Last week, Bloomberg published a story explaining how the retail giant Walmart is expanding the traditional Black Friday sales from one day to an entire business week. Walmart’s“new Black Friday” will start at midnight on Thanksgiving and run through Cyber Monday, according to Bloomberg. With a National Retail Federation survey finding that 56% of shoppers plan to shop online, Walmart’s move to stretch out deals is a logical one. The push demonstrates just how competitive the holiday shopping season is for retailers, and the tactics and strategies that retail brands are willing to experiment with in order to be competitive this holiday season.
With Thanksgiving (along with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Green Monday) quickly approaching, here are three retail trends that I see playing out this season:
1. Consumers will not only take advantage of Black Friday deals, but will also purchase with less scrutiny for their own budget. Consumers have time to return merchandise and buy other things before the Christmas holiday. This means larger and fuller baskets for retailers.
2. As more retailers integrate their online and in-store shopping experiences, holiday season promotions will increasingly become on-line/off-line agnostic.
3. Cyber Monday will continue to be important for retailers and will eventually extend into a Cyber Tuesday in the future. This will be predominantly driven by “showrooming,” where people go to brick-and-mortar stores on Black Friday weekend and then go online to make their purchase.
With these trends in mind, retailers should be thinking about how their digital marketing campaigns engage thier current customers, as well as prospects, throughout the entire holiday shopping period. Advertising campaigns that start at least 2 weeks before the peak of the holiday shopping season are very effective in generating brand awareness. During the peak holiday time, retailers can pump up their mobile advertising after Thanksgiving, through to Black Friday, then move that spend over to desktop for Cyber Monday to drive sales.
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