done. I need somewhere in there. Josh, you've said those words. So I think it's I think it's good to pull that out in our reflection kind of after after the fact. But what about strategies to handle any economic challenges, some economic resilience that, that we might need to think about?

[00:08:31] Joshua Warren: Yeah. Um, so it's probably too late to deploy buy now pay later if you haven't. Um, you know, I have mixed feelings about that from a societal standpoint, but from an e commerce conversion rate standpoint, like you have to be offering buy now pay later. if that's not an option, you don't have that, then that is where really discounting does become your best bet.

[00:08:50] Do look at how that's going to impact your bottom line and think about it from that more strategic level. Um, we have some clients that have really invested a lot in creating unique promotion engines so that they have different levers to pull. So instead of just, hey, you're gonna get 50 off.

[00:09:05] You say, Hey, if you buy 2 of these, we'll give you 1 for free. Or if you buy 3 of this, then we'll give you this coordinating item for free. And so think about, especially, this is a time of year where maybe you have some inventory sitting around, you'd like to clear out before the end of the year, That could be some good inventory to look at giving away or bundling in some way. Not a 

[00:09:25] Darin Newbold: bad idea. Well, continuing on with that, how do, how do we reflect on obviously, and then optimize mobile shopping? Cause that's a, that's huge. 

[00:09:34] Joshua Warren: Always. Yeah. And mobile shopping in October, I didn't do this math in advance.

[00:09:39] Mental math is hard, but. It is trending up. It was, 36 billion via mobile devices in October, so we are going to hit that tipping point sometime in November or December where, mobile purchases are greater than, desktop purchases. Wow. Which, the funny thing is, I was talking to a colleague in Europe recently and he said, wait Y'all are about to hit that tipping point. That's how it's been in Europe. It's always been that way. Right but here in the U S at least, yeah, that's, that's finally happening. And, um, again, little late in the season to try to make major changes to your website on mobile. Um, however, I do remember way back in the early days, um, a customer I was working with directly that.

[00:10:19] They weren't really hitting their numbers that holiday season and we looked at their site and we realized pretty easily with their, um, e commerce platform, we could add a banner just on mobile that would appear at the top of the site that we could put some specific mobile messaging on and really think about, okay, this person's probably standing in a store comparison shopping.

[00:10:40] What sort of offer could I pop into the header of my site into a banner, um, that appears on mobile to convince them to, Hey, don't just comparison shop and actually buy the product from my website. So getting creative with things like that. And then if you haven't, if your mobile numbers aren't where you want them to be this holiday season.

[00:10:59] You probably ought to start talking to an agency now about getting that fixed, for the spring. 

[00:11:04] Darin Newbold: Absolutely. Absolutely. Start early, start often. So, alright, now we get a look at kind of the popular products. What, uh, what were winners, what are the winners and losers there, and what does that, how does that affect us going 

[00:11:16] Joshua Warren: forward?

[00:11:16] Yeah, and I can't wait to see the, the results for the whole holiday season. The early winners in October have been Legos and Bluetooth headphones. Which I understand the Legos I could always have more Lego kits. Like they crank out new kits like crazy, but doesn't everyone already own two or three Bluetooth headphones?

[00:11:34] Like it feels you and I do at least. Um, but that does point out like you need to know your, category well, and your products. Well, um, something I love, I was in a conversation with a client earlier this week and. Basically was saying, Hey, I, am the expert on e commerce strategy. You are the expert on your products, right?

[00:11:53] So you need to know which products should you carry a deep stock on and which shouldn't you. And again, a little late to plan that now for the holiday season, but this is an opportunity. If you can pause and reflect, if you have a product that you feel like was going to be a hot seller and you're halfway through cyber week and you still have a ton of those left.

[00:12:13] Might be time to do some discounting or special offers for sure. 

[00:12:16] Darin Newbold: Well, and then last but not least, uh, curbside pickup. where do you see that heading kind of what's the result or what are we, what are we feeling from that coming out of, uh, coming out of the season? Yeah. 

[00:12:27] Joshua Warren: So in October, 18 of omnichannel orders were for curbside pickup, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it is, that is a huge benchmark for that.

[00:12:36] and I think that only indicates an even greater growth. You know, we talked about how last year, the few days before Christmas, well over 50 of omnichannel orders were for curbside pickup. I think we're going to hit a much higher number this year. So this is where, again, probably too late to deploy curbside pickup for this year.

[00:12:55] Um, good time to start talking to an agency about deploying it for next year though. But even if you have it, um, review your staffing plans, review the experience. Let's say suddenly in a week or two, your curbside pickup orders double. Do you have the store staff and the processes in place to get those orders out to the cars in a reasonable amount of time?

[00:13:15] because if you don't, people may not choose you next year when they're doing that last minute holiday shopping. 

[00:13:20] Darin Newbold: Exactly. And, and, and as always reflect on where you're at, if they're not worth it, where you want them reflect on ways that going into the final. Final month of the year. What are changes that you can implement that that would and can make a difference.

[00:13:33] Well josh This has been fun. We kind of went through it quick of of a whole bunch of reflective things coming off of Cyber basically cyber week black friday and cyber monday We definitely had some great surges been some great great movement And that's awesome, but you always have to be careful that can be in certain, certain areas and it might not be in your area.

[00:13:54] So you got to understand that product mix, what's happening, discounting, buy now, pay later, all of the, all of the groovy levers that can be pulled inside your store and, and inside your platform. So any last thoughts as we, as we close this one 

[00:14:09] Joshua Warren: out? I just hope everybody had a wonderful. Has, will have, has had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

[00:14:16] Exactly 

[00:14:17] Darin Newbold: what Josh said. So with that, uh, we appreciate you being here as always. Please, uh, uh, hit subscribe, like, all of the groovy buttons there. We would love to hear from you as well. And, uh, as always have happy holidays and we're excited to have you here at commerce today. Take care.

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