Black Friday: Why Retailers Need a Backup Plan
While Black Friday comes just once a year, most retailers have probably been planning for the major shopping day – and the rest of the holiday season – for quite some time now. For shoppers, Black Friday through Cyber Monday – also known as “Cyber Week” – are all about scoring the best deals on gifts for their family and friends. And similar to recent years, most shoppers won’t simply be flooding physical stores this holiday season. Rather, they will also take advantage of deals through e-commerce websites and mobile apps.
The more merchants prepare in advance, the more likely the holiday shopping season will go off without a hitch. Following are a few tips for retailers to better help busy shoppers buy gifts for everyone on their lists quickly and seamlessly.
Train roaming cashiers
When most people think of Black Friday, one of the first images that comes to mind is a crowded store with long lines. However, if retailers want to maximize their holiday sales and keep customers coming back for more, they should do everything possible to help busy holiday shoppers find what they’re looking for, complete transactions and get out the door as quickly as possible. According to a recent Mindtree survey, shoppers at specialty retailers have a low threshold while waiting for assistance (12.7 minutes) – and if they don’t receive assistance during this window, they might leave your store and shop with a competitor. Making customers wait can lead to lost sales, so placing an emphasis on a quick shopping experience is essential.
In the event of long checkout lines, the latest technology enables merchants to have a backup plan of assigning “roaming cashiers” armed with tablets or smartphones throughout the store, which can process transactions and have the potential to cut customer wait times significantly. Employees can meet shoppers on the floor to speed up the checkout process, making sure the flow of traffic in and out of the store moves seamlessly.
Warby Parker is one retailer that offers such an in-store experience. Warby Parker uses roaming checkout technology to streamline the purchasing process and customer experience. Every sales associate is trained to use tablets to help shoppers complete purchases quickly.
Retailers not already leveraging iPads or mobile hardware for roaming cashiers should talk to their payments provider.
‘Old school’ is still an option
One of the last things retailers want is for their payment system to fail during the busiest shopping days of the year. To ensure they can accept payments no matter the circumstances, retailers should consider diversifying their payment acceptance devices to include not only traditional registers, but also tablets and mobile devices.
As an added backup retailers can also consider going “old school” by stocking a sufficient supply of manual, non-electronic credit card processors known as “knucklebusters.” These devices can enable sales associates to still capture payment details in the event of a power loss, internet outage and more.
Speed up online checkout
Many consumers are choosing to do all their holiday shopping online, from the comfort of their own homes. And with online shopping, the customer experience plays just as important of a role as in-store. Slow web page speed or checkouts come with the risk of shopping cart abandonment – a recent report from Dynatrace found that 49% of shoppers would abandon a mobile site if it took more than three seconds to load. Speed becomes an even bigger factor during the stress of holiday shopping. By optimizing your e-commerce website and placing an emphasis on a quick, seamless customer experience, you can increase your revenue during peak shopping season.
According to Worldpay’s Global Payments Report, by 2019, e-commerce sales are projected to grow to $2.4 trillion, with 23% of those sales being exclusively on mobile. Getting customers as quickly from “add to cart” to the final confirmation page is vital for retailers. Leading up to the holiday season, retailers should encourage shoppers to create account logins, and store payment and shipping information, so details don’t need to be entered each time they shop. This way, when Cyber Monday rolls around, customers won’t have to fumble around entering their information while trying to catch a quick sale.
Further, consumers expect to pay their way. According to Worldpay’s recent Online Payments Journey Report, 40% of shoppers would immediately abandon their purchase if their preferred payment method was hard to find. Shoppers are more likely to return if they know they can rely on a retailer and their site to work properly and complete a transaction their way and hassle-free.
Planning for the busiest shopping period of the year can seem like a daunting task even for the most established merchants. By training employees to use mobile point of sale (POS) devices, preparing for any potential technical difficulties and ensuring a faster online checkout process, businesses can help shoppers get exactly what they need this holiday season while avoiding major headaches.