Taking Control Of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Shopping

It’s no secret that the holiday season can be a particularly busy, and therefore profitable, time of the year for many businesses, particularly retailers selling holiday gifts and wares to consumers around the globe. But with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it can also be a stressful time for these businesses, as they struggle to keep up with the increased demands and work that needs to be done to turn this hectic season into a success.

One of the biggest challenges during this busy time of year is setting yourself apart from the competition. The main draw for consumers during Black Friday and Cyber Monday remains price. But, if every company is slashing prices, how can you differentiate yourself? The key is providing a compelling product experience, and that requires you get your product catalog in order and make sure your product information is primed for success. But making these seasonal changes in your product catalog isn’t as simple as flipping the calendar to the next month. Updating and expanding a product catalog is a labor-intensive, heavy-duty process, one that involves adding new products from manufacturers and suppliers, onboarding new photos and other digital assets, and updating hundreds or thousands of SKUs on multiple sales channels. That’s a lot to take care of, especially once you consider that the holiday season lasts just about two months at most. Those two months, of course, are crucial to the success of many businesses, so we’ve designed this guide to help you and your team prepare for the holiday rush and ensure this is truly the most wonderful time of the year.

Automate seasonal promotions 

On Black Friday, Cyber Monday and throughout the holiday shopping season, companies constantly offer special promotions and alternate product assortments to bring in new customers. These seasonal offerings, however, require them to make changes to their product catalogs — a time-consuming and demanding process in any season. But this challenge becomes even more fraught during the short time period of the holiday season, which can lead to an increase in inaccurate or inconsistent product information reaching customers, particularly if you’re using poorly suited tools or generalized solutions like Excel spreadsheets. This, in turn, can lead to a decrease in conversion rates or an increase in returns, both bad news for retailers this, or any, time of year. Akeneo’s Product Information Management solution can help you solve these problems with a host of features designed to help you easily and efficiently make changes to your product catalog. Automation and a business rules engine can help you move more quickly, while bulk editing, category modeling, and collaboration and workflow capabilities can help you manage the product information enrichment processes and reduce inaccuracies in product information.

Move even faster than Santa Claus

On Christmas Eve, Santa needs to move pretty quickly to get gifts all around the world — and just like Father Christmas, brands and retailers need to move quickly during the holiday season. As we mentioned above, long catalog or product information enrichment processes mean less time during the holiday season to market promotions and lost sales as a result. But while speed is crucial, companies can’t afford to make errors out of haste, or they’ll watch their customers move on to another retailer who can help them find out the information they need to feel comfortable making a purchase. As with seasonal catalog shifts, automation features can help you add, onboard, and enrich new products quickly, without increasing the risk of errors or inconsistencies. Akeneo PIM can also help you more efficiently distribute your newly enriched product information to a wide range of channels thanks to our diverse ecosystem and community, including premium connectors that tightly integrate with ecommerce platforms, print solutions, and more.

Get happy for the holidays

The holiday season is all about emotion, and that’s especially true when it comes to product information. Customers are far more likely to make purchases, and become repeat customers, if you can forge an emotional connection between them and your brand. This is particularly true during the holiday season, when consumers are particularly open to appeals to a sense of nostalgia or emotions. According to a report from Adweek, 70% of users who feel a connection to a brand spend twice as much as those who don't, and 81 percent of those respondents also promote their favorite brands to family and friends. By taking time-consuming/tedious tasks off your employees’ plates, they can devote more time to crafting promotional content, descriptions, and other assets to help motivate holiday buyers and help your team dominate the holiday shopping season. This will lead not only to increased conversions but increased customer loyalty and even new customers thanks to a rise in referrals and recommendations.

Take Control Of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Shopping With PIM

Make sure your team is ready to make the holiday season the most wonderful time of the year with PIM! Akeneo PIM is the solution to help you prepare for Black Friday, Cyber Monday or any other seasonal event. It makes seasonal collections and contextual sales a breeze, and helps you more easily and quickly respond to quickly changing customer demands! Take Control Of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Shopping With PIM! Learn how PIM can help your team conquer expansions with relative ease by reading our blogs on Turning A New Commerce Channel Into A Success and Expanding To New Locales today!