You’ve probably read lots of advice about preparing your brand for Black Friday and the holiday shopping season. But, one thing you might not have considered is how your fulfillment and logistics will impact your strategy. At Red Stag, my team and I interface with all of our clients and manage our carrier relationships. The following questions and answers are what I think you should be doing to prepare.
QUESTION
What are your top predictions for the 2024 peak holiday shopping season in terms of consumer behavior and marketing trends?
A couple of things are unique about this year. Obviously the election, and who’s going to be in charge, could that have an impact on the economy, which already feels like it’s been cooling. We believe this year is going to be a very condensed peak—two things are driving this—first, political ad spend will decrease the ad inventory available to ecommerce advertisers until November 5th. And secondly, given when Thanksgiving falls, Cyber Monday will be in December.
So you have a situation where a lot of the customer buying is crammed into a two week period because people are waiting to see what the Black Friday Deal is. We’re hearing from carriers like UPS and Fedex that they expect the ‘peakiest peak’ they’ve ever had. Carriers are planning to put steep demand surcharges in place because of this, meaning ecommerce brands will have to spend more to ship their packages during this time.
All this adds up to a lot of uncertainty for brands we talk to. We’re hearing things like, “we’re hoping for year over year growth, but we’re not sure how much”. One final indicator we have—Amazon Prime Days happened a few weeks ago and Amazon reported its best performance. This may be a barometer of what to expect for this holiday season peak and bodes well for ecommerce retailers.
QUESTION
What challenges do you anticipate marketers will face this holiday season, and how can they overcome them?
Given the forces that cram consumer buying behavior into a tight window, we expect brands to face 3 challenges:
1
A lot of competition for consumer attention during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday time period.
2
Ecommerce brands will pay a premium to deliver their products to buyers.
3
Potential carrier issues: you could have transit delays and other things that prevent customers from getting gifts by Christmas if they order too late in the buying cycle.
To overcome this, we recommend brands start their holiday sales early and communicate clearly to customers that their best deals are available now—this will shift some buying earlier, meaning lower fulfillment costs and competition. However, clear messaging to your customers is key—let them know they won’t find a better deal if they wait a month. Finally, leverage owned channels like email to launch these sales when advertising rates are high due to political advertising.
QUESTION
How do you see ecommerce evolving in the next few years, especially during the holiday season?
The one thing that’s certain is large amounts of uncertainty. Potential changes to the political climate may affect import tariffs. New trends like Tik Tok Shops and direct-from-Asia platforms like Temu and SHEIN are changing how customers buy. And, economic uncertainty is already affecting buying behavior—we see more customers ‘waiting for a deal’ as opposed to buying at full price from ecommerce stores.
That’s it for now. Wishing your brand the best of luck with Black Friday and beyond. If you have questions, connect with me on LinkedIn, I’d be happy to help.
