Last Tuesday before Thanksgiving, James Bickers asked for my opinion on Black Friday, given my experience working for a retail giant. He used a couple of the quotes in an article he wrote about the souring of the public on the notion of Black Friday (a great article, by the way), but I thought it would be fun to reproduce the whole e-mail here and follow up since last Friday:
Within Best Buy, we never really did much from a corporate level regarding [digital signage] network or store design. The stores themselves and their immediate territory/district managers handled a lot of the noise. We helped out where we could, and we built a circular that was to go out and we were all told very clearly that the deals were confidential and should not be leaked. More on that below.
Overall, I took two things from my experience:
1. Best Buy (and other retailers) let the customers make a bigger deal out of than it really was. Corporate definitely paid attention, but the customers themselves are what drives the advertising. Nothing says “Black Friday” better than video of customers waiting all night outside your store, eagerly anticipating that one gift they have given up hours of their sleep to nab at a low, low price. No single product for any price can match that imagery.
2. The harder we worked to create an environment where we were not supposed to talk about it (the “leaked deals”), the more we seemed to see the deals leak. Again, you’re playing into the hands of the customer on purpose. By leaking deals, you get them to wait in line at your store. Once in line, they stay there. They won’t give up their number in line for another deal anywhere else. They have made the commitment.
Over my time with Best Buy and since, I have seen the customer change because it is no longer about the deal, it is about the event. That’s why customers are not seeing the deals. When you see news stories leading up to Black Friday about teams of women and men who build game plans on attacking certain stores (like a military exercise!), you begin to see that the stores have less power over the event than the customers do. Waiting in line is now fun to [do]. Retailers, Best Buy included, simply play into that. It doesn’t really matter what you put on sale or how much inventory you have. If you can get a line of people out your store, you’ll get sales. And, if you don’t get what you waited in line all night to get, you’re probably going to buy something else. There’s no way you invest all that time and walk away empty-handed.
Thanksgiving morning, I passed by the local Best Buy around 9:00 a.m. I saw a line of people about 50 long or so, complete with tents, chairs, and perhaps a little tailgating going on at the cars parked nearby. They were already in line for the store to open over 18 hours from that time. Thanksgiving night, I watched the news and saw footage of a mall south of Minneapolis where there were thousands of people out shopping at 5:00 a.m. One shopper said, “It just something you should experience once in your lifetime.”
There’s that word: Experience.
We’ll see the results of Cyber Monday later this week, but these two days are clearly less about finances and money and more about a cultural event. Some retailers are reporting a modest increase from last year. However, the National Retail Federation still believes the overall numbers will be down. Did all these retailers move their bottom line into the black? Hardly. But, they don’t need Black Friday any more like they used to because so many of them have been pushing deep discounts around campaigns for a long time now. The margins on products are so thin; the retailer must push low prices all year long to remain with the pack.
The only thing black about the Friday after Thanksgiving is the night sky that everyone shivers under waiting for the store to open.
My Take: Black Friday
Black is the new green.
Last Tuesday before Thanksgiving, James Bickers asked for my opinion on Black Friday, given my experience working for a retail giant. He used a couple of the quotes in an article he wrote about the souring of the public on the notion of Black Friday (a great article, by the way), but I thought it would be fun to reproduce the whole e-mail here and follow up since last Friday:
Within Best Buy, we never really did much from a corporate level regarding [digital signage] network or store design. The stores themselves and their immediate territory/district managers handled a lot of the noise. We helped out where we could, and we built a circular that was to go out and we were all told very clearly that the deals were confidential and should not be leaked. More on that below.
Overall, I took two things from my experience:
1. Best Buy (and other retailers) let the customers make a bigger deal out of than it really was. Corporate definitely paid attention, but the customers themselves are what drives the advertising. Nothing says “Black Friday” better than video of customers waiting all night outside your store, eagerly anticipating that one gift they have given up hours of their sleep to nab at a low, low price. No single product for any price can match that imagery.
2. The harder we worked to create an environment where we were not supposed to talk about it (the “leaked deals”), the more we seemed to see the deals leak. Again, you’re playing into the hands of the customer on purpose. By leaking deals, you get them to wait in line at your store. Once in line, they stay there. They won’t give up their number in line for another deal anywhere else. They have made the commitment.
Over my time with Best Buy and since, I have seen the customer change because it is no longer about the deal, it is about the event. That’s why customers are not seeing the deals. When you see news stories leading up to Black Friday about teams of women and men who build game plans on attacking certain stores (like a military exercise!), you begin to see that the stores have less power over the event than the customers do. Waiting in line is now fun to [do]. Retailers, Best Buy included, simply play into that. It doesn’t really matter what you put on sale or how much inventory you have. If you can get a line of people out your store, you’ll get sales. And, if you don’t get what you waited in line all night to get, you’re probably going to buy something else. There’s no way you invest all that time and walk away empty-handed.
Thanksgiving morning, I passed by the local Best Buy around 9:00 a.m. I saw a line of people about 50 long or so, complete with tents, chairs, and perhaps a little tailgating going on at the cars parked nearby. They were already in line for the store to open over 18 hours from that time. Thanksgiving night, I watched the news and saw footage of a mall south of Minneapolis where there were thousands of people out shopping at 5:00 a.m. One shopper said, “It just something you should experience once in your lifetime.”
There’s that word: Experience.
We’ll see the results of Cyber Monday later this week, but these two days are clearly less about finances and money and more about a cultural event. Some retailers are reporting a modest increase from last year. However, the National Retail Federation still believes the overall numbers will be down. Did all these retailers move their bottom line into the black? Hardly. But, they don’t need Black Friday any more like they used to because so many of them have been pushing deep discounts around campaigns for a long time now. The margins on products are so thin; the retailer must push low prices all year long to remain with the pack.
The only thing black about the Friday after Thanksgiving is the night sky that everyone shivers under waiting for the store to open.