Black Friday/Cyber Monday Master Thread: What you selling? Buying? Promoting?

[MJ DeMarco]

Let's hear it!

What are your plans for Black Friday as a BUSINESS OWNER?
How about as a CONSUMER?
Any deal to hot to pass up?

Any Black Friday / Cyber Monday related post is acceptable. You can even be a little promotional here if you want to post your Black Friday offer.

 

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[Andy Black]

I’ve been living under a rock. I didn’t even know it was Black Friday coming up. I’d best create something!

 

[Bearcorp]

Tried this thread a few weeks ago and no one bit, lets hope this one gets some interest!

Due to delayed shipping times I ran a Pre-Black Friday sale a month early, we hoped to drag potential customers forward into the Pre sale, it was bigger than last years sale but I still suspect actual Black Friday will be just as big, consumers are wired now for shopping the big sale!

2 years ago it was just my business partner and I, last year we had 1 warehouse staff member, this year with 2 warehouse staff, 1 customer service employee and a marketing manager on board we were still packing orders! Nice to get hands on, back on the front line once in a while and see how everything's operating at higher volumes, compared to when it was just 2 of us.

Consumer wise? I'll be looking to improve my wardrobe a bit, gym gear and casual wear.

 

[amzu]

Tried this thread a few weeks ago and no one bit, lets hope this one gets some interest!

Due to delayed shipping times I ran a Pre-Black Friday sale a month early, we hoped to drag potential customers forward into the Pre sale, it was bigger than last years sale but I still suspect actual Black Friday will be just as big, consumers are wired now for shopping the big sale!

2 years ago it was just my business partner and I, last year we had 1 warehouse staff member, this year with 2 warehouse staff, 1 customer service employee and a marketing manager on board we were still packing orders! Nice to get hands on, back on the front line once in a while and see how everything's operating at higher volumes, compared to when it was just 2 of us.

Consumer wise? I'll be looking to improve my wardrobe a bit, gym gear and casual wear.

As a consumer I am

Let's hear it!

What are your plans for Black Friday as a BUSINESS OWNER?
How about as a CONSUMER?
Any deal to hot to pass up?

Any Black Friday / Cyber Monday related post is acceptable. You can even be a little promotional here if you want to post your Black Friday offer.

As a consumer I wanted to improve my home office so planning to get a bigger monitor as I am going to go full on developer mode to complete a product I am working on and deploy it to USA and UK market by new year.
As a producer you asked a good question, I probably want to use it in an article or post to promote my company and consulting solution in LinkedIn. I am now in chapter 15 I am getting to understand the producer mindset now.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Bump.

 

[The-J]

As an agency owner, BFCM is insane. Almost everything sells. We like to focus on selling large quantities to existing customers and long-term retargeting audiences. The bigger you spent throughout the year, the more revenue this will bring. Got several clients gearing up for BFCM and we're hoping to smash sales records.

I don't know what I personally want as a consumer though. A new pair of headphones, perhaps. I'll probably downgrade my phone plan since this COVID crap isn't going away anytime soon and I don't need nearly as much data as I pay for.

 

[AciD]

I have my course on a pretty big sale, though my email list is only 2k emails for now.
I also bundled with two other course creators and we're making a bundle.

 

[DiamondDog]

What I do every year: buy loads of discounted goods in the US, import them to my country and cha-ching!

I love that American businesses go all out with their discounts. That's just unheard of here.

 

[Kak]

I have people asking me what I want for Christmas... Now more than ever before, I just don't know how to answer it.

Short of a home in Puerto Rico, businesses that absorb the geographical shock and a private jet... I have enough stuff.

I suck so bad at being a consumer. I can't even, in good conscious, default to a watch or something. Where would I wear it in this brave new world?

Books? Another typical answer I give... I have subscriptions to Audible and Scribd.

Maybe I should just tell them all ammo. Any kind.

 

[Sheens]

Maybe I should just tell them all ammo. Any kind.

Do you have a reloading bench @Kak?

Not out of necessity, just as an interesting thing to do during time at home.

We also set up a range at the house for shooting and archery, really fun.. and an easy thing to tell people you'd like to replace targets : )

This year will probably be looking for a TV during all of the sales to put in the house being built. No idea which model (would like one that isn't smart, not sure that's even an option!) and likely need it shipped to us so will probably wait until after New Years as there would be no need to rush having it here

 

[DropshipGodx]

Tried this thread a few weeks ago and no one bit, lets hope this one gets some interest!

Due to delayed shipping times I ran a Pre-Black Friday sale a month early, we hoped to drag potential customers forward into the Pre sale, it was bigger than last years sale but I still suspect actual Black Friday will be just as big, consumers are wired now for shopping the big sale!

2 years ago it was just my business partner and I, last year we had 1 warehouse staff member, this year with 2 warehouse staff, 1 customer service employee and a marketing manager on board we were still packing orders! Nice to get hands on, back on the front line once in a while and see how everything's operating at higher volumes, compared to when it was just 2 of us.

Consumer wise? I'll be looking to improve my wardrobe a bit, gym gear and casual wear.

I am on the same journey as you can you please share your 2 year journey so that we can have some key takeways would love to know the problems you faced and how you tackled them and all the very best for BFCM

 

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[Bearcorp]

I am on the same journey as you can you please share your 2 year journey so that we can have some key takeways would love to know the problems you faced and how you tackled them and all the very best for BFCM

My business is 6 years old, I was just comparing the last 2 in terms of staff.

Here’s a brief run down of my Black Friday experience;

Year 1: no products, brand had just started as a social media page, never even heard of Black Friday

Year 2: a range of self branded products, still had no idea about Black Friday

Year 3: I had quit my job 2 months earlier, business partner and I were full time, having no idea about cash flow and inventory control we sold out of every product we had other than a $10 item which sells for $2 on Amazon, we learnt about Black Friday from seeing other brands on social media heavily promoting it, we sold hundreds of that item during the sale, gave us the cash to invest more into our better products. Moved into our first warehouse 3 months later.

Year 4: We spent a good portion of that year learning more about sales, we watched a lot of Ezra Firestone content during that time especially, and really geared up for Black Friday. That years sale was huge, completely broke all our systems, fulfillment couldn’t keep up, customer service in disarray, a lot of long hours trying to keep on top of everything, fun times!

Year 5: moved into a bigger warehouse, improved all our internal systems to cope with larger sales periods, got a warehouse guy on board and a VA for customer service, despite smashing the previous years sales we were far better equipped to handle it, didn’t break a sweat in terms of excessive hours like the previous year.

Year 6: As above we ran a Pre Black Friday sale a month ago and that killed it, still expecting this week to be huge, but have everything in place to keep on top of that.

 

[Timmy C]

Let's hear it!

What are your plans for Black Friday as a BUSINESS OWNER?
How about as a CONSUMER?
Any deal to hot to pass up?

Any Black Friday / Cyber Monday related post is acceptable. You can even be a little promotional here if you want to post your Black Friday offer.

I didn't know black Friday was a thing until someone told me about it on Social media.

I'm doing a 50% sale of my own product aswell as offering another product that I affiliate for at a steep discount.

I don't mind affiliating if it's a product I like, used, and got value from.

Will see how it goes!

 

[Kak]

Do you have a reloading bench @Kak?

Not out of necessity, just as an interesting thing to do during time at home.

We also set up a range at the house for shooting and archery, really fun.. and an easy thing to tell people you'd like to replace targets : )

This year will probably be looking for a TV during all of the sales to put in the house being built. No idea which model (would like one that isn't smart, not sure that's even an option!) and likely need it shipped to us so will probably wait until after New Years as there would be no need to rush having it here

Thanks to this reply, I have jumped in with both feet!

Now, after talking to my longtime ammo reloading father-in-law, I want a Hornady or Dillon progressive, about 10 different sets of dies, scale, tumbler, attachments.

I am convinced, given the availability of ammo, this is far more valuable than the guns themselves.

Now I need to actually save my brass.

Brilliant idea @Sheens!

 

[Blackman]

It might be different in the US, but I'm not sure if Black Friday is a massive thing in the UK, unless I'm not aware of where the real sales happen?

To me it seems like it's just an opportunity for retailers/online shops to sell their stuff a bit cheaper, claiming that discounts are due to Black Friday, when you are just getting 10-20% off something, which doesn't sound like a lot to make a big fuss about it.

Am I missing something?

 

[Sethamus]

It might be different in the US, but I'm not sure if Black Friday is a massive thing in the UK, unless I'm not aware of where the real sales happen?

To me it seems like it's just an opportunity for retailers/online shops to sell their stuff a bit cheaper, claiming that discounts are due to Black Friday, when you are just getting 10-20% off something, which doesn't sound like a lot to make a big fuss about it.

Am I missing something?

It stems from the increased consumer purchasing during the holiday months. Where companies would begin to be in the black on their accounting sheets after a slow summer season. It has been around a long time and evolved since I worked at Circuit City in 2007. Typically you see a slight run up of prices a month or two ahead so the additional 10% off doesn't actually affect the revenue as much. As well of having specific models for sale that are a lower cost but marketed as an equal to the regular model. Ex. - They would have specific model TVs set aside for the big sales on Black Friday that were very similar...but imo cheaper part and picture quality.

Same reason we could not price match walmart TVs back in 2007. Same TV to the average consumer but different model numbers. For someone who looked for small differences every day selling them it was noticeable.

 

[biophase]

I'm furnishing an entire new house, so Black Friday timing is perfect for me. I plan to spend a shit ton of money. I already ordered 7 TVs. Furniture ordering is a bitch, with a few pieces from different stores. But 10% off on hundreds of pieces of furniture and accents will add up.

On the business side, we always use Black Friday to get rid of overstock and slow selling things. I never do a sitewide 20% off sale like many others do. I usually mark about 8 things off from 50-75% and that gets people coming. I will put a few decent sellers at 25% off just so the sale isn't only slow movers.

For us, cyber Monday is always about how are we going to pack all the orders that came in from Wed-Sunday!

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

Doing our first black friday sale ever really. Exclusively for the 24 hour period that is black friday... nothing more, nothing less. High value product + a strict time limit on the sale should mean high sales.

 

[biophase]

Doing our first black friday sale ever really. Exclusively for the 24 hour period that is black friday... nothing more, nothing less. High value product + a strict time limit on the sale should mean high sales.

I used to have strict Black Friday sales times, like 12:01am to 11:59pm. A couple things about it kind of sucked.

One was that I had to stay up and manually flip the prices over at those times. Another was the slew of emails on Saturday asking for the discount or sale price. We usually gave it to them anyway. Third was that we had a ton of orders to ship on Cyber Monday.

So I figure why not just start it today and let the orders just come in over the course of 5 days rather than all at once. Now we can get ahead of the orders by shipping them Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I don't know if the scarcity or waiting made a difference. In my opinion, I'd rather my customer buy it right away.

For example, I just bought a bunch of TVs today. If I had to wait until Friday to get the sale price, I would have just shopped for them somewhere else, unless it was a really specific product.

Plus every other store's Black Friday sales have started last weekend. You could get people already buying what they needed before Friday.

 

[DropshipGodx]

My business is 6 years old, I was just comparing the last 2 in terms of staff.

Here’s a brief run down of my Black Friday experience;

Year 1: no products, brand had just started as a social media page, never even heard of Black Friday

Year 2: a range of self branded products, still had no idea about Black Friday

Year 3: I had quit my job 2 months earlier, business partner and I were full time, having no idea about cash flow and inventory control we sold out of every product we had other than a $10 item which sells for $2 on Amazon, we learnt about Black Friday from seeing other brands on social media heavily promoting it, we sold hundreds of that item during the sale, gave us the cash to invest more into our better products. Moved into our first warehouse 3 months later.

Year 4: We spent a good portion of that year learning more about sales, we watched a lot of Ezra Firestone content during that time especially, and really geared up for Black Friday. That years sale was huge, completely broke all our systems, fulfillment couldn’t keep up, customer service in disarray, a lot of long hours trying to keep on top of everything, fun times!

Year 5: moved into a bigger warehouse, improved all our internal systems to cope with larger sales periods, got a warehouse guy on board and a VA for customer service, despite smashing the previous years sales we were far better equipped to handle it, didn’t break a sweat in terms of excessive hours like the previous year.

Year 6: As above we ran a Pre Black Friday sale a month ago and that killed it, still expecting this week to be huge, but have everything in place to keep on top of that.

Fun and Inspiring i am on the road to do the same create a brand and scale it all the best for this Years BFCM

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

I used to have strict Black Friday sales times, like 12:01am to 11:59pm. A couple things about it kind of sucked.

One was that I had to stay up and manually flip the prices over at those times. Another was the slew of emails on Saturday asking for the discount or sale price. We usually gave it to them anyway. Third was that we had a ton of orders to ship on Cyber Monday.

So I figure why not just start it today and let the orders just come in over the course of 5 days rather than all at once. Now we can get ahead of the orders by shipping them Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I don't know if the scarcity or waiting made a difference. In my opinion, I'd rather my customer buy it right away.

For example, I just bought a bunch of TVs today. If I had to wait until Friday to get the sale price, I would have just shopped for them somewhere else, unless it was a really specific product.

Plus every other store's Black Friday sales have started last weekend. You could get people already buying what they needed before Friday.

I'll let you know how my experiment goes

 

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[Mutant]

Doing our first black friday sale ever really. Exclusively for the 24 hour period that is black friday... nothing more, nothing less. High value product + a strict time limit on the sale should mean high sales.

Are you discounting your annual subscriptions? For me there is a company that I typically only buy from once a year now, because their bf sales are good, I'll buy a years worth of "stuff" from them in one go. If discounting something that renews annually, aren't you pretty much ensuring that a bunch of customers will keep getting the discount forever as it'll always be on or near bf when they need to renew? Also some (especially the lower end subs you do where it's more of a want than a need) might start postponing buying decisions in September/October/November if you lead them to expect a bf sale.

I guess all this is moot point if you don't repeat the experiment - just some thoughts that came to mind from my prior training as a deeply slowlane consumer.

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

Are you discounting your annual subscriptions? For me there is a company that I typically only buy from once a year now, because their bf sales are good, I'll buy a years worth of "stuff" from them in one go. If discounting something that renews annually, aren't you pretty much ensuring that a bunch of customers will keep getting the discount forever as it'll always be on or near bf when they need to renew? Also some (especially the lower end subs you do where it's more of a want than a need) might start postponing buying decisions in September/October/November if you lead them to expect a bf sale.

I guess all this is moot point if you don't repeat the experiment - just some thoughts that came to mind from my prior training as a deeply slowlane consumer.

Because we have year 1, 2, and 3 pricing that the sub renews into they can only get a discount for year 1.. so recurring discounts isn't an issue in our case.

 

[Mutant]

Because we have year 1, 2, and 3 pricing that the sub renews into they can only get a discount for year 1.. so recurring discounts isn't an issue in our case.

Does that not incentivise (& again, I'm doubting the big enterprise customers are doing this, but for the hobbyists...) not renewing after a year & then maybe signing up again as someone different - a "new" customer - so they can get a discount again? Or have I not understood your deal? (entirely possible)

To my mind, it would make more sense to have discounts (or other bonuses) get better the longer they're subscribed - incentivise being signed up now, & staying signed up forever. That way if a user is tempted to cancel for a few months to save money, but they can see that they're actually only x amount of time away from unlocking "silver status" or whatever where they get bonus y & discount z, then they might not cancel - as that'll start them from scratch again on earning back bronze status/further away from reaching silver status/why cancel to save two months, when I'm about to earn a lower subscription rate for the whole next year?

 

[Bearcorp]

We've had 2 containers stuck in transit a month longer than usual, just found out one will be delivered Monday, the other on Tuesday. When it rains it pours Working all weekend to keep up with orders so we don't get behind. One day it will be someone else's job to handle it all while I'm smoking cigars and swimming at the beach, one day.. haha