Queuing outside all night for the latest tech goods is one thing. Savvy consumers, on the other hand, wait for Cyber Monday. Originally created by the US marketing industry it is now becoming increasingly popular in the UK. Shoppers spent £720m on the last Cyber Monday, with an estimated 160.8m visits to websites, according to the e-retail trade body IMRG.
“We expect even more businesses to join in this year, and could see activity double the levels we saw in 2014,” says Jamie Turner, chief technology officer and co-founder of PCA Predict, a checkout optimisation company, which last year launched an online tracking tool, Big DataLabs, that records live e-commerce transactions.
Data from the tool revealed online traffic at midnight on Cyber Monday in 2014 was 157% higher than the previous year. Turner believes the reason the figure will probably go up again is because payday for most will fall on the Monday, the last working day of the month, whereas last year it fell on Black Friday. He says consumers may have to wait until their wages arrive before they can take full advantage of any deals, and “if this does happen, we predicts sales will peak at 11am.”
So how can SMEs prepare for what could be another online bonanza? Spice Kitchen is a family business that sells hand-blended spices. Founder Sanjay Aggarwal says that such a busy period can put “extra pressure” on operations, but that making sure that stock levels are ready is key.
“We’ve been preparing for this for months,” he says. “We’ve got to have flexibility to increase – and decrease – stock when we need to. There’s no point in running a business if you can’t meet the demand.”
Aggarwal’s Walsall-based company have been going since 2013. He says that as they’re a young business, Cyber Monday is still fairly new to them. Though he anticipates a rise in traffic to Spice Kitchen’s site, he expects a significant proportion of sales over the Monday (and the Friday) to come through e-commerce partners. He stresses it is important SMEs recognise the marketing value and reach they can offer.
“We’re on about ten different platforms and affiliate sites,” he adds. “One affiliate said they usually wouldn’t do Cyber Monday, and it’s not even on their agenda, but it’s such a good trading opportunity they can’t afford to miss it.”
Rog How, co-founder and managing director of the homeware shop Howkapow, says inventory control can be a tricky task. “Juggling the amount of stock to hold for each line is a balancing act. We need to take into account how long it takes for new stock to reach us, as well as what press coverage products might be getting.”
Alice Hall, owner and creative director of Pink Boutique, which specialises in selling celebrity-inspired clothing, adds that she’s been getting sorted for Cyber Monday since the end of summer. Her company plans to have more of a strategy, incorporating their offers this year, after running low on offer stock last year.
When it comes to deciding which products to push for promotion, technology companies such as Ometria recommend making the most customer data to predict how much they’ll spend and what on.
Platforms such as Google Analytics can help you monitor performance, and though it may sound like a no-brainer, using them to track and identify the right lines is an essential part of maintaining stock levels, says How. “We’ll decide on the fly whether we’ll run discounts on certain items. We obviously don’t want to be selling popular ones at a discounted rate if there is a chance we might run out.”
More often than not, gearing up for Cyber Monday ties in with planning for the winter sales period. How says that “keeping everything in stock becomes one of our top priorities from November onwards”. For Hall, Boxing Day seems to be becoming less popular than Cyber Monday and Black Friday; as a result her company will be watching stock management very closely to ensure it’s able to balance sales in January, which it expects to be a quiet period.
With increased demand comes increased expectations. How believes a core business value to guarantee customer satisfaction is reliable delivery time; preparing employees is as important as replenishing and tracking stock. “All our staff know how our orders are shipped, packed and sent, so we can quickly get more hands to the pump and increase our order processing should we need to,” he says.
Hall agrees that it helps get parcels sent on time. They’ve been: “staffing up to ensure all consignments go out on our Next Day Delivery as normal”. But she concedes that sometimes there are external factors out of their control that can affect delivery targets.
“Our only issue would come if couriers had problems keeping up with the amount of parcels coming in from their clients,” she adds. “However, I know our courier companies have been planning for some time to ensure there is no downtime on their services.”
Keeping customers happy is key, but ensuring they’re safe online is critical. A study carried out by the government’s Cyber Streetwise campaign – launched in early 2014 – revealed that 59% of consumers polled would avoid shopping with SMEs over cyber security concerns. However, 82% would buy from SMEs if it was clear about how they were being protected. For example, Spice Kitchen, Howkapow and Pink Boutique all use secure payment systems, such as Sagepay, and disclose this information on their websites.
“Often we stress too much about the marketing and sales that we forget the basics, like ensuring that websites will function properly and servers are equipped to handle the surge in traffic,” says Turner. “Test your servers and find the tipping point so you can simulate traffic spikes with plenty of time to fix issues.”
Helping consumers have a smooth online experience will inevitably result in more sales. Matt Goolding, head of digital marketing at Ribbon Fish, also recommends checking phone and email systems can “handle the onslaught” of potential queries. “Users might have questions about anything from the checkout process to returns policies. Contact your hosting provider and try and temporarily increase your bandwidth. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
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