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Jewelers And Black Friday: An Accidental Success Story? | December 10, 2014 (0 comments)
Merrick, NY—Black Friday 2014 was a good day for jewelers, according to the annual Centurion Holiday Sales Success Index. "Luxury jewelers, however, started the season strong. According to the Centurion Holiday Sales Success Index, 43.3% of respondents reported sales for Black Friday weekend rose 10% or more over last year’s figures. 16.7% reported sales up between 6% and 10%, and 6.7% reported modest increases between 1% and 5%." Yet most don’t even promote the day as a shopping event. Given how much success they’ve had without any effort, would they have even more if they did promote it?
Are there jewelers who do offer Black Friday "door busters" and sales? Or are luxury jewelers just lucky beneficiaries of mass market hype encouraging people to shop—they just need to have an open door to take advantage of consumers’ readiness to shop and the resulting sales? To find out, The Centurion contacted Matthew Perosi of jWag, (Jewelry Website Advisory Group) a website and blog devoted to jewelry website education.
The Centurion: Do fine jewelry buyers have different buying behavior than other jewelry buyers?
Matthew Perosi: What I've found is that jewelry buyers all seem to act and respond the same regardless if they are buying from the small mom-and-pop or the luxury stores. I view it as a “consumer” frame of mind. Although that frame of mind seems to change when the same person buying jewelry starts looking at electronics, video games, books, or toys.
Consumers have come to expect the advanced marketing and the new ways of e-commerce when purchasing from big brands, but since most of the jewelry industry doesn't push this type of thinking, people simply don't expect or look for it.
Centurion: The prestige jewelers that took our survey indicate that Black Friday isn't critical to the season but does have an impact. Do you find that from the jewelers you study?
Perosi: I'm showing a 9.07% jump in website traffic to retail jewelers on Black Friday, but that's really not that important. Black Friday is the day the customers already have their shopping list and they strive to shop until they drop. The important days to look at are the days leading up to Black Friday because this is when we can see a hint that people are making their list, and checking it twice:
- Monday, November 24: 36.81% jump in website traffic over 2013
- Tuesday, November 25: 36.52% jump in website traffic over 2013
- Wednesday, November 26: 13.18% jump in website traffic over 2013
- Thanksgiving Day, November 27: 21.42% jump in website traffic over 2013
Now that we know the sales were way up for Black Friday, we can go back and recognize these jumps in traffic as the precursor. Website traffic during Thanksgiving week is usually quite flat. Jewelers who say "Black Friday isn't a big day for us" are usually right, because that flat traffic has always translated into low foot traffic that Friday.
Centurion: Are jewelers just the recipients of the general 'Black Friday' shopping mood or are they enticing business by advertising/marketing/etc.?
Perosi: Jewelers have a windfall this year and they don't understand why. Of the 100+ jewelry sites I manage, none of them promoted for Black Friday. Less than 1% promoted for the American Express Small Business Saturday. In fact, 100% of my customers didn't even change their store hours until the week of December 1st. They all treated Black Friday weekend like business as usual. The stores with holiday promotions didn't mail them out until December 1, with kickoff dates starting on December 5.
Meanwhile, to understand what might have driven the unexpected uptick in sales on Black Friday this year, you need to understand what's happening with holiday season sales overall. Every other industry is heavily promoting "Black Friday Sneak Peeks" much earlier. This year I saw the first Black Friday headline on November 5!
It's not just a sneak peek that's being offered. Big companies like BestBuy, Amazon, Toys R Us, Macy's, etc., are offering discounts on items throughout November to kick start the holiday shopping. The repeat customers of these brands now realize that they need to take those offers when they first see them, because the products will either sell out, or the offer will not be available again.
It's a recommended holiday practice now to put an item on sale only once through the season. Don't let customers think they can wait for a better price, make them act now. The freedom of e-commerce allows those customers to purchase immediately.
Thinking back four years ago, my own family would participate in the shop-till-you-drop Black Friday. Several people in my family are nurses or work in jobs they cannot take days off from, so Black Friday is the only day they have off from work until Christmas. They had to get all their shopping in on that single day. But that was four years ago when they still refused to buy online.
Fast forward to today and my aunt, a nurse, can do all of her big brand holiday shopping all month long during her coffee break at the hospital, by buying online. When Black Friday comes around she can now spend the day visiting all the stores in person that don't have e-commerce. This pretty much means she's avoiding the shopping malls that day. So, big brands are fighting over extending the holiday season from early November. While their overall seasonal sales will probably be higher, it also seems like all their advanced sales are resulting in their own lower than expected Black Friday sales. Consumers can now "shop small" on Black Friday.
Centurion: How many prestige jewelers advertise 'Black Friday' specials?
Perosi: I track emails from more than 200 retailers. Most of them are higher end stores. 30.8% of the emails I received during Thanksgiving week used the phrase "Black Friday" in their email.
Centurion: Do good Black Friday sales translate into better holiday sales? Conversely, if Black Friday isn't good, does that indicate how a store's holiday sales will be?
Perosi: This one is tough to answer. As a marketing and analytical guy I like to think that the sales are only going to be as good as our advertising. I've analyzed a lot of businesses over the years and I can tell you that those who report lower sales during the holiday season are the same jewelers who had marketing blunders that same year. Marketing blunders include lowering their overall ad spend, or concentrating on the wrong media instead of analyzing where the best ROI was.
Overall, the November website numbers this year were 35.26% higher than last year, but as of this writing the measurements for December are only 10.36% higher.
Centurion: Do any jewelers who don’t do email get good Black Friday traffic? Do any other methods of communication still work for Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday?
Perosi: Every community is different. Local newspapers still work for many jewelers. I'm referring to the local newspapers that get delivered to every home in the community, rather than the regional newspapers that would cover a full county or a large city. I don't have numbers for this year, but in 2013 there was a very small percentage of foot traffic derived from newspaper ads.
Several of my jewelers rely heavily on their billboard ads, but at this time they are always used to promote the holiday with a general message rather than something specific for Black Friday.
Obviously there was increased in-store Black Friday foot traffic this year, but I feel it was a serendipitous effect of all the pre-shopping those same people were doing earlier in November.
