The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: just let them buy whatever they want and give them what they don’t want, but give it as a bonus and you get rid of it. That’s a nice, simple way to make the customer feel excited and happy because a lot of. People’s mind shifts when it’s a thing that’s free.
[00:00:13]
[00:00:35]
[00:01:05] Chris: I think sellers need to kind of stop, pause think and be like, how can I not be lazy?
[00:01:12] How can I put some effort into this promotion? How can I be intentional? How can I differentiate all these things? Like these buzz words and stuff it’s was like, yeah, but it, it matters. It’s the sellers who put in a little bit of effort to provide the most value to their best customers in a unique way.
[00:01:30] They’re going to win instead of just saying, oh, just put 10% on the store. It just, it drives me crazy that people don’t put in a little bit of creative effort, because that is just incredibly multiplied in terms of reward. And I do want to kind of throw back a little bit to what black Friday is, because I think a lot of people are like, oh, it’s just always been this way.
[00:01:50] Pre-internet black Friday is where black Friday came from. Right. But now we have internet. Now we have that. They’re like, oh, cyber Monday, we can like do that. And then I remember the year Amazon. You know what we’re going to do, like a second black Friday, or we’re going to be like cyber week. We’re going to do, like, they went as far as saying, you know what, let’s do prime day in the middle of the summer.
[00:02:10] Right. You can make up. And all the retailers, I think kind of followed suit the online retailers to be like, wait a minute, this isn’t just some, just a cyber Monday. This is just black Friday. And they’ve turned the entire holiday shopping season into whatever they want. And the customers are still gonna buy along with it.
[00:02:26] So while you can understand the psychology behind black Friday and cyber Monday as this kind of peak thing, there’s like black Fridays and all the ads. Well, yeah, but you can also do all of these same type of. Not just between black Friday and Christmas day, but also all year long, creative, innovative, intentional, differentiated promotions all year long are what’s going to win.
[00:02:47] Now, if you want to apply some of that specifically to broad black Friday. Yes. That’s what we’re talking about today, but I don’t want people to be like, oh, the black Friday, we’ve got to make our make or break our year on this. Like, no, you guys are crazy. Like, this is so much fun. We can run promos all year.
[00:03:01] Yeah,
[00:03:01] Jason: I love that man. Totally agree. Yeah. That’s near and dear to our heart and our company. We’ve done that kind of thing and really advocate people to do it as well.
[00:03:10] Michael: A response to what you were saying, Chris, I guess sort of counter black Fridays, it’s sort of taken the, as I suppose what you’re saying.
[00:03:15] If I’m my understanding of it, you’re taking the essence of the black Friday idea, but then making it your own. So you can do your own black Friday. I think there’s a good case particularly of yours. Counter-cultural branding in the more, not in the 19 60 cents, but like this chubby shorts, whatever, if that’s your positioning, it makes sense to say, we ain’t going to do black Friday period, but we’re going to do our own on this date and, and sort of really be different and very anti Amazon or antiestablishment or whatever it is if that fits with your brand is one thing that strikes me.
[00:03:44] That’s more marketing thing, but I guess there’s an underlying assumption about all this that we should go along with this for our business. Yes. Our customers will love it. If they’re going to discount. Stuff that they like. Of course I will, but there is a danger of not thinking the thing through, I think from this strategy point of view, it very, very simply put this year.
[00:04:01] It’s a nightmare to get in stock and stay in stock. It may well be that the marketer in you, or if that’s just you, if you’re a solopreneur. Or just you and a tiny team is, is driving things. And you’re not thinking financially that the fact that you’re out of stock, as we’ve talked about before, then it’s game over.
[00:04:16] And actually it’s not great to be really successful on cyber Monday and then have no stock left for the, whatever it is, three or four weeks before Christmas, when you will still make a great deal of the percentage of your revenue for the year, if you’re in stock. So I think it’s just very, very important to not only know your unit economics, but to look at your stock and think about price as.
[00:04:35] As a way to, to maybe even raise your price on cyber Monday, if it’s necessary to not go out and stop by Christmas. And it’s just one thing to think through as a business owner, not just a marketer, I would say.
[00:04:46] Jason: Yeah, totally, totally agree. Kind of what do you, well, a
[00:04:50] Kyle: couple, I want to bounce off a couple of things you guys were talking about.
[00:04:52] One is sort of redefining black Friday, cyber Monday again, to Michael’s point mentioned Chubbies they actually did that. They called it fiber Monday because it was all about showing off the thighs, wearing their shorts. Right. And so that was kind of like their approach. And so they really sort of imagined what that looked like, but we even have clients who, I’ll just give a shout out to 11, 10 leather.
[00:05:11] They sell a leather. And so because their brand name is 1110. They actually do an 1110 day, which is before black, Friday, cyber Monday. And that’s a big promotion day for them ever. It’s all about celebrating that day on 11, 10. And so they’ve sort of created a branded holiday just like Amazon did with prime day and other brands have done.
[00:05:31] And I think that’s a really smart move.
[00:05:33] Jason: Yeah. At pixie fair, we call it freebie Friday. We do it every Friday. And so we’ve, that’s a smart thing to think. Depending on what your product opportunities are for sure. Okay. Here’s another hot take from me on what to do. If you’ve got dead inventory that you can’t move.
[00:05:51] And again, this is tailored to Shopify sellers, but a great promotional tactic is buy this, get that. So, you know, spend $10, get this item. And that’s really an ideal scenario in which you can liquidate dead inventory or things that just, you know, you’re overstocked or out of whack in terms of your inventory.
[00:06:13] And so this is the time of year to do that. It’s a very simple campaign structure, you know, 10 spend $25 and get our, whatever it is free. And literally in your mind that is just dead inventory. And you’re not going to redeem it. It’s just on the shelves. Why not liquidate? Why not use it to juice sales, for anything customers want, which is obviously the problem you have.
[00:06:35] They don’t want the one thing, but they want other things. So just let them buy whatever they want and give them what they don’t want, but give it as a bonus and you get rid of it. And so, that’s a nice, simple way to make the customer feel excited and happy because a lot of. People’s mind shifts when it’s a thing that’s free.
[00:06:54] Like, oh, I wouldn’t pay for that. But if you’re going to give it to me for free. Yeah, sure. I’d love that. And I wanted to buy one of the things on your site anyway. So, so there’s, an inventory liquidating, black Friday cyber Monday, hack, if you will, that we’ve used before successfully. Thoughts on that.
[00:07:10] Chris: Yeah, I love picking people’s stuff. Just, just to get rid of it. Cause they love it. I used to collect like stuff that was at the home Depot clearance for a dollar. I would just stock it all up. And if we ever messed up an order or something, just throw it in there. Like, oh, thanks man. That’s awesome. That’s a $20 item, but it’s only a dollar yeah.
[00:07:26] Surprise with like customers is great.
[00:07:28] Jason: Exactly right.
[00:07:29] Michael: It’s the flip side of what I was saying. Like, if, if you have imagery that you are going to run out of stock off, then do not get Cal callous as a marketer.
[00:07:36] You probably really do want to raise your price or reserve some inventory so that you’re not going to run out of it. But the flip side, to your point, if you have stuff you want to liquidate the perfect day to do it, it’s about five that I would say on Amazon, you can do exactly the same thing. Buy this one, get this one free bog off offer is extremely common and that’s a great use of it.
[00:07:54] And in fact, I would argue. You should think very strategically about what inventory you want to get rid of and be making plans by late October or the latest now, I guess, for what are we going to do? Ridiculous discounts on because to try and shift stock, even for free, the rest of the year is a nightmare because you’ve got to pay so much for advertising and stuff.
[00:08:11] So that’s a, just a brilliant use of, of the opportunity, I think.
[00:08:15] Jason: Yeah, there you have it. Kyle, any final thoughts? Let’s wrap up the conversation here with any final.
[00:08:21] Kyle: Yeah, I think that’s my final thought on black Friday, cyber Monday strategies is you just gotta read the room, and be aware of what your competitors are doing and what the market is doing.
[00:08:32] Like, I mean this year black Friday deals were happening mid October. And a lot of that was driven, you know, black Friday, like deals, by Amazon, even because of the supply chain issues. Right. So they’re saying, Hey, ordering. So that you can actually get it hopefully by Christmas or whenever you, whenever you’re trying to get it landed by.
[00:08:51] Right. So they’re trying to expand that window. I think you’re going to see that trend continue, right? I think you’re still going to, I mean, I think black Friday holiday shopping season is going to probably be like October through, you know, the mid December towards the end of the. Moving forward because once they sort of go down that slope, then everybody sorta jumps on the bandwagon and then it’s, everyone’s doing the thing.
[00:09:13] So think of ways you can be outside the box, but realize that the buying season for black Friday, cyber Monday and that big of a day, isn’t going to be so much of a day or a weekend. It’s really unique. Expanded out for 2, 3, 4 weeks, five weeks, six week period.
[00:09:26] Jason: Yeah, totally. Chris. I
[00:09:29] Chris: got to throw a little shout out to all the arbitrage sellers out there who instead of necessarily selling they’re like, I need to acquire some of this black Friday inventory because I’m going to flip it down the road and we could talk, we do a whole show about retail, arbitrage strategies, online arbitrage strategies, but I want to throw out one type of new strategy that kind of came into.
[00:09:48] It was kind of popular. Last year we called it. Arbitrage, because since the COVID stuff and picking up stuff at stores that didn’t want people to, in shopping, a lot of the stores made it really easy to order online and pick up in the parking lot. Like if you need to have to go into the store, if you didn’t want to.
[00:10:05] And that was pushed by a lot by, by COVID in the pandemic. But there in my experience, they’re really good. So if you have the target app, it tells you how many are in the store. You can order them, it texts you when they’re ready and you go, okay. Where was this for the past 20 years where you have to go to the store and hope that it’s there and look in the overheads.
[00:10:25] So I throw that out there. So if you got your phone and you’re like, you know what, let me snag some of these deals right now. Let me go pick them up. It’s so much more efficient. And for anybody who’s doing arbitrage on Amazon, they know how easy it is to make a quick buck on, on some of the popular items.
[00:10:39] Jason: So you were saying that the retailers just added a staff to your business. That’s the pick and pack and a full person and brings it to your car. You basically got a new team member at every store.
[00:10:52] Chris: I was begging for that when I used to pick up stuff from home Depot, that gas could just pick it for me.
[00:10:56] I’ll be there. I’ll pay, I’ll pay for it over the phone and that they wouldn’t do it. So now they will literally. It only works because they updated all their systems to where the app knows the inventory. They didn’t use to be that way. It was like, we don’t know what’s in our store right now. They know, and they can pick it and they can pull it.
[00:11:13] They’ll tell you if it’s ready, if they don’t find it or they can’t find it. Or if it gets purchased, like in that little window of you ordering, they’ll tell you, so you don’t waste a trip to the store. It’s almost fun. It’s like a, like a, a game almost. What can I grab? And they go pick it up and it’s like, I can’t believe I got 20 of those Mario things.
[00:11:29] It was. And then go pick them up and one trip, like it’s, it’s almost fun, but it’s, it’s a little different from the seller promotion and, and all that stuff. But I think there’s a little, there’s a little overlap between the sellers
[00:11:40] Jason: out there. Absolutely. And we have a huge community of people who, you know, love retail, arbitrage, and replen sourcing and online arbitrage strategies.
[00:11:51] And, and, and this hybrid model that you’re describing is really cool. It’s
[00:11:54] Chris: very cool. We have got to do some specific training for hybrid. And Replens.
[00:11:59] Jason: It’s a new thing.
[00:12:01] Chris: Yeah. Just drive up there, put it in your trunk. Yeah.
[00:12:04] Jason: All right, Kyle, you’re going to be with a Replens mastermind group, Thursday. So you’ve got to talk to Danny and Kate about that in our community.
[00:12:11] And then Chris man, we should weave you into this. That would be a blast. Okay. All right. Super cool. Michael final concluding thoughts on black Friday. Yeah, I
[00:12:21] Michael: guess that what strikes me, what, what I was thinking before, but being some very good concrete examples from the team here is B think outside the box, I guess Amazon created a box and called it cyber Monday, maybe black Friday was created by retailers consortium 20 years ago.
[00:12:35] But you know, you could create your own. You can be on the buy side of it instead of the selling side, you know, so trying to be imaginative is not only good for marketing, but it’s really good for a business model thinking, for example, buying stuff, when everyone else is selling. So your point, Chris seems incredibly smart to me, but because everyone’s been trained to think, I must sell, sell, sell on like vital, particularly in the Amazon space.
[00:12:58] That’s what they tend to do. So don’t do what you’ve been trained to buy Amazon. Do what makes sense for your customers in your business
[00:13:03] Jason: Amazing hot takes really, really love this conversation. I’m going to wrap it here and thanks everyone. Who’s listening on the call and app, and those of you who are listing as well on the e-commerce leader, our big show.
[00:13:14] And it’s an honor to have you listen, subscribe, like follow whatever you can do on your player of choice. We’re really grateful. Jen says always it’s an honor. Thank you so much for your hot takes on black Friday, cyber Monday. It was great stuff. Thanks so much.
[00:13:29]