Eurostop publishes paper providing guidance to retailers, based on conversations with its customers
Eurostop identified that their retail customers that took part in Black Friday 2014 reported healthy growth figures from participating in the one-day event. This correlates with the official figures, which revealed British consumers spent £810 million pounds during Black Friday, making it the biggest shopping day of the year in 2014. However, retailers need to beware.
Increasing turnover at the expense of profit margin is a difficult equation to balance. Planning is paramount and the route to retail success is to become more data aware. Decision-making based on hard data rather than guesswork enables retailers to make the smarter decisions towards higher profits, greater customer satisfaction and sustainable growth.
Phillip Moylan, Sales Manager at Eurostop comments; “It is easy to understand why Black Friday has become so popular, consumers benefit from huge discounts on goods and retailers achieve a significant lift in sales and revenue. However, discounted goods and increased profit margins don’t generally go hand in hand. Retailers need a solid strategy to achieve the full benefit from Black Friday.”
First arriving to UK shores in 2010, Black Friday is a day when retailers heavily discount goods. The concept grew in popularity and by 2014 most of the major UK retailers participated resulting in a one-day sales frenzy, with consumers spending at the rate of £9,375 per second. Retail analysts are predicting that Black Friday 2015, and its lesser known cousin Cyber Monday, could see sales figures surpass the £1 billon mark.
“Retailers who want to improve turnover and profits, must communicate well internally and enable a marketing plan for this event. It is vital that retailers are able to assimilate their retail data into the decision making process. For retailers that don’t have a Stock Control and EPoS solution that can give them the information needed, it might be time to find a new technology partner before missing out on the next biggest shopping day of the year,” Moylan concluded.
