Don’t Forget Your Tech on Black Friday 2018

“If your site makes $100K per day, a one-second improvement generates an additional $7K daily. A one second delay in load time normally equals an 11% loss in page views. A one second delay also means an overall 7% drop in conversions.” This statistic from Shopify highlights a number of issues that retailers are concerned about, especially with the exciting yet frenetic 2018 Black Friday on the horizon.

Are you prepared for Black Friday?

Many retailers have spent the better part of the year preparing for this bumper shopping day. And no wonder. According to Adobe Digital Insights which tracks a healthy chunk of America’s online spending, shoppers spent US$5 billion in 24 hours on Black Friday 2017.

Brandon Aitken, Account Director at Web help says, “Black Friday has effectively disrupted the retail market starting in the US and UK, but now we see it in South Africa. From a company point of view this – October to December – is what we call the golden quarter.”

For many retailers, this day – or few days – accounts for a third of their annual revenue.

While we can’t help to dress mannequins or ensure a trained and efficient staff complement, we can support your tech during this critical time. Why is this important?

Check Your Tech

Websites and Hosting

For huge retailers like Debenhams to succumb to a crashed website on this important shopping occasion, there’s no reason to think that smaller, less prepared businesses won’t suffer the same fate. Preparing your site for an influx of traffic is key, perhaps starting with traffic predictions based on last years’ numbers. Can your website host handle the expected numbers, or should you scale up?

Security

Black Friday is a perfect time for the nefarious deeds of cybercriminals who make use of the general chaos that abounds during this time, and their activities may well go unnoticed. Does your communications provider offer a secure and reliable infrastructure, and can they respond swiftly in a crisis?

Mobile Shopping

Can your customers access your eCommerce store and make their purchases quickly and easily via mobile? Many people have been put off visiting large malls or supermarkets on Black Friday as the resulting melee is just too much for them – some people just don’t like crowds, no matter how much you mark down a product! Accommodating these shoppers via a fast and secure mobile site means more dollars for you.

A report from CNBC says, “As of 10 a.m. ET on Black Friday, Adobe said 61.1 percent of shoppers’ visits to retailers’ websites stemmed from mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. Those devices were driving 46.2 percent of total online revenue, as consumers had already spent more than $640 million by Friday morning. That’s an increase of 18.4 percent compared with a year ago.”

Good, clean navigation, no hoop-jumping, and a fast and secure checkout process will increase conversions and maximise sales. Of course, your site needs to be stable and running efficiently for this to take place.

Telephones

Black Friday or not, your phones will be ringing. Do you have just a single line accepting and making calls? A busy signal is the fastest way to frustrate your customers, which makes the ability to forward waiting calls to other lines (and other devices) so important. If you are operating your business with a traditional single landline and you are still waiting for that extra line, then we encourage you to consider IP calling; fast to deploy, easy to scale, multi-functional and cheap.  There are also other alternatives to traditional fixed line services, which is not dependent on copper lines.

POS Devices

Will all your devices work in-store on Black Friday? Or will you watch in desperation as your frustrated customers leave your store while the cashier holds the POS device over her head and waves it around, trying to get a signal? A good connection, as well as a fail-over in case of overload or failure, is absolutely essential on this mammoth shopping day!  A plan B is therefore essential, ensuring you have full operating hours availability for accepting cards as payment method.

You’ve been planning your marketing strategy, your store layout, stock, staffing and security for the year – there’s no doubt you want your Black Friday to be a super-sized success. If any of these technical or communication issues have you scratching your head, then we encourage you to pick up the phone and call the Huge Connect team.  We don’t claim to be the experts, or even a provider of all the Tech mentioned above, but we’re happy to listen and assist you where possible.

Let’s make Black Friday 2018 one to remember…for all the right reasons.