Black Friday has long been the busiest sale event of the year for retailers. Today, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday — also known as “Cyber Week” — is a critical time of year for merchants of all sizes. And, luckily, the opportunity these blockbuster sales days offer continues to grow.
To take advantage of that opportunity, merchants need to offer great discounts on the products consumers want while providing a frictionless shopping experience. Both can be challenging, especially for smaller businesses. Thankfully, independent sales organizations (ISOs), payment facilitators (PayFacs) and software platforms that facilitate payments are all in a unique position to help.
So, what kind of opportunity does Cyber Week 2024 represent to your merchants and what strategies can you help them employ to make it a major success?
Why Cyber Week Becomes More Important Each Year
In 2023, Cyber Week sales hit new records. Online, U.S. shoppers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday — a 7.5% increase over 2022. Cyber Monday was even bigger, with a 9.4% increase to $12.4 billion in online sales. Skyrocketing inflation wasn’t enough to dull the Cyber Week shopping spirit in 2022 or 2023, so in 2024, with the economy recovering, inflation back under control and interest rates finally falling, Cyber Week is expected to be another huge success.
Shifting Shopping Patterns See More Frequent Channel Switching and New Ways to Pay
The way people shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is shifting. In 2023, over 51.1% of ecommerce purchases were made on a mobile phone during the holiday season from November to December, according to Adobe Analytics. For the first time in history, mobile was the dominant channel, indicating the shift towards omnichannel commerce and channel switching. Consumers now seamlessly jump between channels while shopping — including browser-based and mobile websites, social media platforms, brick-and-mortar stores and even unattended kiosks.
Customers are also increasingly choosing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options more often at checkout as a way to stretch their budgets. While credit and debit cards are still the dominant payment method, Adobe’s data shows that BNPL use spiked on Cyber Monday, reaching $940 million.
What Your Merchants Need to Do to Maximize Success (and Your Residuals)
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday represent a huge opportunity for your merchants, but they’re also a fiercely competitive time of the year. Consumers know everyone is slashing prices, and they won’t hesitate to explore their options. Because of that, it’s best to assume customer loyalty doesn’t exist when it comes to holiday sales, especially during Cyber Week.
Getting ahead of the game is crucial to outcompeting rivals. With that in mind, the following are some high-impact tactics your merchants can employ to ensure customers shop at their sales, rather than a competitor’s.
Let Previous Years’ Data Drive This Year’s Offers
Ultimately, having a successful Cyber Week is about having the right deals. The best way to determine what those deals should be is to lean heavily on sales data from prior holiday sales. While models update and product mixes change each year, people are generally looking for the same types of deals. So, well in advance of Cyber Week, your merchants should review the sales data from previous holiday seasons to see which deals performed best, which surprised them and which didn’t meet their expectations. This year’s deals should ideally mirror past successes wherever possible.
It can be easy to treat Cyber Week as nothing more than a way to get rid of slow-moving inventory. But, it’s important to remember that customers have no shortage of choices, so wowing them with great deals on at least some of the products they really want is a must. Good data will point you in the right direction.
Create Unique Bundles to Increase Ticket Size and Move More Inventory
Smart merchants use bundles to maximize the value of Cyber Week. Bundles accomplish two big goals for retailers:
- They boost ticket sizes by encouraging customers to spend more to get better deals
- They allow merchants to package the inventory they want to move with the inventory customers are most eager to buy
Big retailers are experts at bundling on big sale days. Amazon famously offers extremely steep discounts on its Echo products and bundles them with other smart products from its ecosystem, add-on products like lightbulbs and even subscriptions to streaming services like Amazon Music. Regardless of what your merchants sell, finding creative ways to bundle offers is a great way to help them move more inventory and encourage higher spending.
Start Marketing As Early As Possible
For small and medium-sized merchants, Cyber Week success relies on customers finding their sales. With so many deals being pushed by huge players like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and others, it is easy for smaller merchants to get lost in the noise.
To stay competitive, your merchants need to start advertising their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals as early and as aggressively as possible. They should also consider starting them early, as most big competitors no longer wait for Thursday or Friday to unleash deals.
Having more time to make an impression is especially important for local, independent merchants selling primarily in the brick-and-mortar channel. When the big sale days finally come, most customers turn to big-box stores or major websites knowing they can effectively cater to all their needs. The only chance small merchants have to compete is by ensuring their target customers are keenly aware of their deals, ideally through consistent, early marketing campaigns — not last-minute efforts.
Offer a Frictionless Checkout and Payment Experience
Because shoppers have so many options on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, any friction in the shopping experience could cause them to turn to your competitor. Although some small merchants treat checkout and payment as an afterthought, it’s important to remember that those areas play significant roles in the overall shopping experience.
Whether in-store or online, here are some key strategies to improve checkout flows during Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events:
- Ensure customers can checkout and pay how they want: The more payment options a merchant offers—including cards, digital wallets, BNPL and more—the less likely customers are to abandon their carts. Today’s consumers expect an omnichannel experience. So, whether they’re researching online for an in-store purchase, paying via app to pick up in-store to avoid big checkout lines or using any other combination of channels, their payment experience has to be easy
- Reducing friction in the checkout process: In-store, keeping lines moving is crucial. Merchants can speed things up by scheduling extra cashiers and using mobile payment systems to set up ad hoc checkouts around the store to minimize congestion up front. Online, merchants should ensure customers aren’t forced through a maze of checkout screens by offering one-click shopping with an Amazon-style “buy now” button. Anything that introduces friction — from forced sign-ups to too many additional offers — could be a problem
- Stress testing checkout and payment systems well in advance: Your merchants need to ensure technical issues don’t catch them by surprise on sale days. With increased traffic, anything that slows down or stops checkout is a disaster. Work with your merchants to ensure their online systems are functioning, they have backup plans like spare payment terminals and that they know what to do and how to get the right help if something goes wrong
While great deals are a primary driver of Black Friday and Cyber Monday success, it’s crucial that your merchants offer their customers a frictionless payment experience. Offering a variety of simple, easy to use options will keep them happy, minimize cart abandonment and maximize revenue on this all-important weekend.
To learn more or to see how NMI’s modular payment solutions can empower your business (and your merchants) this holiday season, reach out to a member of our team today.
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