You can bank on it
By Michael Posa, FTS
Believe it or not, Black Friday is right around the corner.
In recent years, the day after Thanksgiving has been one of the busiest shopping periods on the retail calendar. Merchants would plan and plot the best ways to get customers through their doors first. Store hours got earlier and earlier until some bold retailers dared to open Thanksgiving night!
Fast forward several years and, as many of us know, even those retailers who vowed never to open on Thanksgiving are kicking off their Black Friday sales promotions long before turkey day. Thus, the annual shopping extravaganza has stretched into Black November, while the advent of Cyber Monday some 18 years ago has extended the discounts past Thanksgiving weekend.
See: Best Buy Breaks the Black Friday Barrier
Today, holiday advertising hits the millisecond after Halloween, and you’d better be on top of it. What’s more, furniture continues to grab more e-commerce dollars every year, with eMarketer estimating that home furnishings will comprise fully 5.1% of all online sales in 2023. That figure is expected to hit 6.4% next year, 6.9% in 2025 and 7.3% in 2026.
Furnishings can sometimes get lost in the holiday craziness, but be assured there are plenty of customers looking to enhance their homes before the holidays and take advantage of the numerous furniture and mattress sales. Be sure to serve both your in-store and online customers by having plenty of advertised items in stock. Time-sensitive sales are a great way to drive clicks and sell-through, but you don’t want to disappoint your shoppers.
Here are a few more ways to have your best holiday selling season ever:
- Deliver an endless aisle experience in-store because the more you show, the more you might sell. Having an AVB Marketing KIOSQ on the sales floor and/or equipping your sales team with tablets allows you to offer an endless array of choices, just like your website.
- Create a seasonal mood online with holiday-themed landing pages, email templates and social media accounts. Bring the same warm feelings you evoke in your showroom to your website. This will create positive emotions and spur shopping for loved ones.
- Run a holiday contest or drawing with multiple customers winning one year of free deliveries.
- Create gift guides. Believe me, nearly everyone needs ideas for the holidays and if you can inspire your customers, they will reward you with sales. Arrange the guide by price point and include links to the products for ease of purchase. Again, make sure you have good stock on or restocking access to the items you promote.
Happy holidays!
Michael Posa is general manager of home furnishings and Furniture Technology Source (FTS) lead for YSN publisher AVB Inc.
