Ideas for Small Business Success on Black Friday
Posted by Nicole Scibetta on Tue, Nov 22, 2011 @ 06:25 PM
Is it just me, or did Black Friday seemingly come out of nowhere about 5 years ago? It started off as a neat concept: spend the Friday after Thanksgiving browsing good deals and making holiday gift purchases, and then suddenly this year you’re skipping the dessert course and leaving your family at the table to stand in lines at the big box stores on Thanksgiving night. It’s very possible that shopping at some stores on Black Friday produces more stress than pleasure from the savings.
As a business we realize that no matter how you shop, consumers are looking for a good deal on Black Friday, and we also realize it can be difficult to compete with crazy deals at the big box stores (i.e. $4.99 LCD TVs). So in an attempt to encourage people to “Shop small” this year, below we outline our strategies to avoid stampedes and come out on top on Black Friday.
Carry a product everyone wants
According to an article by CEpro “the iPad is the most requested gift among children ages 6 to 12” I can’t think of one person in my life that wouldn’t like getting an Apple product for a gift, they’re great to look at and fun to use. And even though Apple products are easier to find than a couple years ago, you can’t buy them just anywhere. That’s another great thing about small local businesses, they have unique gifts, often handmade or rare and you know the inventory has been selected by a person, not a corporation.
Photo: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/us-kids-looking-forward-to-iholiday-2011/
Open the sale up to the whole week
Hitting up any more than one store on Black Friday is overwhelming, and have you ever seen an Apple store on a Saturday (let alone, Black Friday!) So our thoughts were to lure people in with a calm, relaxed shopping experience. Any day this week you can stroll into our store, have a chat with our floor people and get the same deals we’re offering on Friday. It sure does take the pressure off of getting everything done in one day!
Give stuff away
People love getting free stuff! Sometimes giving away a product that costs you very little can close the sales of people who may be on the fence about where to buy. Even if you don’t give away products, setup your store with an event atmosphere: put out refreshments, play music, get balloons for the front. In doing so, we can help make Black Friday an event people actually enjoy and increase our sales in the meantime.