This year has been hugely turbulent for all retailers…. Whilst Black Friday often starts two weeks before, 2020 has seen an increase in promotional activity by retailers spread throughout the month, which means some deals have been available from as early as the end of October! According to The Drum, there is a predicted 22% decrease in overall Black Friday spend this year, and, due to lockdown, online retailers will be the big winners. On top of this, there is evidence of customer concern for retailers having possible backlogs and delays on December deliveries, leading to up to 60% of people “front spending” for Black Friday as well as Christmas before lockdown even started in early November.
Here at OnBrand, we’ve focused on the positive, with two keys areas aiming to support this unpredictable change in the market and enable our clients to plan more effectively:
Firstly, we are delighted to have been able to help several independent businesses make the move online – meaning small, high street shops have the ability to now offer either full e-commerce or click and collect in store services. Not only is this a positive, longer term step forward for so many high street retailers, but in turn has increased their multi-channel customer experience offering and overall brand perception.
Secondly, we are creating informative and engaging content for the shopping centres that we work with. This is done through social media planning and ongoing conversations with their customers. We want to reassure customers that once the centres are up and running again there is plenty of fantastic shopping to be done and increase footfall for independent businesses as soon as lockdown eases.
There are many brands that have seen growth and have been positively affected during the pandemic, whether through offering new safety products, or leisure at home products. Lego, for example, had low stock availability on many lines due to early buying in March, throughout summer and then saw another surge as the new lockdown was announced.
Despite being the most challenging year in retail and a change to the normal Black Friday purchasing patterns, we are still very much here to help businesses either look forward to planning their 2021 activities, or simply get back on track after Lockdown 2.0. We would love to hear about how your business may have been positively impacted during this time, and how being online has enabled a new way of working. Get in touch on [email protected] – we would love to hear from you!
