While January is a month where many people may be out-of-pocket, there are still various opportunities for merchants looking to continue the shopping spree trend. Black Friday revealed a lot about how we can expect consumers to behave going into the first month of next year, with many avoiding the Christmas shopping rush. Interestingly, in line with this preference, active Black Friday shoppers purchased items from a place of convenience. Tapping into this, combining comfort with simplicity, might be the right formula for merchants looking to get the New Year off to a good start.
Trend #1: Avoiding Black Friday altogether
Many shoppers refused to make any sort of purchase on Black Friday. In a PYMNTS survey, which spread across 1,100 people in the US from various age groups and financial statuses, 39% avoided buying anything. While the majority stated crowded stores as their primary reason, it’s also worth noting that just under 17% of these identified a desire to start their holiday shopping later and over two-thirds (36.7%) stated that they didn’t require anything.
What does this mean for merchants?
As the festive season wears away, many shoppers might seek to take advantage of the January sales to buy late Christmas presents at a discounted price. It’s possible that many shoppers could purchase discounted items ‘they don’t need’ in a bid to boost their morale. Consumers might also seek to take advantage of the New Year sales, to buy late Christmas presents, due to stores being less crowded.
It’ll also be a popular time for shoppers seeking to purchase items they want at a discounted price, with either money or gift cards they’ve received. Therefore, it’s important for both on and offline merchants to enable customers to buy with gift cards and other prepaid methods.
Trend #2: The growing diversity of eCommerce
Mobile grew even further in prominence and Forbes reported that Salesforce found 67% of traffic in the US to come from this platform. That was a 6% increase on 2017’s statistics, while just under half (49%) of online Black Friday purchases were made via said device.
Another interesting revelation was the growing significance of social media. In terms of driving traffic to eCommerce sites, Forbes also reported that – prior to Black Friday – Instagram was set to see a year-on-year growth rate of over half (51%). There was a direct correlation with a slight shrink in Facebook referrals.
What does this mean for merchants?
The increasing importance of mobile means that it’s not just vital for a positive user experience to be created on desktop sites, but also for accelerated mobile pages (AMPs) and mobile apps. Just as trend #1 suggests, it should also be possible for shoppers to pay via prepaid services on their phones if they wish.
Bearing in mind the amount of traffic now coming from Instagram, merchants should be looking at ways they can make the most out of this platform. Along with creating ads, the site also allows brands to tag links to their products in images. This can be an effective way to drive direct traffic to pages with specific targets.
To summarise…
General Black Friday patterns showed a shift away from the high street in favour of more convenient shopping experiences. This was evident with regards to the boost in mobile webpage referrals. In a world where users want a well-rounded impression of potential purchases, Instagram will continue to drive more traffic to eCommerce pages going forward. Optimising for such channels will help retail merchants to stay ahead of the curve in the future.
At emerchantpay, we offer a range of prepaid services to merchants within eCommerce – plus more. To find out more about we can enhance your business offerings going into 2019, please contact us.