Mastering Black Friday Cyber Monday: Strategies, challenges and tools for a successful BFCM campaign
September 18, 2023 • 49 mins
Get ready to become an expert on navigating the Black Friday Cyber Monday season with Ivan and me as we unravel the secrets of crafting a victorious campaign.
How can current economic uncertainties shape this year's sales and is it a smart move for businesses to partake in BFCM promotions? We'll tackle these questions and more, comparing last year's trends with this year's forecasts to give you a comprehensive understanding of potential market dynamics.
Step into the marketing arena with us as we strategise for a successful BFCM campaign. The clock is ticking and every second counts. We'll discuss the unique challenges you face as a merchant in these crucial times and how to engage your customers effectively. Is your messaging clear, concise and persuasive? We’ll provide insights on how to minimise confusion, and consequently, returns. And when your hot-selling items run out of stock, we’ve got you covered with our top picks for alternative product options.
It's not all about marketing though. A spike in traffic and demand can make or break your BFCM campaign. We'll discuss the potential pitfalls, from coding errors to a lack of sufficient support for your ecstatic shoppers. Fear not, we'll take you through the operational side of preparing for BFCM, sharing our favourite tools like Shipper HQ for logistics and Gorgias for customer service. Join us as we not only help you survive but thrive during this Black Friday Cyber Monday season.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, welcome to the Big Commerce Podcast.
Hello, welcome to a brand newepisode of the Big Commerce
Podcast.
I'm your co-host, Luigi, and intoday's episode, Yvan and I
talk about Black Friday CyberMonday.
We're going to talk about howto prepare for a successful
Black Friday Cyber Mondaycampaign, how you can optimize
your website and online presence, some of the challenges that
(00:23):
you can encounter during thisseason and some of the tools and
technologies that can help youwin.
Enjoy the episode.
How are you, Yvan?
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Not too bad, luigi, yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Not too bad, it's Friday yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So we've got a couple of days off TGAF.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yes, so today's episode we're going to talk
about Black Friday, cyber Monday, bfcm.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Awesome, awesome, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's coming up in just over two months' time, so
personally I think we're justabout in time.
I remember speaking to somebodyonce who said that you should
start preparing for Cyber Fiveback in June and July, which I
think if you're kind of a largebusiness possibly, but let's be
realistic for SMBs and lowermid-market I think five, six
(01:16):
months ahead is probably a bitoverkill.
But anyway, we'll see if we canhelp listeners just to kind of
find some snippets ofinformation, some takeaways that
might help them this year ifthey're taking part in Black
Friday, Because I think over thelast couple of years we've had
an increase in number ofmerchants not necessarily ours,
just in general, both online andoffline, that refuse to take
(01:40):
part in the Cyber Five kind ofpromotions.
I don't know what your thoughtsare on that.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, I mean it's ad hoc for a company.
I'm always a fan of peopleevaluating their own data and
seeing if things work for them.
If they've done thingshistorically and the ROI is in
there for them, I would say, andif the data backs that up, I
would say, move away from that.
So even if that happens forBFCM, then it's will be it, but
(02:07):
from my experience, it tends tobe the biggest shopping event of
the year for online, and what'scool about it is it's industry
wide.
There's things like Prime Dayand that's awesome for Amazon,
but this really seems to beindustry wide.
Every year there seem to bemore and more companies joining
in offering deals, which meansthings are more competitive,
(02:28):
which means the offerings areever improving, so essentially,
getting better and better forclients so that they can win the
business through thatcompetition, and that raises the
standards and forces othercompanies to follow suit.
So you almost really have to beat your best for BFCM.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
But I think that's partly one of the reasons why
some merchants just refuse,because it's like actually it's
just a race to the bottom.
It's like you know who can, whocan give the biggest discounts,
who can give the lowest price.
But I think that there is thissmall shift that you know kind
of historically.
So let's let's start from thefront of again.
Obviously we've all heard of ofBFCM, black Friday, cyber
Monday, cyber Five, called bymany different names, and I
(03:11):
remember being in Italy it wasjust over a year ago, so was it
before or after, I can'tremember.
Anyway, it's around the periodof Cyber Five.
They called it Black Week, sobasically they've in the shops.
I remember you kind of walkpast the shops and they had like
Black Week and whatever, whichI guess, from a translational
perspective, maybe gets lost inwithin English speaking
(03:33):
countries, but nevertheless,that's what they meant is that
for that whole week you aregoing to get some super cool
deals that you work.
The work and were repeatedduring the year.
And the reason why I think it'sreally interesting at the
moment is because I'm speakingto a lot of people about this,
both in the industry and atmerchants is.
(03:54):
I don't think anyone knowswhat's going on with the economy
.
Like you know, if you read thenews one day, it's doom and
gloom.
The next it's, you know,celebrating that we've just, you
know, missed a recession, andyou know, cost of living is
going up, rates of interestrates are going up.
You know now energy prices arefalling, but their petrol prices
(04:15):
went up.
So it's really difficult topinpoint what is going on, and I
think that uncertainty ispotentially going to fuel a
Black Friday, cyber Monday, boomthis year, because people are
going to be looking after theirpurse strings more than ever
because they might have money.
But it's, you know, it's kindof let's get ready for this
(04:36):
winter.
That's coming Not physically,but also metaphorically.
You know, if we do have acouple of months, or even a year
or two years, of just economicdownturn, then you know we've
got to have money in our pockets, and so, really, cyber 5 is
going to be an opportunity to beable to buy not just presents
but maybe some other purchasesthat people have put off at
(04:59):
potentially lower prices than,you know, the normal.
And I think this is why it'sgoing to be really interesting
this year to see whether youknow whether it's going to be a
success or not.
And compared to last year wherewe had like pretty much
hyperinflation or maybe nothyperinflation but we had really
high inflation that you know wehadn't seen well, if not for a
(05:22):
generation, for a very long time.
And I remember, you know,reading reports of saying the
highest, you know sales volumesfor Cyber 5, ever this, that and
the other.
And if you actually cut throughthe BS and say right is the,
you know, is the average ordervalue gone up or down?
You know you may have sold more, but actually does that mean is
(05:43):
because the prices are higherthan what they would have been
last year because of inflation,because you haven't discounted
as much, or is it because youhave sold more?
Is it because the average ordervalue has actually gone down
and you've done more orders?
So I think it's been reallydifficult to kind of have that
benchmark trend, because lastyear it was really difficult,
(06:05):
the year before we were justcoming out of COVID and you know
e-commerce was still, you know,kind of on this massively
upward trajectory.
So we haven't had a constantbenchmark for quite some time.
I think this year, with kind ofthe, as I said, the economy
being a bit fragile again, it'snot necessarily going to be one
for being able to lay down thefoundational data points for
(06:27):
next year.
So I'm going to be reallyinterested to see what happens
with Cyber 5.
But I think anyway, we all know, you know kind of the history
of what Black Friday, cyber 5,is.
So you know Black Fridaytraditionally the offline kind
of you know promotional campaignthat was run during
(06:47):
Thanksgiving in America, andCyber Monday being the online.
But now it's a five day kind ofholiday Thursday Friday,
saturday, sunday, monday and, asyou said, we've seen it for
both B2C and also B2B kind ofjumping on the bandwagon.
You know that's partly due tothe shift in the e-commerce
customer being, you know, kindof a much younger tech savvy one
(07:11):
that you know whether it's B2Bor B2C, you know they're
interested in those kind ofoffers.
But if let's talk about kind ofmerchants and how they can, I
guess, prepare for Black Friday,cyber Monday, if they're taking
part this year, what are yourthoughts on this kind of you
know, from your perspective,what can a merchant do in order
(07:34):
to get ready for Cyber 5?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean great question .
You know it's for me it'sreally ad hoc per client, you
know.
So not that each merchant isthe same.
Not.
Each merchant's nature of theirbusiness is the same.
So you know different thingswill need to be done for
different businesses.
So I think the key there is, youknow, thinking about it before,
so planning, really starting tothink.
(07:59):
You know you kind of mentionedsix months.
You know might be long for some, but if someone's doing their
first ever VFCM and don't knowwhat's involved, I'd say start
thinking about it.
You know, five or six monthsbefore Start, you know, kind of
debating on what you want to do,how that wants to look, how you
want that to look like.
You know if you want to do it,of course.
And then essentially, once youstart thinking about it and
(08:21):
preparing, one of my keys isstart tracking your data.
So you know, really to see thebenefits of VFCM or maybe that
there wasn't any benefits andyou actually were worse off you
have to start tracking your data.
So, knowing where you werebefore VFCM, during, after, if
you could compare the sameperiod last year as well, super,
(08:44):
super informative as well as ifyou have multiple year data,
that's fantastic.
So you can actually see.
This is how we do before VFCM,this is how we do during and
this is how we do after andcompare year over year of data
and you know, year over year,you're making changes, you're
making improvements, you'reapplying new initiatives.
Maybe you know implementing anew partner platform into your
(09:05):
store that will provide benefitsand then, once you track your
data before and after, you canreally see what that did a year
over year.
So I think that's the key tothings you know.
Start thinking about it early,start planning, start tracking
your data.
But essentially, once you getclose, I would say test, test,
test.
Once you've implemented whatyou wanted to implement, test
your site, test purchases, havepeople with fresh eyes.
(09:29):
Look at the site.
You know.
Test to purchase again, becausereally that's when you know
things are working and you knowsome of the data will help you
also forecast.
If you have forecasts on whatyour traffic will be like, you
can prepare for that traffic.
You can prepare for thosenumbers of sales or levels of
sales.
You can prepare for shipping,all of those.
(09:49):
You know products, let's say.
If you have, you know out ofthis world demand.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
I think you're kind of really right and what you're
touching on in terms of, youknow, kind of looking at tech
platforms that you can look atintegrating, they can be on the
short term as well.
So you know, fine, let's kindof look at the marketing
perspective of getting ready,like you said, for a, for a
cyber five campaign.
(10:17):
You've got a small window as amerchant.
You've got small window of, say, around about five days to get
as many orders in as possible,because you know your margins
are going to be tighter, they'regoing to be lower.
So you need to make sure thatyou up the volume to be able to
maintain it, because your salesnumbers, you know as a benchmark
(10:37):
, you're going to go down.
So if you're doing a thousandorders a day during cyber five,
if you're taking part in acampaign, you're going to be
doing potentially the samenumber of orders and you're
going to take, you know, 30, 40%of top loan revenue down.
So you need to make sure thatyou are converting as many
people as possible.
Now take a traditionalconversion rate of like two,
(10:57):
three, four percent, five.
If you're really, you know,nailed for conversion, five
percent is still really low, isa high conversion rate, but
that's still low.
It means 95% of people are notbuying when they're coming onto
your website, or 95% of visitsare not buying from.
So you need to try and maximizeyour conversion and so, from a
marketing perspective, you needto make sure that that's you've
(11:19):
tapped into that, that you'vegot things like the abandoned
cart campaign optimized forcyber five.
So it's not the traditionalsaying hey, you left something
in your basket.
Click here, you know we'vesaved you, we've saved your cart
.
Click here to to continue.
It is putting in and I'm not afan of urgency messaging, but
during that five day period youneed to make sure that people
(11:39):
know look, this is a really timesensitive offer and potentially
also inventory sensitive as faras kind of once it's gone, it's
gone.
You know you're not going to.
We're not going to get it back,maybe for another couple of
weeks, in which case it'll comeback at, you know, either the
the regular price, if not a newone, if the price from the
supply has gone up in themeantime.
So that marketing has to betailored.
(11:59):
So you need to start puttingthose designs together and those
that content together on your,on your abandoned cart.
You need to look at platformslike just do know, that can give
you those kind of popups, butalso, you know, clave you a mail
chip, they'll do the samewhereby you've got the messaging
, depending on the user behavior.
So, exit intent popups, getthose on there to say, you know,
hey, why are you leaving?
(12:20):
Click here, you know, subscribe, and you're, you know, give us
your email address and you get5% off or $5 off or whatever.
The, the initiative that you're, you're looking at pushing and
that, without overwhelming thebuyer has to think, be one of
your priorities, because you'vegot to make sure that as many
people are adding products tothe cart and checking out as
(12:43):
possible, but then you're semicreating another problem, which
is majority maybe not majority,actually, that's not true but a
lot of people will returnproducts that they bought during
cyber five.
So you also need to make surethat you're you're not giving
your customers reasons to buy aproduct that either they're
(13:06):
misunderstanding what they'rebuying or is not fit for purpose
, because then not only arereducing your profit margin,
you're also having to, you know,lose money to deal with returns
.
And so from again, like ifwe're just focusing on the
marketing, make sure yourproduct descriptions are really
well written.
Make sure as much informationis on the product description
(13:27):
page or product listing page.
Make sure that your images andphotos are really, really clear
so there is as little ambiguityas possible and customers can
make an easy yet informeddecision when they, when they're
buying.
We spoke about, or I mentionedabout inventory, about stock
running out, making sure thatyou've got the ability for a
(13:48):
customer to be able to buy analternative.
So whether that's kind of youknow, if you're selling clothing
, for example, you've gotdifferent colors, making sure
that it's really easy becausethere's two different ways of
managing you know kind ofvarious.
Some customers have them as ayou know different color, some
have them as on the same productdescription page, just with the
different swatches, and somemerchants have them as
(14:10):
completely different products ondifferent pages without been
able to link.
So you need to make sure thatif you know red is out of stock,
then maybe you know blue isvery easy to be able to navigate
to as an alternative product,or if maybe red in of that type
of t-shirt is out of stock, thatthe alternative red t-shirt
(14:30):
that's in a slightly differentfit or style is also easy to
access.
So making sure that kind of youknow alternative products are
really well marketed as well.
And obviously the most importantthing is making sure that the
customer sees that this productis on offer or what the offer is
that's running, whether it's asite-wide 25% off, site-wide,
(14:52):
you know, 50% off, whatever itis.
Just that messaging has to beclear.
It's got to be clear in youradverts when you're driving
traffic and it's got to be clearwhen people are on your website
.
They're navigating that.
Whatever page they come intowhether it's the home page, a
category page, a product listingpage, a product description, a
blog page, even that they'reable to see that there's, you
(15:14):
know, an offer going and there'san incentive for them to be
able to buy.
So from a market perspective,before they've even added
something to the cart, just makesure that you know you've got
the information going out, thatthe messaging is there and so
people can understand what thedifferent offers are and what
the you know the benefit to themis going to be.
(15:36):
And then that transcendsobviously to you build up in
social media and email marketingand so on.
But I think those kind ofthings can often be overlooked
on the website, where a lot ofthe things stay the same.
Like I said, abandoned caremails it's always been the same
one, let's you know, let's nottouch them.
No, you need to make sure thatfor those five days that they
are very specific to the cyberfive and people know that by
(15:58):
midnight Monday that officefinished and when you go on a
Tuesday morning you're payingregular price.
So I think that's somethingthat is often kind of put to the
side but I think plays a veryimportant part in driving,
driving conversions.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree and kind of you know,
what keeps standing out to methere is, you know, tests, tests
, tests.
You know, for example, beforeBFCM even starts, you know some
of the keys of preparing earlier, you know, let's say even five,
six months, is you can testsome of these campaigns to 10%
of the traffic on your site.
But even before BFCM, you know,just just see the effects, see
(16:37):
if they're different conversiondata from that 10% and the nine
that you sent to your normalsite, and if things work and if
you see there are optics, thenmaybe these are some strategies
you can apply for BFCM.
So I think that's super, superimportant.
And another piece that stoodout was just kind of having
those outside eyes, you know,and maybe having someone with
(16:57):
some actual intent or, you know,putting someone in the right
shoes, at least when they'regoing through your site.
So let's say you know you ask afamily, friend or who knows a
family or a friend to take alook at your site and you know
have the intent of actuallywanting to buy a blue sweater or
you know, whatever your sitedelivers, but essentially then
(17:17):
have them going through the siteand actually maybe not running
into that sweater and seeingwhat the alternatives are kind
of as you said there and seeingyou know what would you choose
here.
You know, would you buy this,you know is something stopping
you.
Sure, it's not the final intentof a real client with money on
the line, but it can prepare youand some of those AB tests, you
know, with strategies actuallyto 10% or 5% of your traffic or
(17:40):
20, whatever you decide canactually provide some of that
data with real clients.
So I think that's superimportant, just having that
fresh set of eyes where you knowsomeone actually wants to buy
something.
Maybe you should even sit downwith clients you know, get a.
You know five of your mostcommon clients that come to the
site.
You know biggest purchasers orlongest standing customers.
(18:00):
Maybe you asked them, hey, canwe interview you?
For you know a Starbucks coffeecard or an Amazon gift card,
and you reach out to them andsay, hey, you know, what would
you do in this situation?
Can you, you know, go ahead andyou know, try to purchase
something like this or show mewhat your intent is and actually
see them making a purchase, youknow, not influenced by you.
So I think some of thosetactics can really help in
(18:24):
understanding your clients inthat way is invaluable.
You know, I think that's thekey to creating a company.
You know you have to fulfillneeds and clients have to like
you.
And then you know if you haveclients that do like you today,
you know, ask them why.
Ask them what you do well, askthem what you don't do well and
improve on those things and Ithink, again, basing that off of
data and testing at thesuperpoint.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You're so right on that.
I think if you want to thenexpand that reach of getting the
customer feedback, you can dothe traditional kind of survey
forms, but actually they'requite long-winded and the
conversion rate of those isridiculously low.
So one of the ways I thinkmerchants can achieve that is
doing NPS, net Promoter, scorecampaigns.
(19:07):
So we've all received these.
I've spoken about these on thepodcast before, which is where
you get the email saying fromzero to 10, how would you, how
likely are you to recommend usto?
You know to recommend us andit's skewed.
So zero to six, I think, isyour detractor, seven, eight,
you are passive.
And nine, 10, you are promoter,so you'll like to be tell
(19:29):
people.
And the good thing about thoseNPS campaigns is that you get
feedback as in okay, you onlygave us a six Y or you gave us
an eight Y and you get good back.
You know good and bad feedback.
So it's like you know, thecheckout was too long, maybe I
waited too long for the order toarrive.
I didn't get any confirmationemails, the shipping cost was
too expensive.
(19:49):
Or you send you know you sendthe parcels by this courier and
I don't like them.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So, whatever the reasons are, you can take that
feedback.
Like you know, half of that isgoing to be, you know, pertinent
to that individual merchant.
So it's like you know, I don'tlike that courier, okay, well,
you know that's your opinion,but you know no one else has got
massive problem with that.
Or you know maybe a few peoplesaying, you know the packaging
wasn't.
You know, if you're sellingwine, the packaging wasn't,
(20:15):
wasn't sturdy enough or whateverit is.
But you can get a feedback andact on it and say, okay, fine,
this is this might actually, youknow, be be be worthwhile
considering and seeing if we canimplement that.
So shipping costs too high, canwe do something about it?
You know we're waste.
We could look at alternativecouriers, we could look at
subsidizing, taking, you know,maybe some budget out of your
marketing funds to to subsidizeshipping or add that price onto
(20:40):
the product.
So you kind of you know send,you're shifting the shipping
costs somewhere, somewhere else.
So NPS campaign is a reallygood way of kind of getting that
feedback.
And if you can do that now, youknow, kind of in September,
you've still got enough time tomake some small tweaks just in
time for for Black Friday andCyber, cyber Monday.
So I think I agree with you eventhat you know if you can sit
(21:02):
down with somebody and you cansay, you know, because then you
can poke, you can poke aquestion, yeah Well, why, why?
Why do you say that?
And what if we were to do this,any other thing, you can get
some real feedback.
But you know, if you've got, ifyou're a merchant, there's got
thousands and thousands ofcustomers You're certainly not
going to get that feedback inthe next six weeks and you know
it's going to take you foreverand a day to do that and
obviously time has a costattached to it.
So you know, like you say, kindof get maybe your top five, 10,
(21:26):
15, or maybe you know 5% ofcustomers or maybe a top 20
customers in general, and have asit down with them and you know
an MPS campaign and, like yousay, you know, send them out $5
or five pound coffee coffee giftcard or 10, you know however
much a coffee cost these daysand and and go from there.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, I mean these, these understanding your clients
, especially why your biggestclients today like you and why
they don't like you, and whatyou can improve, I think is
invaluable.
So you know, personally I wouldalways jump on a call.
You know, make it an hour longinterview.
I know it can be painful forthem, but give them a hundred
(22:07):
dollar voucher or, you know, getby them lunch or whatever it
might be.
But I think you know, once youhave that data, once they've
really bought in, once youreally understand those five to
20 customers or what somepercentage of them, you're
really really going to be ableto use that data to change
things for the better.
I think that's super importantand really, you know, kind of
(22:29):
putting that to cost, you know,let's say you do take out, you
know five customers or you know20, maybe not a hundred each,
but at a reasonable price.
You know something that ismeaningful to them is the key.
You know you're going to getreal great data for, again, not
a huge cost for what it willmean to your business in the
long run.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we spoke about kind of you know, I guess
getting ready for cyber fivefrom a intangible perspective,
so doing the marketing, gettingthe data, testing, making sure
that you're set up from awebsite perspective.
What about operationally?
What are the kind of thingsthat maybe merchants can?
What are the sort of spannersthat merchants could be thrown
(23:13):
during the cyber five campaignand what are the kind of
challenges that they should beprepared for during the campaign
?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely talk about things I
hear as well as things that I'veexperienced, which you know.
Kind of I'll put an asterisk onto say that you know these
actually happen, I've seen themhappen.
But essentially you know thingsI hear of.
This and I have sometimes seenhappen is issues with.
You know things like trafficand sites going down.
It's, you know, increasedtraffic.
You don't even, can't evenforecast how much, if really you
(23:45):
know something goes viral, adeal goes viral, product goes
viral, let's say, butessentially you sometimes can't
forecast the increased demand.
So you know, making sure thatyour traffic can handle
increased traffic and won't slowdown and won't make the
experience by your experiencebad for those clients is
something I've heard ofhappening.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And this is sort of interesting.
This is more an issue.
I mean, it's obviously apotential risk for everyone, but
it tends to be more of an issuefor merchants that are self
serving, so, on-prem, like,they're responsible, or their
agency is responsible for theserver, or maybe ones that are
working with e-commerceplatforms that don't have the
size to be able to kind of havea have a solid infrastructure
(24:29):
that their platform runs off.
So, lena, like, become aShopify and so on, who do?
Because this is one of thethings that I often, when I'm
speaking to merchants that arelooking at replatforming, and I
mean, if we've ever, if we'repitching up against an
e-commerce platform that is on-prem, that's one of the first
(24:50):
things that I talk about, notnecessarily Cyber 5, but it's
saying okay, you know it'sFriday 8.30pm and your website
goes down and either your agencyis responsible for the server
or you are as the merchant andyou're meant to be going out for
dinner with your wife becauseit's your anniversary.
What do you do?
Because you know, whereas, ifyou work with a SaaS platform
(25:13):
and you know, with all respect,not a small one, that is pretty
much an agency in itself, butone that has a global support
network with engineers andtechnicians you know, available
24-7,.
They're basically an extensionof your team.
So if something happens onCyber 5, you know it's Black
(25:33):
Friday and it's, you know, 8.45in the evening, where you are
and something should happen, youcan bet your bottom dollar that
they are on it and they arefixing it and trying to get it
back up and running as soon aspossible.
Now big comments make a big dealof the fact that throughout the
last I think five or six Cyber5 campaigns they've had zero
downtime.
(25:54):
They had one of their largestenterprise merchants also do
some advertising during theSuper Bowl which just caned the
server and there was zero effecton performance.
This wasn't obviously duringBlack Friday, it was during the
Super Bowl at the beginning ofthe year.
But just to kind of say thatthey've got those systems and
those controls in place to makesure that when there is a
massive spike in traffic itdoesn't bring everything you
(26:17):
know crashing, because you knowif that just has to happen once
and you know you've lost, you'renot going to be able to kind of
recover from that.
So I completely agree with youthat it's making sure that your
platform can handle those things.
So, again going with the SaaSplatform, it is probably a bit
too late to re-platform forCyber 5 now.
In fact, it's probably a bittoo late to re-platform for
(26:40):
Christmas.
But making sure that you knowyou've got the ability to manage
these spikes in traffic is justone less thing that you need to
worry about as a merchant.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, I totally agree and you kind of mentioned you
know that was one I'm close tobecause I used to be at Rewind.
They back up online stores forclients, but essentially they
were a really great app to have.
If things go down, they canrestore the store.
So if it's you know we used tocall it too many cooks in the
kitchen lots of people makingchanges to the site before Black
(27:17):
Friday, cyber Monday, becausethat's when a lot of changes are
needed.
A lot of work is done, you knowmaking those changes.
Then someone can, you know, beworking on the same thing and
you know, delete someone'sprevious work or make an edit to
the theme code that isn'tcorrect and brings the store
down.
So things like that can happenand having a nap like Rewind to
(27:38):
be able to restore things isreally great as well, and making
sure that that app can restorethings quickly and that can
restore all of your data versussome.
So, again, this is some of theconsiderations going into things
as well, as you know thinkingabout.
Can you know?
Can we meet the demand, theforecasted demand, in terms of
manufacturing, in terms of,maybe, delivery, in terms of
(28:00):
support?
You know, will there be a lotof tickets, will there be a lot
of chats?
You know we have partnersolutions in our ecosystem that
will help supplement or create asupport team for you if you
don't have one.
Maybe that's something that youuse just for BFCM, maybe you
use it for the holidays as well,maybe you decide to institute a
team, like them, to handle yourchat, after, of course, they've
(28:21):
been trained by your team andknow exactly what to do to
handle your chat and supporttickets ongoing.
So you know, preparing forpotential increases in traffic
and demand delivery, demand,support demand will absolutely
help you prepare.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I guess you also got to be aware of kind of external
factors that you cannot directlycontrol but will still affect
the success of your campaign and, I guess, how your brand is
perceived.
So there's one merchant whouses quite a well-known courier
company here in the UK but forsome reason the particular, and
they're quite good actuallythey've historically been at the
(28:57):
forefront of kind of innovationin terms of courier.
I mean it's DPD and everyoneknows that DPD kind of had a
massive growth years ago becausethey were the first to kind of
put out the time delivery.
So your driver, you know Ivan,will be with you between 1117
and 1217 and you can track andwhatever.
And then other carriers seem tofollow suit.
(29:19):
But for some reason thisparticular depot was either not
picking up parcels, was notshipping amount of time
Obviously they had, you know,isolated incident but that
particular depot had issues withits operations and so what that
means is for a merchant that'srelying on the depot like that
it's going to reflect on themthat actually they've got all
(29:41):
these orders that they probablycan't store in their usual
warehouse because you knowthey're not really geared up for
this peak in sales.
But you know, so they're tryingto get it out the door as
quickly as possible and yet thecourier is not turning up.
So you know they've got theseparcels piling up, they've got
customers that are expectingnext day delivery that aren't
going to get it, and thatcreates an additional kind of
(30:01):
array of issues.
So making sure that yourcarriers are also geared up for
and you know you stand, I mean,you know more.
So I guess in the USA, but thenthe UK, but also here in the UK
, when it starts to get busier,the couriers will change their
operations to say, you know, ifwe want to do a pick up before
(30:22):
midday, or maybe we don't offernext day for this particular
week or this particular monthbecause we're just going to have
an increase in orders overalland we just can't handle that.
So it's been aware of that andnot kind of realizing in the
last minute that actually youknow the orders that you sold on
next day service are not goingto be delivered on the next day
service or are not going to bedelivered or, you know, could
(30:43):
conversely be delivered on aSunday, because again those
couriers are trying to get theorders out.
I think it's really interestingif you kind of think from a
merchant's perspective.
You kind of do all yourmarketing to drive traffic to
the website over the build upfor the few weeks before Cyber 5
and then you know Cyber 5starts and you've got the orders
coming into your website andyou get the orders out and then
(31:05):
you know, right Monday eveningyou finished and you're
literally there just waitingbecause some of those orders are
going to start coming back inagain because you're going to
get the returns.
So it's making sure also thatyour returns process is really
fluid, because what you don'twant to do is have a really
complicated returns processwhere either customers don't
want to use it because it's soconvoluted and complicated or
(31:27):
for you to manage.
You know a volume of ordersbeing returned that you're not
traditionally used to is alsogoing to put a strain on your
things and that's going toreflect badly in customer
service and when people go toleave a review they'll say the
customer service was poor.
You know took me forever, youknow had to chase this and you
want to avoid that because whatyou're basically doing is trying
to.
(31:47):
You know piggyback on the Cyber5, you know kind of wave, but
then find that it's had somenegative impact on your business
and you know you've potentiallylost that customer for good.
So making sure that the returnsprocess as well, and that you've
got you know, you've got thatwritten out.
Everyone understands what it is.
(32:09):
Your customers maybe you knowwhether it's an online portal or
whether it's state you knowthat they have to send in a
complete form or whatever it is.
Just make it as easy aspossible, and there's lots of
tools out there as well that canmake the returns easy.
In the UK also, raw maildepending on the type of product
and the size of the productthat you sell, you know, allow
the customer to create returnlabels and the raw mail will
(32:29):
even come and pick it up formost addresses, which makes it
easier on you because you'rejust then waiting for the parcel
to arrive.
But making sure from anoperational perspective as well,
that you know there's ordersthat are going out is great, but
there will also be some thatare coming back in again, and
just that you're geared up fromthat perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I totally agree, and I mentioned obviously kind of,
you know, some of the apps thatare available for returns.
Let's talk about kind of themaybe some technology platforms
that can help merchantspredominantly during this period
, if not during, you know,during our city.
So the first thing youmentioned I think we're both in
agreement of is rewind, becausethere's a lot of people working
(33:15):
a lot of time at the same timeon the one platform potentially
and you know, are able to makemistakes, so it's just been able
to kind of restore within amatter of I mean seconds, but
realistically, minutes, the datathat somebody's working on.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, I think that one's huge.
Yeah, just because I get I'mbiased, I've heard so many
disaster stories where, forexample, a client while I was at
rewind, a client, someonewithin their company, an
employee had left the company orhad been let go and they had
access to the store and theyessentially just come to a
(33:53):
employee, deleted everything.
Yeah.
So things like that happen,things like too many cooks in
the kitchen, theme code edits,you know, lots of things can
happen.
So I think rewind is definitelya good one, and not just for
Black Friday, cyber Monday, justfor that peace of mind ongoing,
because if and when somethinghappens, you're going to wish
you had them and they will havepaid themselves off, probably
(34:14):
when that happens, for yourlifetime.
So that's a really important one.
You're kind of mentioning someof the returns, logistics,
shipping.
I think shipper HQ is great forthat, especially in terms of
some of the logic for thewarehousing that you were
mentioning, where they'll havemultiple warehouses in a lot of
different regions andessentially be able to warehouse
(34:36):
things closer to where peoplemight be ordering and they help
with that logic for you.
So I think that can be a reallygood one, especially in
increased demand on your generalstore, as well as for the
shipping and returns for yourstore, and then maybe a platform
like Gorgias, if you don't haveit instituted already.
You know people will askquestions.
(34:57):
You know we've spokenpreviously about, you know,
having everything clear cut onyour site, having all the
information someone would needto purchase things on the site,
and that's best practice.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
But people will have questions no matter and that
could help with the customerservice as well, because you
know people having to email inor having a call in that takes
away.
But you know time, because Imean I know that I don't know if
they still do it, but manybecause I think Amazon kind of
hired eventually like logisticsand operations pro that fix this
(35:29):
.
But basically I think as amonth of December you had people
from accounts and you know andfinance and sales and everyone
just going in HR, going onto thewarehouse and helping packing
parcels like Amazon.
But basically you know smallbusinesses might be like that as
well.
So you know, maybe a customerservice team has to split their
time between obviously answeringthe phones and dealing with
(35:49):
correspondence, but also goingin and you know whether it's
packing orders or just tapingthem up or picking whatever it
is.
You know you might be pulled inloads of directions.
So actually having somethinglike gorgeous in the which to be
honest it isn't actually thatexpensive if you think about it
Also allows you to automate.
If you get in the same types ofquestions over and over again,
(36:10):
not only you know can youidentify that and say right, we
need to somehow answer thisquestion on the website but
actually using things likemacros you can automate the
responses.
So somebody saying, you knowI'm tracking my parcel, that can
be automated as a response ingorgeous.
So not only is your customergetting a super fast reply but
you're not actually having tosend that reply, it's all
(36:30):
automated.
So I would agree with you onthe gorgeous side of things.
You know they don't have totake out an annual contract and
you know it's just you can haveit for that.
You know, maybe two, threemonths between October, november
, december or November December,january.
I'm pretty convinced 90% ofpeople that will take out a
subscription with gorgeous willstay with it in the long run
because they'll see all thevalue that it can, it can bring.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, yeah, and that's definitely the case with
our clients.
You know who we work with ongetting gorgeous set up.
They tend to keep it.
I think it's part of thatvetting process as well.
You know you should know thatyou need it at least for BFCM,
or that you want it at least forBFCM, and then see the benefits
to institute it for longer.
But yeah, they just save somuch time through macros,
(37:15):
through automated tagging,through no-transcript.
You know the to providingbenefits.
You know being being onfacebook, being on instagram,
being on where they can kind ofstill reach clients and clients
can ask their questions andstill purchase.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I think is is prices two platforms from my side, and
I've already mentioned one ofthem is is just do know.
I think you know it's the oneplatform you absolutely need, is
so easy to implement anyway.
Yes, it will take some timejust to put those campaigns
together, but they do help youum with their templates.
So making sure that your kindof templates and your branding
is is relevant to the uh, to thetime period.
(37:51):
So just do know, we'll put allthese links in the show notes, I
think, and I think if anyonewants to speak to us about these
apps, they should get in touchwith you because you can
obviously put them in touch withthe partners, um, but also
probably, you know, make surethat they get some offers and
some discounts as well, or someincentives.
And the other one is, um, one ofmy favorites is claveo.
(38:11):
Um, sorry for claveo'scompetitors that we also work
with, but one of the reasons whyI like claveo yes, it does also
do the message in the pop-up,but I I I feel the customer
segmentation, the way thatthat's done within claveo, meets
the best of both worlds.
It's not, it's very in depth,but it's not too complicated to
(38:31):
manage and it's not tooprimitive or too simplistic like
other platforms.
Um, and that's really importantfor two reasons.
The first one is we spoke aboutabandoned car emails.
Now you know big commerce outof the box, um, abandoned car
emails.
But why I would recommend youturn those off in big commerce
and look at using something likeclaveo is you can segment the
(38:52):
type of abandoned car email yousend, based on logic, so you
could say, if somebody's got aparticular product in their cart
that you know is a fast mover,um, then you can send one type
of abandoned car email and soyou don't just send out a
blanket saying, hey, you knowthis product's gonna, you know
this product may sell out soon.
(39:12):
Click here to continue.
You can really say, look, thisis one of our top five products
and this will sell out.
Um, you know, click here tojump back in.
Whereas someone that maybe isn'tas much of a fast mover or
maybe does need some more timebecause maybe it's expensive,
it's high, high ticket item, youdon't put as much pressure but
you still make people understandlook, you know, if there's any
questions you've got, so let'ssay it's like a I don't know 500
(39:35):
dollar item of clothing, or youknow a 2000 pound, you know
electronic equipment orsomething, and maybe somebody's
got some questions, then you can, you know, either put in some
FAQs in there or you can putsome links to get in touch with
um customer services, either youknow, you know on gorgeous, or
by phone or or email, orwhatever it is um.
(39:56):
So I think that's why it'sreally good, because then you're
starting to to tailor thatmessage based on, realistically,
the well, really the theproduct that the customer's got
in their um, in their basket.
So I would put claveo down asone of your must-have.
Again, if you don't want totake it out for the whole year,
you don't have to um, youprobably will end up doing it,
(40:16):
um, but um, that's somethingthat um will really get you to
understand and understand yourcustomer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Um, all great apps and I'mbiased towards all of them
because you know I work inpartnerships and know the great
things they each do, so it'sreally hard to create this list,
but just some of the top onesthat come to mind, and I always
say this is ad hoc, per client.
You know businesses differ, soyou should really evaluate the
(40:44):
types of tools that would beright for your business and then
pick, you know, the right toolout of the options there.
So you know, not all of thesewill apply to everyone, and some
people have instituted chat andhave not gotten replies or
messages from clients, so maybethose don't make as much sense
to them and it depends for each,each item.
But it's ad hoc and youshouldn't evaluate it
(41:07):
individually.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I think um, one key takeaway as well for a for a
merchant to evaluate is whatdoes the post-purchase
relationship look like, and Ithink we did a webinar last year
about this um with one of ourpartners.
It's like a majority ofcustomers will come on to your
(41:31):
website doing cyber five, buyproduct and you probably never
hear from them again.
It could be somebody buying aproduct for them, buying a
product for Christmas.
It buys them gifts forChristmas um stocking up on
gifts for the next year, um forthe birthdays that they might
have, or buying, you know a, agift for their the significant
other or, you know, parent,sibling, whatever it is um, and
(41:55):
how can you create arelationship so that they come
back?
They come back year after yearand, you know, month after month
, depending on the product thatyou you sell.
So I think really, one of thoseum things that merchants need
to be aware of is how can wehook them in, how can we make
sure that you know we build thisrelationship and we've got them
?
So, depending on the type ofproduct, you could look at
offering some of oursubscriptions um, but conversely
(42:16):
, it's just making sure that youare, you get them in your
marketing funnel, um, so thatyou're able to nurture that
relationship.
And again, tools like just doknow and claveo will allow you
to do that.
So it's not just about the cyberfive, but it's also saying
right coming up to Christmas.
You know, maybe we we sendabout some marketing coming up
in January and February, maybewe've got another sale going and
(42:38):
we keep them coming back, ormaybe we've got a new product, a
new range that's been launched.
That you know.
And if you go really deep withthe data, you know as you know
we love talking about data this,this kind of data, is a bit
different in so far as you'rebuilding a customer profile, so
you know that this type ofcustomer buys these products and
will probably like this type ofproduct.
You're able to say youpreviously bought this product.
(42:59):
You know this is a greatcomplementary product.
So if you're looking likejewelry or maybe, um I don't
know um some electronics, youknow if you're gaming or so on
and you've bought a particularcomputer, um, maybe you know a
keyboard that's coming out or achair or whatever it is that um
that you sell, you're able tothen market to those, to those
customers.
(43:19):
So it's not just a customerthat's come on your website,
bought something and then goneoff into the business that
you'll never hear from again.
Um, so that's something that Ithink merchants need to think
about for the long term and,seeing which of those tools that
actually I'm going to look atimplementing during cyber five,
I should be using post purchaseas well in the long run.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, yeah, big time.
And you know, I think kind ofsome of the keys that stand out
to me there is again being ableto track your data before and
after, see what theimplementation did, see the
effects it made, the value itbrought or didn't, and then be
able to evaluate thosestrategies and kind of keep the
good ones going and get rid ofthe ones that didn't work.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Exactly right.
So let's round off um.
Let's uh come up one actionabletip each for uh e-commerce
merchants preparing for cyberfive.
Do you want to go first, orshall I?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm happy to um for meagain, my biased opinion because
of the nature of my work and mybackground and experience um, I
would say evaluate partnerplatforms that could bring value
to your business and implementthe ones that could really make
an impact.
Of course, keep in mind thatyou should start this prep
before, before you think youneed to, and just kind of start
(44:34):
thinking about it, startplanning.
You know it's always good topotentially, as I said, ab test
some of these partner platforms,let's say, before Black Friday,
cyber Monday, before thoseincreased demands, to see that
they hold out, that they providebenefits that you are expecting
, and so on.
Um, so I think that's reallyimportant.
Uh, and just kind of um, youknow, not reinventing the wheel.
(44:58):
If there are things that you'restruggling with or improvements
that could be made, where thereare partner solutions in the
space, leverage them Versusdoing it yourselves.
There are definitely biggerexperts in the space.
If you're just going into it,they've kind of already provided
a paid solution to a lot ofclients.
So you can most likely leverageat least some of the tools to
(45:21):
make impacts and improvements toyour business, and fine, if
some don't, that's fine, you canget rid of them.
You could have done a trial andsay this is not for me, but
some will definitely bringbenefits.
So just kind of suss them out,see what exists in the space and
where you could make animprovements, and then determine
(45:42):
if you want to test things out.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I just to add on that about the tech as well.
One thing I thought was tomention about Clever that you
kind of briefly where I guessyou reminded me about was also
standing out from competitors oh, actually, not even the
competitors standing out fromthe noise of Cyber 5, but I do
have a different.
So, for example, sms utilizingthat, so whether it's kind of
(46:08):
like Clavio or Yoppo, forexample, just the SMS marketing,
so that somebody because Ithink the data shows that you're
likely to or at least open anSMS message within three minutes
of receiving it than an emailwhich could be like three days.
So doing those things that makeyou stand out from the
competition, I think is gonna besuper, super important and I
(46:32):
would agree with you, obviouslyin terms of everything you said
about those tips.
From my perspective, I'm gonnapark to the side the bit more of
the server side, the technicalside of making sure that you've
got the capacity and thebandwidth and all this kind of
technical jargon about theserver for Cyber 5, because most
(46:55):
merchants will probably be on aSaaS platform anyway and I'm
hoping the ones that aren't areaware of the pitfalls of on-prem
and therefore have alreadytaken into consideration those
kind of things.
But I think for me it's makingsure that customers can make a
really informed decision, sousing social media integrations
(47:19):
or user-generated content, soreviews and so on.
So the customers don't justread your carefully curated
product description and yourgreat images, but actually can
get real life feedback fromprevious customers and say,
right, yep, because also you'regonna be looking.
If you're by clothing, it couldbe like if it's a bit tight or
(47:40):
if it's a bit loose, or it'sperfect, and those kind of
things.
The product's not bad, it'sjust to fit, maybe the size that
they thought they would be.
It's not gonna be the one forthem, and that's when you get
into the letter, returns and soon.
So making sure that yourcustomers can feed off that
information and make informeddecision is gonna be important
as well.
So just making sure that you'vegot everything in place where
(48:01):
customers can make that decisionand check out as quickly as
possible and don't haveobstacles, don't have any kind
of doubt in their mind that cansay, I'll pop in later and have
a look because let me have athink about it you want them to
be able to if this is the onetime that you need customers to
make that purchase now and notkind of ponder on it.
(48:25):
So just making sure that thecustomer can go in, make an
informed decision, check outproperly, without having to go
through 16 steps or havingissues with performance, and
complete the purchase.
So, yeah, excellent.
Well, this has been quite along one, but I hope there's
been kind of some value for ourlisteners.
(48:47):
If there's any, if you know, ifthere's got any questions, or
for free to reach out by email,on social media.
We'll put those links into theshow notes and, yeah, we're
hoping you have a really goodCyber 5 campaign.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah, best of luck.
We're here if you need any help, and thanks for listening.
See you again soon.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Brilliant.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Thanks, yvonne, thanks, bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Thank you for listening to the BigCommerce
podcast.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please leave us a
review on your favorite podcastplatform and make sure you're
following us on social media, onInstagram and on LinkedIn.
If you've got ideas orsuggestions for future episodes,
please send us an email info atthebigcommerspodcastcom or on
our social media platforms.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
MUMP Sauce.
Hi, welcome to the Big Commerce Podcast.
Hello, welcome to a brand newepisode of the Big Commerce
Podcast.
I'm your co-host, Luigi, and intoday's episode, Yvan and I
talk about Black Friday CyberMonday.
We're going to talk about howto prepare for a successful
Black Friday Cyber Mondaycampaign, how you can optimize
your website and online presence, some of the challenges that
(00:23):
you can encounter during thisseason and some of the tools and
technologies that can help youwin.
Enjoy the episode.
How are you, Yvan?
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Not too bad, luigi, yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Not too bad, it's Friday yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So we've got a couple of days off TGAF.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yes, so today's episode we're going to talk
about Black Friday, cyber Monday, bfcm.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Awesome, awesome, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's coming up in just over two months' time, so
personally I think we're justabout in time.
I remember speaking to somebodyonce who said that you should
start preparing for Cyber Fiveback in June and July, which I
think if you're kind of a largebusiness possibly, but let's be
realistic for SMBs and lowermid-market I think five, six
(01:16):
months ahead is probably a bitoverkill.
But anyway, we'll see if we canhelp listeners just to kind of
find some snippets ofinformation, some takeaways that
might help them this year ifthey're taking part in Black
Friday, Because I think over thelast couple of years we've had
an increase in number ofmerchants not necessarily ours,
just in general, both online andoffline, that refuse to take
(01:40):
part in the Cyber Five kind ofpromotions.
I don't know what your thoughtsare on that.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, I mean it's ad hoc for a company.
I'm always a fan of peopleevaluating their own data and
seeing if things work for them.
If they've done thingshistorically and the ROI is in
there for them, I would say, andif the data backs that up, I
would say, move away from that.
So even if that happens forBFCM, then it's will be it, but
(02:07):
from my experience, it tends tobe the biggest shopping event of
the year for online, and what'scool about it is it's industry
wide.
There's things like Prime Dayand that's awesome for Amazon,
but this really seems to beindustry wide.
Every year there seem to bemore and more companies joining
in offering deals, which meansthings are more competitive,
(02:28):
which means the offerings areever improving, so essentially,
getting better and better forclients so that they can win the
business through thatcompetition, and that raises the
standards and forces othercompanies to follow suit.
So you almost really have to beat your best for BFCM.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
But I think that's partly one of the reasons why
some merchants just refuse,because it's like actually it's
just a race to the bottom.
It's like you know who can, whocan give the biggest discounts,
who can give the lowest price.
But I think that there is thissmall shift that you know kind
of historically.
So let's let's start from thefront of again.
Obviously we've all heard of ofBFCM, black Friday, cyber
Monday, cyber Five, called bymany different names, and I
(03:11):
remember being in Italy it wasjust over a year ago, so was it
before or after, I can'tremember.
Anyway, it's around the periodof Cyber Five.
They called it Black Week, sobasically they've in the shops.
I remember you kind of walkpast the shops and they had like
Black Week and whatever, whichI guess, from a translational
perspective, maybe gets lost inwithin English speaking
(03:33):
countries, but nevertheless,that's what they meant is that
for that whole week you aregoing to get some super cool
deals that you work.
The work and were repeatedduring the year.
And the reason why I think it'sreally interesting at the
moment is because I'm speakingto a lot of people about this,
both in the industry and atmerchants is.
(03:54):
I don't think anyone knowswhat's going on with the economy
.
Like you know, if you read thenews one day, it's doom and
gloom.
The next it's, you know,celebrating that we've just, you
know, missed a recession, andyou know, cost of living is
going up, rates of interestrates are going up.
You know now energy prices arefalling, but their petrol prices
(04:15):
went up.
So it's really difficult topinpoint what is going on, and I
think that uncertainty ispotentially going to fuel a
Black Friday, cyber Monday, boomthis year, because people are
going to be looking after theirpurse strings more than ever
because they might have money.
But it's, you know, it's kindof let's get ready for this
(04:36):
winter.
That's coming Not physically,but also metaphorically.
You know, if we do have acouple of months, or even a year
or two years, of just economicdownturn, then you know we've
got to have money in our pockets, and so, really, cyber 5 is
going to be an opportunity to beable to buy not just presents
but maybe some other purchasesthat people have put off at
(04:59):
potentially lower prices than,you know, the normal.
And I think this is why it'sgoing to be really interesting
this year to see whether youknow whether it's going to be a
success or not.
And compared to last year wherewe had like pretty much
hyperinflation or maybe nothyperinflation but we had really
high inflation that you know wehadn't seen well, if not for a
(05:22):
generation, for a very long time.
And I remember, you know,reading reports of saying the
highest, you know sales volumesfor Cyber 5, ever this, that and
the other.
And if you actually cut throughthe BS and say right is the,
you know, is the average ordervalue gone up or down?
You know you may have sold more, but actually does that mean is
(05:43):
because the prices are higherthan what they would have been
last year because of inflation,because you haven't discounted
as much, or is it because youhave sold more?
Is it because the average ordervalue has actually gone down
and you've done more orders?
So I think it's been reallydifficult to kind of have that
benchmark trend, because lastyear it was really difficult,
(06:05):
the year before we were justcoming out of COVID and you know
e-commerce was still, you know,kind of on this massively
upward trajectory.
So we haven't had a constantbenchmark for quite some time.
I think this year, with kind ofthe, as I said, the economy
being a bit fragile again, it'snot necessarily going to be one
for being able to lay down thefoundational data points for
(06:27):
next year.
So I'm going to be reallyinterested to see what happens
with Cyber 5.
But I think anyway, we all know, you know kind of the history
of what Black Friday, cyber 5,is.
So you know Black Fridaytraditionally the offline kind
of you know promotional campaignthat was run during
(06:47):
Thanksgiving in America, andCyber Monday being the online.
But now it's a five day kind ofholiday Thursday Friday,
saturday, sunday, monday and, asyou said, we've seen it for
both B2C and also B2B kind ofjumping on the bandwagon.
You know that's partly due tothe shift in the e-commerce
customer being, you know, kindof a much younger tech savvy one
(07:11):
that you know whether it's B2Bor B2C, you know they're
interested in those kind ofoffers.
But if let's talk about kind ofmerchants and how they can, I
guess, prepare for Black Friday,cyber Monday, if they're taking
part this year, what are yourthoughts on this kind of you
know, from your perspective,what can a merchant do in order
(07:34):
to get ready for Cyber 5?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean great question .
You know it's for me it'sreally ad hoc per client, you
know.
So not that each merchant isthe same.
Not.
Each merchant's nature of theirbusiness is the same.
So you know different thingswill need to be done for
different businesses.
So I think the key there is, youknow, thinking about it before,
so planning, really starting tothink.
(07:59):
You know you kind of mentionedsix months.
You know might be long for some, but if someone's doing their
first ever VFCM and don't knowwhat's involved, I'd say start
thinking about it.
You know, five or six monthsbefore Start, you know, kind of
debating on what you want to do,how that wants to look, how you
want that to look like.
You know if you want to do it,of course.
And then essentially, once youstart thinking about it and
(08:21):
preparing, one of my keys isstart tracking your data.
So you know, really to see thebenefits of VFCM or maybe that
there wasn't any benefits andyou actually were worse off you
have to start tracking your data.
So, knowing where you werebefore VFCM, during, after, if
you could compare the sameperiod last year as well, super,
(08:44):
super informative as well as ifyou have multiple year data,
that's fantastic.
So you can actually see.
This is how we do before VFCM,this is how we do during and
this is how we do after andcompare year over year of data
and you know, year over year,you're making changes, you're
making improvements, you'reapplying new initiatives.
Maybe you know implementing anew partner platform into your
(09:05):
store that will provide benefitsand then, once you track your
data before and after, you canreally see what that did a year
over year.
So I think that's the key tothings you know.
Start thinking about it early,start planning, start tracking
your data.
But essentially, once you getclose, I would say test, test,
test.
Once you've implemented whatyou wanted to implement, test
your site, test purchases, havepeople with fresh eyes.
(09:29):
Look at the site.
You know.
Test to purchase again, becausereally that's when you know
things are working and you knowsome of the data will help you
also forecast.
If you have forecasts on whatyour traffic will be like, you
can prepare for that traffic.
You can prepare for thosenumbers of sales or levels of
sales.
You can prepare for shipping,all of those.
(09:49):
You know products, let's say.
If you have, you know out ofthis world demand.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
I think you're kind of really right and what you're
touching on in terms of, youknow, kind of looking at tech
platforms that you can look atintegrating, they can be on the
short term as well.
So you know, fine, let's kindof look at the marketing
perspective of getting ready,like you said, for a, for a
cyber five campaign.
(10:17):
You've got a small window as amerchant.
You've got small window of, say, around about five days to get
as many orders in as possible,because you know your margins
are going to be tighter, they'regoing to be lower.
So you need to make sure thatyou up the volume to be able to
maintain it, because your salesnumbers, you know as a benchmark
(10:37):
, you're going to go down.
So if you're doing a thousandorders a day during cyber five,
if you're taking part in acampaign, you're going to be
doing potentially the samenumber of orders and you're
going to take, you know, 30, 40%of top loan revenue down.
So you need to make sure thatyou are converting as many
people as possible.
Now take a traditionalconversion rate of like two,
(10:57):
three, four percent, five.
If you're really, you know,nailed for conversion, five
percent is still really low, isa high conversion rate, but
that's still low.
It means 95% of people are notbuying when they're coming onto
your website, or 95% of visitsare not buying from.
So you need to try and maximizeyour conversion and so, from a
marketing perspective, you needto make sure that that's you've
(11:19):
tapped into that, that you'vegot things like the abandoned
cart campaign optimized forcyber five.
So it's not the traditionalsaying hey, you left something
in your basket.
Click here, you know we'vesaved you, we've saved your cart
.
Click here to to continue.
It is putting in and I'm not afan of urgency messaging, but
during that five day period youneed to make sure that people
(11:39):
know look, this is a really timesensitive offer and potentially
also inventory sensitive as faras kind of once it's gone, it's
gone.
You know you're not going to.
We're not going to get it back,maybe for another couple of
weeks, in which case it'll comeback at, you know, either the
the regular price, if not a newone, if the price from the
supply has gone up in themeantime.
So that marketing has to betailored.
(11:59):
So you need to start puttingthose designs together and those
that content together on your,on your abandoned cart.
You need to look at platformslike just do know, that can give
you those kind of popups, butalso, you know, clave you a mail
chip, they'll do the samewhereby you've got the messaging
, depending on the user behavior.
So, exit intent popups, getthose on there to say, you know,
hey, why are you leaving?
(12:20):
Click here, you know, subscribe, and you're, you know, give us
your email address and you get5% off or $5 off or whatever.
The, the initiative that you're, you're looking at pushing and
that, without overwhelming thebuyer has to think, be one of
your priorities, because you'vegot to make sure that as many
people are adding products tothe cart and checking out as
(12:43):
possible, but then you're semicreating another problem, which
is majority maybe not majority,actually, that's not true but a
lot of people will returnproducts that they bought during
cyber five.
So you also need to make surethat you're you're not giving
your customers reasons to buy aproduct that either they're
(13:06):
misunderstanding what they'rebuying or is not fit for purpose
, because then not only arereducing your profit margin,
you're also having to, you know,lose money to deal with returns
.
And so from again, like ifwe're just focusing on the
marketing, make sure yourproduct descriptions are really
well written.
Make sure as much informationis on the product description
(13:27):
page or product listing page.
Make sure that your images andphotos are really, really clear
so there is as little ambiguityas possible and customers can
make an easy yet informeddecision when they, when they're
buying.
We spoke about, or I mentionedabout inventory, about stock
running out, making sure thatyou've got the ability for a
(13:48):
customer to be able to buy analternative.
So whether that's kind of youknow, if you're selling clothing
, for example, you've gotdifferent colors, making sure
that it's really easy becausethere's two different ways of
managing you know kind ofvarious.
Some customers have them as ayou know different color, some
have them as on the same productdescription page, just with the
different swatches, and somemerchants have them as
(14:10):
completely different products ondifferent pages without been
able to link.
So you need to make sure thatif you know red is out of stock,
then maybe you know blue isvery easy to be able to navigate
to as an alternative product,or if maybe red in of that type
of t-shirt is out of stock, thatthe alternative red t-shirt
(14:30):
that's in a slightly differentfit or style is also easy to
access.
So making sure that kind of youknow alternative products are
really well marketed as well.
And obviously the most importantthing is making sure that the
customer sees that this productis on offer or what the offer is
that's running, whether it's asite-wide 25% off, site-wide,
(14:52):
you know, 50% off, whatever itis.
Just that messaging has to beclear.
It's got to be clear in youradverts when you're driving
traffic and it's got to be clearwhen people are on your website
.
They're navigating that.
Whatever page they come intowhether it's the home page, a
category page, a product listingpage, a product description, a
blog page, even that they'reable to see that there's, you
(15:14):
know, an offer going and there'san incentive for them to be
able to buy.
So from a market perspective,before they've even added
something to the cart, just makesure that you know you've got
the information going out, thatthe messaging is there and so
people can understand what thedifferent offers are and what
the you know the benefit to themis going to be.
(15:36):
And then that transcendsobviously to you build up in
social media and email marketingand so on.
But I think those kind ofthings can often be overlooked
on the website, where a lot ofthe things stay the same.
Like I said, abandoned caremails it's always been the same
one, let's you know, let's nottouch them.
No, you need to make sure thatfor those five days that they
are very specific to the cyberfive and people know that by
(15:58):
midnight Monday that officefinished and when you go on a
Tuesday morning you're payingregular price.
So I think that's somethingthat is often kind of put to the
side but I think plays a veryimportant part in driving,
driving conversions.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree and kind of you know,
what keeps standing out to methere is, you know, tests, tests
, tests.
You know, for example, beforeBFCM even starts, you know some
of the keys of preparing earlier, you know, let's say even five,
six months, is you can testsome of these campaigns to 10%
of the traffic on your site.
But even before BFCM, you know,just just see the effects, see
(16:37):
if they're different conversiondata from that 10% and the nine
that you sent to your normalsite, and if things work and if
you see there are optics, thenmaybe these are some strategies
you can apply for BFCM.
So I think that's super, superimportant.
And another piece that stoodout was just kind of having
those outside eyes, you know,and maybe having someone with
(16:57):
some actual intent or, you know,putting someone in the right
shoes, at least when they'regoing through your site.
So let's say you know you ask afamily, friend or who knows a
family or a friend to take alook at your site and you know
have the intent of actuallywanting to buy a blue sweater or
you know, whatever your sitedelivers, but essentially then
(17:17):
have them going through the siteand actually maybe not running
into that sweater and seeingwhat the alternatives are kind
of as you said there and seeingyou know what would you choose
here.
You know, would you buy this,you know is something stopping
you.
Sure, it's not the final intentof a real client with money on
the line, but it can prepare youand some of those AB tests, you
know, with strategies actuallyto 10% or 5% of your traffic or
(17:40):
20, whatever you decide canactually provide some of that
data with real clients.
So I think that's superimportant, just having that
fresh set of eyes where you knowsomeone actually wants to buy
something.
Maybe you should even sit downwith clients you know, get a.
You know five of your mostcommon clients that come to the
site.
You know biggest purchasers orlongest standing customers.
(18:00):
Maybe you asked them, hey, canwe interview you?
For you know a Starbucks coffeecard or an Amazon gift card,
and you reach out to them andsay, hey, you know, what would
you do in this situation?
Can you, you know, go ahead andyou know, try to purchase
something like this or show mewhat your intent is and actually
see them making a purchase, youknow, not influenced by you.
So I think some of thosetactics can really help in
(18:24):
understanding your clients inthat way is invaluable.
You know, I think that's thekey to creating a company.
You know you have to fulfillneeds and clients have to like
you.
And then you know if you haveclients that do like you today,
you know, ask them why.
Ask them what you do well, askthem what you don't do well and
improve on those things and Ithink, again, basing that off of
data and testing at thesuperpoint.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You're so right on that.
I think if you want to thenexpand that reach of getting the
customer feedback, you can dothe traditional kind of survey
forms, but actually they'requite long-winded and the
conversion rate of those isridiculously low.
So one of the ways I thinkmerchants can achieve that is
doing NPS, net Promoter, scorecampaigns.
(19:07):
So we've all received these.
I've spoken about these on thepodcast before, which is where
you get the email saying fromzero to 10, how would you, how
likely are you to recommend usto?
You know to recommend us andit's skewed.
So zero to six, I think, isyour detractor, seven, eight,
you are passive.
And nine, 10, you are promoter,so you'll like to be tell
(19:29):
people.
And the good thing about thoseNPS campaigns is that you get
feedback as in okay, you onlygave us a six Y or you gave us
an eight Y and you get good back.
You know good and bad feedback.
So it's like you know, thecheckout was too long, maybe I
waited too long for the order toarrive.
I didn't get any confirmationemails, the shipping cost was
too expensive.
(19:49):
Or you send you know you sendthe parcels by this courier and
I don't like them.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So, whatever the reasons are, you can take that
feedback.
Like you know, half of that isgoing to be, you know, pertinent
to that individual merchant.
So it's like you know, I don'tlike that courier, okay, well,
you know that's your opinion,but you know no one else has got
massive problem with that.
Or you know maybe a few peoplesaying, you know the packaging
wasn't.
You know, if you're sellingwine, the packaging wasn't,
(20:15):
wasn't sturdy enough or whateverit is.
But you can get a feedback andact on it and say, okay, fine,
this is this might actually, youknow, be be be worthwhile
considering and seeing if we canimplement that.
So shipping costs too high, canwe do something about it?
You know we're waste.
We could look at alternativecouriers, we could look at
subsidizing, taking, you know,maybe some budget out of your
marketing funds to to subsidizeshipping or add that price onto
(20:40):
the product.
So you kind of you know send,you're shifting the shipping
costs somewhere, somewhere else.
So NPS campaign is a reallygood way of kind of getting that
feedback.
And if you can do that now, youknow, kind of in September,
you've still got enough time tomake some small tweaks just in
time for for Black Friday andCyber, cyber Monday.
So I think I agree with you eventhat you know if you can sit
(21:02):
down with somebody and you cansay, you know, because then you
can poke, you can poke aquestion, yeah Well, why, why?
Why do you say that?
And what if we were to do this,any other thing, you can get
some real feedback.
But you know, if you've got, ifyou're a merchant, there's got
thousands and thousands ofcustomers You're certainly not
going to get that feedback inthe next six weeks and you know
it's going to take you foreverand a day to do that and
obviously time has a costattached to it.
So you know, like you say, kindof get maybe your top five, 10,
(21:26):
15, or maybe you know 5% ofcustomers or maybe a top 20
customers in general, and have asit down with them and you know
an MPS campaign and, like yousay, you know, send them out $5
or five pound coffee coffee giftcard or 10, you know however
much a coffee cost these daysand and and go from there.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, I mean these, these understanding your clients
, especially why your biggestclients today like you and why
they don't like you, and whatyou can improve, I think is
invaluable.
So you know, personally I wouldalways jump on a call.
You know, make it an hour longinterview.
I know it can be painful forthem, but give them a hundred
(22:07):
dollar voucher or, you know, getby them lunch or whatever it
might be.
But I think you know, once youhave that data, once they've
really bought in, once youreally understand those five to
20 customers or what somepercentage of them, you're
really really going to be ableto use that data to change
things for the better.
I think that's super importantand really, you know, kind of
(22:29):
putting that to cost, you know,let's say you do take out, you
know five customers or you know20, maybe not a hundred each,
but at a reasonable price.
You know something that ismeaningful to them is the key.
You know you're going to getreal great data for, again, not
a huge cost for what it willmean to your business in the
long run.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we spoke about kind of you know, I guess
getting ready for cyber fivefrom a intangible perspective,
so doing the marketing, gettingthe data, testing, making sure
that you're set up from awebsite perspective.
What about operationally?
What are the kind of thingsthat maybe merchants can?
What are the sort of spannersthat merchants could be thrown
(23:13):
during the cyber five campaignand what are the kind of
challenges that they should beprepared for during the campaign
?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely talk about things I
hear as well as things that I'veexperienced, which you know.
Kind of I'll put an asterisk onto say that you know these
actually happen, I've seen themhappen.
But essentially you know thingsI hear of.
This and I have sometimes seenhappen is issues with.
You know things like trafficand sites going down.
It's, you know, increasedtraffic.
You don't even, can't evenforecast how much, if really you
(23:45):
know something goes viral, adeal goes viral, product goes
viral, let's say, butessentially you sometimes can't
forecast the increased demand.
So you know, making sure thatyour traffic can handle
increased traffic and won't slowdown and won't make the
experience by your experiencebad for those clients is
something I've heard ofhappening.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And this is sort of interesting.
This is more an issue.
I mean, it's obviously apotential risk for everyone, but
it tends to be more of an issuefor merchants that are self
serving, so, on-prem, like,they're responsible, or their
agency is responsible for theserver, or maybe ones that are
working with e-commerceplatforms that don't have the
size to be able to kind of havea have a solid infrastructure
(24:29):
that their platform runs off.
So, lena, like, become aShopify and so on, who do?
Because this is one of thethings that I often, when I'm
speaking to merchants that arelooking at replatforming, and I
mean, if we've ever, if we'repitching up against an
e-commerce platform that is on-prem, that's one of the first
(24:50):
things that I talk about, notnecessarily Cyber 5, but it's
saying okay, you know it'sFriday 8.30pm and your website
goes down and either your agencyis responsible for the server
or you are as the merchant andyou're meant to be going out for
dinner with your wife becauseit's your anniversary.
What do you do?
Because you know, whereas, ifyou work with a SaaS platform
(25:13):
and you know, with all respect,not a small one, that is pretty
much an agency in itself, butone that has a global support
network with engineers andtechnicians you know, available
24-7,.
They're basically an extensionof your team.
So if something happens onCyber 5, you know it's Black
(25:33):
Friday and it's, you know, 8.45in the evening, where you are
and something should happen, youcan bet your bottom dollar that
they are on it and they arefixing it and trying to get it
back up and running as soon aspossible.
Now big comments make a big dealof the fact that throughout the
last I think five or six Cyber5 campaigns they've had zero
downtime.
(25:54):
They had one of their largestenterprise merchants also do
some advertising during theSuper Bowl which just caned the
server and there was zero effecton performance.
This wasn't obviously duringBlack Friday, it was during the
Super Bowl at the beginning ofthe year.
But just to kind of say thatthey've got those systems and
those controls in place to makesure that when there is a
massive spike in traffic itdoesn't bring everything you
(26:17):
know crashing, because you knowif that just has to happen once
and you know you've lost, you'renot going to be able to kind of
recover from that.
So I completely agree with youthat it's making sure that your
platform can handle those things.
So, again going with the SaaSplatform, it is probably a bit
too late to re-platform forCyber 5 now.
In fact, it's probably a bittoo late to re-platform for
(26:40):
Christmas.
But making sure that you knowyou've got the ability to manage
these spikes in traffic is justone less thing that you need to
worry about as a merchant.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, I totally agree and you kind of mentioned you
know that was one I'm close tobecause I used to be at Rewind.
They back up online stores forclients, but essentially they
were a really great app to have.
If things go down, they canrestore the store.
So if it's you know we used tocall it too many cooks in the
kitchen lots of people makingchanges to the site before Black
(27:17):
Friday, cyber Monday, becausethat's when a lot of changes are
needed.
A lot of work is done, you knowmaking those changes.
Then someone can, you know, beworking on the same thing and
you know, delete someone'sprevious work or make an edit to
the theme code that isn'tcorrect and brings the store
down.
So things like that can happenand having a nap like Rewind to
(27:38):
be able to restore things isreally great as well, and making
sure that that app can restorethings quickly and that can
restore all of your data versussome.
So, again, this is some of theconsiderations going into things
as well, as you know thinkingabout.
Can you know?
Can we meet the demand, theforecasted demand, in terms of
manufacturing, in terms of,maybe, delivery, in terms of
(28:00):
support?
You know, will there be a lotof tickets, will there be a lot
of chats?
You know we have partnersolutions in our ecosystem that
will help supplement or create asupport team for you if you
don't have one.
Maybe that's something that youuse just for BFCM, maybe you
use it for the holidays as well,maybe you decide to institute a
team, like them, to handle yourchat, after, of course, they've
(28:21):
been trained by your team andknow exactly what to do to
handle your chat and supporttickets ongoing.
So you know, preparing forpotential increases in traffic
and demand delivery, demand,support demand will absolutely
help you prepare.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I guess you also got to be aware of kind of external
factors that you cannot directlycontrol but will still affect
the success of your campaign and, I guess, how your brand is
perceived.
So there's one merchant whouses quite a well-known courier
company here in the UK but forsome reason the particular, and
they're quite good actuallythey've historically been at the
(28:57):
forefront of kind of innovationin terms of courier.
I mean it's DPD and everyoneknows that DPD kind of had a
massive growth years ago becausethey were the first to kind of
put out the time delivery.
So your driver, you know Ivan,will be with you between 1117
and 1217 and you can track andwhatever.
And then other carriers seem tofollow suit.
(29:19):
But for some reason thisparticular depot was either not
picking up parcels, was notshipping amount of time
Obviously they had, you know,isolated incident but that
particular depot had issues withits operations and so what that
means is for a merchant that'srelying on the depot like that
it's going to reflect on themthat actually they've got all
(29:41):
these orders that they probablycan't store in their usual
warehouse because you knowthey're not really geared up for
this peak in sales.
But you know, so they're tryingto get it out the door as
quickly as possible and yet thecourier is not turning up.
So you know they've got theseparcels piling up, they've got
customers that are expectingnext day delivery that aren't
going to get it, and thatcreates an additional kind of
(30:01):
array of issues.
So making sure that yourcarriers are also geared up for
and you know you stand, I mean,you know more.
So I guess in the USA, but thenthe UK, but also here in the UK
, when it starts to get busier,the couriers will change their
operations to say, you know, ifwe want to do a pick up before
(30:22):
midday, or maybe we don't offernext day for this particular
week or this particular monthbecause we're just going to have
an increase in orders overalland we just can't handle that.
So it's been aware of that andnot kind of realizing in the
last minute that actually youknow the orders that you sold on
next day service are not goingto be delivered on the next day
service or are not going to bedelivered or, you know, could
(30:43):
conversely be delivered on aSunday, because again those
couriers are trying to get theorders out.
I think it's really interestingif you kind of think from a
merchant's perspective.
You kind of do all yourmarketing to drive traffic to
the website over the build upfor the few weeks before Cyber 5
and then you know Cyber 5starts and you've got the orders
coming into your website andyou get the orders out and then
(31:05):
you know, right Monday eveningyou finished and you're
literally there just waitingbecause some of those orders are
going to start coming back inagain because you're going to
get the returns.
So it's making sure also thatyour returns process is really
fluid, because what you don'twant to do is have a really
complicated returns processwhere either customers don't
want to use it because it's soconvoluted and complicated or
(31:27):
for you to manage.
You know a volume of ordersbeing returned that you're not
traditionally used to is alsogoing to put a strain on your
things and that's going toreflect badly in customer
service and when people go toleave a review they'll say the
customer service was poor.
You know took me forever, youknow had to chase this and you
want to avoid that because whatyou're basically doing is trying
to.
(31:47):
You know piggyback on the Cyber5, you know kind of wave, but
then find that it's had somenegative impact on your business
and you know you've potentiallylost that customer for good.
So making sure that the returnsprocess as well, and that you've
got you know, you've got thatwritten out.
Everyone understands what it is.
(32:09):
Your customers maybe you knowwhether it's an online portal or
whether it's state you knowthat they have to send in a
complete form or whatever it is.
Just make it as easy aspossible, and there's lots of
tools out there as well that canmake the returns easy.
In the UK also, raw maildepending on the type of product
and the size of the productthat you sell, you know, allow
the customer to create returnlabels and the raw mail will
(32:29):
even come and pick it up formost addresses, which makes it
easier on you because you'rejust then waiting for the parcel
to arrive.
But making sure from anoperational perspective as well,
that you know there's ordersthat are going out is great, but
there will also be some thatare coming back in again, and
just that you're geared up fromthat perspective as well.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I totally agree, and I mentioned obviously kind of,
you know, some of the apps thatare available for returns.
Let's talk about kind of themaybe some technology platforms
that can help merchantspredominantly during this period
, if not during, you know,during our city.
So the first thing youmentioned I think we're both in
agreement of is rewind, becausethere's a lot of people working
(33:15):
a lot of time at the same timeon the one platform potentially
and you know, are able to makemistakes, so it's just been able
to kind of restore within amatter of I mean seconds, but
realistically, minutes, the datathat somebody's working on.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, I think that one's huge.
Yeah, just because I get I'mbiased, I've heard so many
disaster stories where, forexample, a client while I was at
rewind, a client, someonewithin their company, an
employee had left the company orhad been let go and they had
access to the store and theyessentially just come to a
(33:53):
employee, deleted everything.
Yeah.
So things like that happen,things like too many cooks in
the kitchen, theme code edits,you know, lots of things can
happen.
So I think rewind is definitelya good one, and not just for
Black Friday, cyber Monday, justfor that peace of mind ongoing,
because if and when somethinghappens, you're going to wish
you had them and they will havepaid themselves off, probably
(34:14):
when that happens, for yourlifetime.
So that's a really important one.
You're kind of mentioning someof the returns, logistics,
shipping.
I think shipper HQ is great forthat, especially in terms of
some of the logic for thewarehousing that you were
mentioning, where they'll havemultiple warehouses in a lot of
different regions andessentially be able to warehouse
(34:36):
things closer to where peoplemight be ordering and they help
with that logic for you.
So I think that can be a reallygood one, especially in
increased demand on your generalstore, as well as for the
shipping and returns for yourstore, and then maybe a platform
like Gorgias, if you don't haveit instituted already.
You know people will askquestions.
(34:57):
You know we've spokenpreviously about, you know,
having everything clear cut onyour site, having all the
information someone would needto purchase things on the site,
and that's best practice.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
But people will have questions no matter and that
could help with the customerservice as well, because you
know people having to email inor having a call in that takes
away.
But you know time, because Imean I know that I don't know if
they still do it, but manybecause I think Amazon kind of
hired eventually like logisticsand operations pro that fix this
(35:29):
.
But basically I think as amonth of December you had people
from accounts and you know andfinance and sales and everyone
just going in HR, going onto thewarehouse and helping packing
parcels like Amazon.
But basically you know smallbusinesses might be like that as
well.
So you know, maybe a customerservice team has to split their
time between obviously answeringthe phones and dealing with
(35:49):
correspondence, but also goingin and you know whether it's
packing orders or just tapingthem up or picking whatever it
is.
You know you might be pulled inloads of directions.
So actually having somethinglike gorgeous in the which to be
honest it isn't actually thatexpensive if you think about it
Also allows you to automate.
If you get in the same types ofquestions over and over again,
(36:10):
not only you know can youidentify that and say right, we
need to somehow answer thisquestion on the website but
actually using things likemacros you can automate the
responses.
So somebody saying, you knowI'm tracking my parcel, that can
be automated as a response ingorgeous.
So not only is your customergetting a super fast reply but
you're not actually having tosend that reply, it's all
(36:30):
automated.
So I would agree with you onthe gorgeous side of things.
You know they don't have totake out an annual contract and
you know it's just you can haveit for that.
You know, maybe two, threemonths between October, november
, december or November December,january.
I'm pretty convinced 90% ofpeople that will take out a
subscription with gorgeous willstay with it in the long run
because they'll see all thevalue that it can, it can bring.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Yeah, yeah, and that's definitely the case with
our clients.
You know who we work with ongetting gorgeous set up.
They tend to keep it.
I think it's part of thatvetting process as well.
You know you should know thatyou need it at least for BFCM,
or that you want it at least forBFCM, and then see the benefits
to institute it for longer.
But yeah, they just save somuch time through macros,
(37:15):
through automated tagging,through no-transcript.
You know the to providingbenefits.
You know being being onfacebook, being on instagram,
being on where they can kind ofstill reach clients and clients
can ask their questions andstill purchase.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
I think is is prices two platforms from my side, and
I've already mentioned one ofthem is is just do know.
I think you know it's the oneplatform you absolutely need, is
so easy to implement anyway.
Yes, it will take some timejust to put those campaigns
together, but they do help youum with their templates.
So making sure that your kindof templates and your branding
is is relevant to the uh, to thetime period.
(37:51):
So just do know, we'll put allthese links in the show notes, I
think, and I think if anyonewants to speak to us about these
apps, they should get in touchwith you because you can
obviously put them in touch withthe partners, um, but also
probably, you know, make surethat they get some offers and
some discounts as well, or someincentives.
And the other one is, um, one ofmy favorites is claveo.
(38:11):
Um, sorry for claveo'scompetitors that we also work
with, but one of the reasons whyI like claveo yes, it does also
do the message in the pop-up,but I I I feel the customer
segmentation, the way thatthat's done within claveo, meets
the best of both worlds.
It's not, it's very in depth,but it's not too complicated to
(38:31):
manage and it's not tooprimitive or too simplistic like
other platforms.
Um, and that's really importantfor two reasons.
The first one is we spoke aboutabandoned car emails.
Now you know big commerce outof the box, um, abandoned car
emails.
But why I would recommend youturn those off in big commerce
and look at using something likeclaveo is you can segment the
(38:52):
type of abandoned car email yousend, based on logic, so you
could say, if somebody's got aparticular product in their cart
that you know is a fast mover,um, then you can send one type
of abandoned car email and soyou don't just send out a
blanket saying, hey, you knowthis product's gonna, you know
this product may sell out soon.
(39:12):
Click here to continue.
You can really say, look, thisis one of our top five products
and this will sell out.
Um, you know, click here tojump back in.
Whereas someone that maybe isn'tas much of a fast mover or
maybe does need some more timebecause maybe it's expensive,
it's high, high ticket item, youdon't put as much pressure but
you still make people understandlook, you know, if there's any
questions you've got, so let'ssay it's like a I don't know 500
(39:35):
dollar item of clothing, or youknow a 2000 pound, you know
electronic equipment orsomething, and maybe somebody's
got some questions, then you can, you know, either put in some
FAQs in there or you can putsome links to get in touch with
um customer services, either youknow, you know on gorgeous, or
by phone or or email, orwhatever it is um.
(39:56):
So I think that's why it'sreally good, because then you're
starting to to tailor thatmessage based on, realistically,
the well, really the theproduct that the customer's got
in their um, in their basket.
So I would put claveo down asone of your must-have.
Again, if you don't want totake it out for the whole year,
you don't have to um, youprobably will end up doing it,
(40:16):
um, but um, that's somethingthat um will really get you to
understand and understand yourcustomer.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Um, all great apps and I'mbiased towards all of them
because you know I work inpartnerships and know the great
things they each do, so it'sreally hard to create this list,
but just some of the top onesthat come to mind, and I always
say this is ad hoc, per client.
You know businesses differ, soyou should really evaluate the
(40:44):
types of tools that would beright for your business and then
pick, you know, the right toolout of the options there.
So you know, not all of thesewill apply to everyone, and some
people have instituted chat andhave not gotten replies or
messages from clients, so maybethose don't make as much sense
to them and it depends for each,each item.
But it's ad hoc and youshouldn't evaluate it
(41:07):
individually.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I think um, one key takeaway as well for a for a
merchant to evaluate is whatdoes the post-purchase
relationship look like, and Ithink we did a webinar last year
about this um with one of ourpartners.
It's like a majority ofcustomers will come on to your
(41:31):
website doing cyber five, buyproduct and you probably never
hear from them again.
It could be somebody buying aproduct for them, buying a
product for Christmas.
It buys them gifts forChristmas um stocking up on
gifts for the next year, um forthe birthdays that they might
have, or buying, you know a, agift for their the significant
other or, you know, parent,sibling, whatever it is um, and
(41:55):
how can you create arelationship so that they come
back?
They come back year after yearand, you know, month after month
, depending on the product thatyou you sell.
So I think really, one of thoseum things that merchants need
to be aware of is how can wehook them in, how can we make
sure that you know we build thisrelationship and we've got them
?
So, depending on the type ofproduct, you could look at
offering some of oursubscriptions um, but conversely
(42:16):
, it's just making sure that youare, you get them in your
marketing funnel, um, so thatyou're able to nurture that
relationship.
And again, tools like just doknow and claveo will allow you
to do that.
So it's not just about the cyberfive, but it's also saying
right coming up to Christmas.
You know, maybe we we sendabout some marketing coming up
in January and February, maybewe've got another sale going and
(42:38):
we keep them coming back, ormaybe we've got a new product, a
new range that's been launched.
That you know.
And if you go really deep withthe data, you know as you know
we love talking about data this,this kind of data, is a bit
different in so far as you'rebuilding a customer profile, so
you know that this type ofcustomer buys these products and
will probably like this type ofproduct.
You're able to say youpreviously bought this product.
(42:59):
You know this is a greatcomplementary product.
So if you're looking likejewelry or maybe, um I don't
know um some electronics, youknow if you're gaming or so on
and you've bought a particularcomputer, um, maybe you know a
keyboard that's coming out or achair or whatever it is that um
that you sell, you're able tothen market to those, to those
customers.
(43:19):
So it's not just a customerthat's come on your website,
bought something and then goneoff into the business that
you'll never hear from again.
Um, so that's something that Ithink merchants need to think
about for the long term and,seeing which of those tools that
actually I'm going to look atimplementing during cyber five,
I should be using post purchaseas well in the long run.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, yeah, big time.
And you know, I think kind ofsome of the keys that stand out
to me there is again being ableto track your data before and
after, see what theimplementation did, see the
effects it made, the value itbrought or didn't, and then be
able to evaluate thosestrategies and kind of keep the
good ones going and get rid ofthe ones that didn't work.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
Exactly right.
So let's round off um.
Let's uh come up one actionabletip each for uh e-commerce
merchants preparing for cyberfive.
Do you want to go first, orshall I?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm happy to um for meagain, my biased opinion because
of the nature of my work and mybackground and experience um, I
would say evaluate partnerplatforms that could bring value
to your business and implementthe ones that could really make
an impact.
Of course, keep in mind thatyou should start this prep
before, before you think youneed to, and just kind of start
(44:34):
thinking about it, startplanning.
You know it's always good topotentially, as I said, ab test
some of these partner platforms,let's say, before Black Friday,
cyber Monday, before thoseincreased demands, to see that
they hold out, that they providebenefits that you are expecting
, and so on.
Um, so I think that's reallyimportant.
Uh, and just kind of um, youknow, not reinventing the wheel.
(44:58):
If there are things that you'restruggling with or improvements
that could be made, where thereare partner solutions in the
space, leverage them Versusdoing it yourselves.
There are definitely biggerexperts in the space.
If you're just going into it,they've kind of already provided
a paid solution to a lot ofclients.
So you can most likely leverageat least some of the tools to
(45:21):
make impacts and improvements toyour business, and fine, if
some don't, that's fine, you canget rid of them.
You could have done a trial andsay this is not for me, but
some will definitely bringbenefits.
So just kind of suss them out,see what exists in the space and
where you could make animprovements, and then determine
(45:42):
if you want to test things out.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I just to add on that about the tech as well.
One thing I thought was tomention about Clever that you
kind of briefly where I guessyou reminded me about was also
standing out from competitors oh, actually, not even the
competitors standing out fromthe noise of Cyber 5, but I do
have a different.
So, for example, sms utilizingthat, so whether it's kind of
(46:08):
like Clavio or Yoppo, forexample, just the SMS marketing,
so that somebody because Ithink the data shows that you're
likely to or at least open anSMS message within three minutes
of receiving it than an emailwhich could be like three days.
So doing those things that makeyou stand out from the
competition, I think is gonna besuper, super important and I
(46:32):
would agree with you, obviouslyin terms of everything you said
about those tips.
From my perspective, I'm gonnapark to the side the bit more of
the server side, the technicalside of making sure that you've
got the capacity and thebandwidth and all this kind of
technical jargon about theserver for Cyber 5, because most
(46:55):
merchants will probably be on aSaaS platform anyway and I'm
hoping the ones that aren't areaware of the pitfalls of on-prem
and therefore have alreadytaken into consideration those
kind of things.
But I think for me it's makingsure that customers can make a
really informed decision, sousing social media integrations
(47:19):
or user-generated content, soreviews and so on.
So the customers don't justread your carefully curated
product description and yourgreat images, but actually can
get real life feedback fromprevious customers and say,
right, yep, because also you'regonna be looking.
If you're by clothing, it couldbe like if it's a bit tight or
(47:40):
if it's a bit loose, or it'sperfect, and those kind of
things.
The product's not bad, it'sjust to fit, maybe the size that
they thought they would be.
It's not gonna be the one forthem, and that's when you get
into the letter, returns and soon.
So making sure that yourcustomers can feed off that
information and make informeddecision is gonna be important
as well.
So just making sure that you'vegot everything in place where
(48:01):
customers can make that decisionand check out as quickly as
possible and don't haveobstacles, don't have any kind
of doubt in their mind that cansay, I'll pop in later and have
a look because let me have athink about it you want them to
be able to if this is the onetime that you need customers to
make that purchase now and notkind of ponder on it.
(48:25):
So just making sure that thecustomer can go in, make an
informed decision, check outproperly, without having to go
through 16 steps or havingissues with performance, and
complete the purchase.
So, yeah, excellent.
Well, this has been quite along one, but I hope there's
been kind of some value for ourlisteners.
(48:47):
If there's any, if you know, ifthere's got any questions, or
for free to reach out by email,on social media.
We'll put those links into theshow notes and, yeah, we're
hoping you have a really goodCyber 5 campaign.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah, best of luck.
We're here if you need any help, and thanks for listening.
See you again soon.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Brilliant.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Thanks, yvonne, thanks, bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Thank you for listening to the BigCommerce
podcast.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please leave us a
review on your favorite podcastplatform and make sure you're
following us on social media, onInstagram and on LinkedIn.
If you've got ideas orsuggestions for future episodes,
please send us an email info atthebigcommerspodcastcom or on
our social media platforms.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
MUMP Sauce.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com