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How Can IT Teams Prepare Retail Technology For Black Friday?

Many UK retailers were extremely unprepared for Black Friday in 2014. A spike in trading had been predicted but the surge that many retailers experienced was an unparalleled phenomenon.

The effects were dramatic:

  • Websites crashed (or slowed down to an unusable pace)
  • Orders vanished
  • In-store POS software failed to meet the bargain-hunters’ needs
  • Ultimately, a lot of sales opportunities were lost
This year Black Friday, which falls on 27 November in the UK, is expected to be even bigger. Some experts are forecasting that it could be the nation’s first £1billion online shopping day and others are anticipating a four-day shopping spree culminating with ‘Cyber Monday’ (30 November).
 
Wise retailers will be preparing their staff, retail technology, and omni channel platforms for this huge influx of trade.
 
Here are some tips from our IT consultants on how to plan for Black Friday:
  1. Black-Friday-Retail-TechnologyEstimate volume of website visits, users, and transactions – With a figure in mind, you can prepare your call centre staff, sales platforms, and retail software in advance for the spike in sales.
  2. Test your capacity – Don’t be conservative in your estimations and ensure you test that your systems can handle far more traffic than you have predicted.
  3. Develop contingency plans – Be realistic, in the unpredictable world of Black Friday problems can escalate very very quickly and something is definitely going to go wrong. You need to have a strategy for how to deal with every kind of issue.
  4. Define roles and responsibilities – Black Friday is an unusual environment for most retail staff, including those in the board room, on the shop floor, and in the IT team. You need to brief them, prepare them for every eventuality, and assign responsibilities so everyone knows who is meant to be handling each problem.
  5. Fine tune the supply chain and logistics – Ensure your supply chain management, warehouse management, and distribution software is operating smoothly and able to handle demand so your shelves and website won’t run out of stock.
  6. Extend the length of the sale – Stretching Black Friday across a whole weekend will make technology, stock, sales, and customer management far easier. Many retail companies are expected to prolong Black Friday to maximise on its marketing potential and ease the pressure on systems.

If you would like a FREE consultation with one of Crimson’s specialist retail IT consultants to discuss how to prepare for Black Friday please call 01675 466 477 or book a Free Discovery Call.
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