November 30, 2005
Brickstream's Observations from Black Friday
by Craig Thompson
Black Friday means extremely high customer traffic and an extremely high number of transactions. The question is, "Does everyone who fights to get in your store buy something?" The answer is, surprisingly, "No."
In the chart below, you can see Brickstream's retailer arrival pattern indexed to their pre-Thanksgiving average. Traffic started picking up the week before Black Friday and then skyrocketed. Sales increased dramatically in the last week as well. However, retailers have seen conversion rates a few points lower than the averages seen in the weeks prior to Thanksgiving.
How can this be? Well, here are a few reasons why conversion rate dips during The Black Friday weekend:
- Holiday shopping is a social activity. Families together for the holidays, shop together, often resulting in one purchase among several shoppers.
- Crowds and long lines encourage abandonment. This is not a holiday observation, but a general observation seen by our customers for years.
- Out-of-stocks and price comparisons on this season's "hot" items drive store abandonment. Shoppers will choose to leave in search of the hot item elsewhere, right now.
- People are truly "shopping" (vs. "buying") more in the holiday season, visiting several stores, searching for the "right" gift, and giving their business to just a few.
Retailers need to ask themselves what their goals are for these extremely busy days and make sure that they do not step on their own toes. Money spent to attract customers to the store is wasted when you are unprepared to serve them. Analyzing and understanding your store's traffic patterns throughout the year, and by using data from the same time past year, allow you to optimize traffic, staffing, and purchasing forecasting.
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