In the midst of Black Friday mayhem, giffgaff is to launch a pop-up shop in Seven Dials, Covent Garden, where nothing is for sale.

The pop-up will house one hundred refurbed items created by Zero Waste Goods displayed in the store including 50 ‘like new’ refurbished iPhone and Samsung phones and 50 items in tech, wellness, homeware, fashion and accessories such as bikes, clothing, water bottles, vinyl records etc.

Visitors can enter the store by making a pledge via the link and commit to choosing refurbished goods by placing a bid on one of the free item in store. The giffgaff and Zer Waste Goods teams will then select the 100 people to receive an item for free.

The activation aims to open up conversations about the choices they make when purchasing phones or other material items.

Melanie Fisher, Founder of Zero Waste Goods, said: ‘We want to make the public realise that they do not have to settle when they buy refurbished, which is the best option if they want to live sustainably’.

This activation will take place on Friday 29th November at 9-11 Shorts Gardens, Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9A.

Visitors can make the pledge online here: www.giffgaff.com/hub/take-the-pledge/

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Sonia Hitzelberger, Sales Director at Whistl Doordrop, shares how brands can utilise doordrop to effectively reach consumers during Black Friday.

Door drops are not just affordable – they’re versatile, highly targeted and very effective when sent in this period.

Supporting this view, we can see from JICMail that 22% of people who receive a doordrop go online for more information or make a purchase.  JICMAIL (Joint Industry Committee for Mail) marks a first for mail. Set up by the DMA, IPA, ISBA, Whistl and Royal Mail, JICMAIL provides mail with the same metrics available to other channels (think BARB for TV).  The data is captured by global market research agency Kantar TNS, using a diary that follows each piece of mail over a four-week period, across a sample size of 1,000 UK households.

Doordrop Media was once regarded as a poor relation in the marketing mix. Now, sophisticated targeting, better creatives and better measurement have all helped improve the impact of door drops. As we know where the doordrops landed, we can correlate this exposure with who went on to buy ensuring accurate attribution of doordrop performance.

Consumer power is increasing with access to more shopping platforms and buying choice than ever before. With multiple ways to find a solution to a purchasing need, retailers and online stores must maintain strong brand identity and position of trust, to finalise that all-important sale. Most importantly doordrops are great at providing that moment of inspiration, introducing a customer to a product or offer that they didn’t know they wanted so could never have Googled it!

Doordrop Media is supporting retailers and online retailers with audience insights to understand their target audience and increase their customer bases, leading to many companies that exist entirely in the digital space investing in door drops as a marketing method (for example by overlaying broadband speed onto online retail doordrop selections has improved the campaigns effectiveness).

At Whistl, we can help you define your audience, build your relevant store or online catchments and drive traffic to your website or footfall to your bricks-and-mortar store, with a highly targeted doordrop.

Doordrops can be delivered locally within a few streets in your town or they can cover every household in the country should this be the requirement. They play a key role in:

• Increasing customer databases – find new customers in a GDPR compliant way
• Promoting new businesses/branding
• Reaching a large audience cost-effectively
• Supporting other advertising activity as part of an integrated campaign
• Driving new/customers into new/shops

Gtech use Whistl’s intelligent doordrop approach

Another example of how Doordrop Media used to drive Black Friday sales can be seen is with Gtech.

Gtech design and manufacture cordless appliances for the home and garden. Their founder and CEO developed the world’s first cordless sweeper and have since gone from strength to strength. Their mission is to make life easier by producing the best possible products for the home.

Campaign objective

To create a GDPR compliant and highly targeted doordrop campaign to increase the penetration of direct customers. Doordrop was tested as a standalone acquisition channel and to support Black Friday.

Solution

Two 6 page roll folds were created offering a free gift worth £50 or savings of up to £150 and free delivery. Whistl created a targeting model using Gtech anonymised postcode data and located the best postcode sectors. National and Regional Mosaic profiles were created to enhance the targeting approach. Headroom opportunity was key in the success of these campaigns.

Campaign results

Within 2 weeks of the doordrop landing, nearly 1,000 NEW customers were generated achieving an ROI of nearly 3:1.

With this ability to create specific audience segments, your retail message will connect with your customer base more effectively or engage with look-a-like new customers where your message will be most relevant.

To find out more about Whistl, get in touch with Sonia at sonia.hitzelberger@whistl.co.uk

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Many retailers have started their Black Friday sales in advance of the event on the 23^rd November and Savvy’s latest research suggests this year the sale will be bigger than ever. Insight Director, Alastair Lockhart, explores what the findings suggest about consumer behaviour this year and what this means for retailers.

Despite 84% of shoppers believing there is too much hype surrounding Black Friday, this year 53% of UK shoppers plan to buy something during the event, up from 43% who made a purchase in 2017. Around a third of shoppers expect they’ll spend more this year than they did last year.

The findings highlight how younger shoppers are driving growing interest in Black Friday, with 71% of 18-24 year olds planning to buy something.

Most shoppers expect to shop Black Friday online (84% of those getting involved), however 42% plan to buy something in-store – with older shoppers most likely to get out to stores.

In large part due to heavy discounting from retailers like Amazon and Currys PC World, electricals is expected to be the largest Black Friday category. 54% of Black Friday shoppers plan to buy electricals, with clothing and footwear the second largest category (41% planning to buy).

Although some retailers actively avoid participating in the Black Friday sale, Savvy’s research shows the event is a concrete fixture in the retail event calendar. 62% of shoppers believe all retailers should have a Black Friday sale, and almost one-third see the event as the most important sale of the year.

From the retailer’s point of view we continue to see a professionalisation of the event. Retailers are planning the event far in advance, buying stock specifically for Black Friday, and a growing number have extended the sale beyond a week. With consumer confidence fragile, Black Friday can provide an opportunity for retailers to kick-start Christmas spending – the challenge will be maintaining their profit margin during the crucial Golden Quarter of trading.

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Fiona Strong, Managing Director at Ark-H Handling, explores how Black Friday can be both a blessing and a curse for retailers and fulfilment houses.

Introduced from the USA several years ago, the Black Friday phenomenon, like so many American imports, has had positive and negative effects on the UK market in almost equal measure.

Initially the new concept in sales promotion led to a massive rise in on-line sales, as internet retailers rushed to capitalise on this frenzy of armchair bargain-hunting.  Sales spiked, web-sites crashed and the shopping world went Black Friday mad. The high-street trembled as the statistics for year-on-year on-line shopping sales shot through the roof and the world of fulfilment and distribution was caught on the hop.

As time has gone by the Black Friday effect has begun to diminish somewhat, although this is still the busiest period for sales, both on-line and on the high street. Designed to ‘kick-off’ the holiday season (Thanksgiving) in the US, Black Friday has, to a marked extent, become the starting pistol for pre-Christmas sales in the UK.

Mainstream retail has caught up with on-line, with stores building television campaigns designed to capture both on-line and footfall sales. Shoppers looking for bargains still flock to find the best deals, in the ether or on the pavement, but the one-day pressure has eased.  Many retailers have sought to up-stage the Black Friday event with earlier offer days with Amazon Prime day being a ‘prime’ example.

The on-line shopping bonanza continues to grow and flourish and it is now expected that sales will rise and rise. It is the rush to discount that has slowed slightly, with retailers of all descriptions recognising that this is more of a rush to bottom than a race to the top. The benefits to consumers remain and special deals abound but no longer in the staggering proportions of a few years ago.

On-line fulfilment services too have adjusted to meet demand and it is no longer so difficult for companies to fulfil the peak in demand. Gone are the days when neither websites nor warehouses could cope with the Black Friday effect.

Predictions for 2018 suggest that the average Brit will spend about £220 on Black Friday. This is significantly less than last year but it is also predicted that many more people will take part. So the overall spend on the Black Friday weekend will still probably top out at over 7 billion pounds.

The Black Friday phenomenon is both a blessing and a curse for retailers and fulfilment houses alike but, given the need for them to keep the customers satisfied and sales rising now that everyone has got the hang of the idea, on aggregate they are probably better off with it than without it.

Ark-H Handling has over 28 years of proven expertise in delivering a comprehensive range of handling & fulfilment solutions. They provide unparalleled levels of service and expertise delivered through industry leading systems & facilities, combined with outstanding staff and a commitment to quality.

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