Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid this Black Friday

Black Friday is the busiest time for any furniture business just like for most others. In a recent survey, a staggering 73.3% of consumers said they were planning to shop this Black Friday, and most had put off their purchases in anticipation of securing a deal during the sale. But is your business ready for the influx of customers during this Black Friday sale?

We talked to many office furniture stores and online as well as offline furniture business owners about the top mistakes they have made during Black Friday. You too can learn from other's mistakes and make this Black Friday the most successful for your business yet.

These are the top 3 mistakes to avoid on Black Friday:

1. Not preparing enough

The number one mistake you can make this Black Friday is not preparing enough. Most of the businesses that we talked to start working on peak season sales latest by September to purchase inventory, design their collateral and set up their marketing & customer support channels. There's a load of things to do and if you wait too long, you will be caught unawares and come under undue pressure at the last moment.

2. Not standing out

Consumers like to buy on Black Friday. Shoppers know that every retailer has discounts on Black Friday, and many consumers believe Black Friday has the best discount offers of the year. In fact, 71.2% of respondents think Black Friday is the best time to do discount shopping. So every business like yours does come up with the best possible deals during this time. It can get quite monotonous however if the only discussion is about price and you have nothing more to say. It would be interesting to see if you can offer something more unique like a Free Cushion with every chair. Could your marketing angle be something like this: "This Black Friday, we realize you'll be extra tired shopping. So we're happy to offer you a Free Lumbar Support Cushion when you buy an Ergonomic Chair from us, which by the way is also at a never before 50% discount!" So you're selling the chair while focusing on the Free Cushion and taking the heat away from the %age discount on the main product.

3. Turning off your live chat

Another mistake that many stores make on Black Friday is to turn off their live chat due to the number of customers who have queries and the fact that they can't manage it. But not having live chat available during the peak season will definitely frustrate your customers when they cannot get in touch with you. Moreover, live chat is a great tool for cross-selling and upselling products. Data from one of our retail customers show that consumers are 46% more likely to buy when chat is available. So, make sure you have enough staff available to man the chat during those rush hours. If you are unable to add additional resources, consider targeting the live chat to high-value customers or having the chat available during the crucial stages of the buying journey, such as on your checkout page.

Black Friday is undoubtedly the most important sale season of the year but there are numerous other smaller sales occasions like the Independence Day Sale or the Spring Summer sale or Back to school. The underlying factor for all these is "preparedness" and at Stellar, we encourage all our partners to start discussions as early as they can. It takes time for you to decide what models to buy, draw out your inventory buy plans, and also for the manufacturing and logistics to happen. Your marketing planning and local delivery, logistics, manpower, etc are all important for your to plan and manage well.

To talk to a Stellar representative for your #OfficeFurniture needs, please click the Link provided here or send us an email at contactus@stellarglobal.com