From Amazon Prime Day to the festive season, ecommerce and brick-and-mortar retailers alike are seeing record-breaking sales during key shopping events. Email is consistently ranked as the most effective marketing channel to drive revenue.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there was a 1.5% decline in volume of UK sales last December (month-on-month) following a particularly strong November.
The drop was seemingly due to consumers buying earlier in order to take advantage of Black Friday sales.
Whether you’re a bargain hunter or not, Black Friday is hard to ignore.
Last year’s retail event was evidently bigger than ever in the UK, as Barclaycard reported that transaction numbers were up 32% on 2016. What’s more, Black Friday cemented itself as a predominantly online affair, with ecommerce sales increasing as brick-and-mortar declined.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, unless, perhaps, you’re an executive of a luxury brand.
That’s because out of all categories, luxury labels and retailers were responsible for the highest volume of discounts on Black Friday this year in the U.S.
Amazon’s dominance of online retail in the U.S. was on fully display this Thanksgiving and on Black Friday according to data collected by Hitwise.
According to the competitive intelligence and consumer insights firm, Amazon processed 5.6m transactions on Thanksgiving Day and 7.1m transactions on Black Friday.
Asian brands planning to market themselves in China during Singles Day in 2018 have some important lessons to learn from the shopping festival’s performance in 2017.
Checking your email on Black Friday is like coming back to work after two weeks off.
When you’re inbox is flooded, it can be a job in itself to separate the wheat from the chaff, with most emails perhaps more worthy of the trash rather than your attention.
The UK video game retailer Game has one of the most impressive Black Friday digital strategies in 2017.
But that is easily undermined if your site is down for an extended period of time.
What do retailers need to consider ahead of Black Friday?
We ask the experts about strategy, search, content and more. Thanks go to Dan Barker, James Gurd, Stuart Rex and Guy Levine.
Black Friday isn’t as exciting as a couple of years ago.
Sales are more common year-round, so though most retailers get involved on the big day, it seems fewer are willing to go crazy. Smaller, more niche discounts spread out over the weekend or even the week seems to be the trend.
Last week, Amazon held its annual Prime Day event.
The shopping holiday, which Amazon launched in 2015 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, is positioned as a sort of Black Friday in July and thanks to Amazon’s online retail dominance, has become one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
Despite recent suggestions that UK retailers consider Black Friday to be unprofitable, many seem to be ramping up efforts this year – even extending the event to an entire two weeks.
Here’s a look at how six UK brands are honing in on bargain-hungry consumers.