strategy

Exclusive Survey: Small Businesses Are Avoiding the Biggest Black Friday and Cyber Monday Trends

It's not just you. Retailers across categories are starting holiday promotions early this year.
article cover

Francis Scialabba

less than 3 min read

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Earlier this month, I held an anonymous retail therapy session in our first Black Friday/Cyber Monday sentiment survey. 366 retail pros were willing to open up about their holiday discount plans. Let’s take a closer look.

By date: If your coupon codes activate first thing on Thanksgiving Day, you’re late.

  • 47% of retail pros said they’re pushing promotions before BFCM weekend. Nearly 20% will start discounting before Halloween.
  • But 20.5% of respondents said they’re sitting out the markdown cycle entirely. Way to know your worth.

By discount: Among the 53% of respondents making “meaningful” changes to their markdown experiences, most are shifting to bigger online sales.

Francis Scialabba

I don’t enjoy getting Thanksgiving Day Parade pitches in September, but it’s what shoppers want. Half of U.S. adults in an Affirm poll this month already started holiday shopping. When Prime Day was still held in July, many shoppers said they used it to tackle gifting lists.

+ An operational advantage. The earlier retailers host online sales, the less likely their packages will be late, and the fewer misplaced customer complaints they’ll receive. For all the technical hiccups in Away’s inaugural sale, it was ahead of the UPS curve.

The great divide

There were two types of respondents to our rankings of BFCM’s importance: Those who know they have to participate, and those with stores in one zip code.

  • Small businesses were the most likely to consider BFCM unimportant or very unimportant.
  • Small businesses were more than twice as likely than other respondents to vote for canceling BFCM discounts.

Francis Scialabba

Small businesses’ alterations to the BFCM experience lived up to their name. 22% are emphasizing more online sales this year; only 18% are offering curbside pickup.

This could be a problem. As I reported on Friday, shoppers expect more omnichannel enabled options this year, and that requires a little thing called online checkout.

Small businesses aren't going to BOPIS their way to beating out Amazon this holiday season. But they’ll have better odds of connecting with shoppers if they add a local touch to big box-tested and approved strategies.

My big takeaway: Next year, I’ll start writing holiday sales content in March.

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

R
B