Who You Gonna Call... Doorbusters!
I've worked in this industry for some time now and one of the phenomenons I'll never quite understand is the excitement over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Now I understand that Black Friday is the official kickoff to the holiday season but what I don't understand is the seemingly uncontrollable urge to give the store away in the form of "doorbusters". What's more, I really question whether or not this strategy is even remotely effective online.
The basic concept is simple enough (and is as old as dirt) - get people to come in for the "special offer" and then have your salespeople and your merchandisers work their magic, getting customers to add on to their purchase. The problem as I see it is that online shopping is still very much a self-service shopping channel. Upselling and cross selling is still pretty passive as compared to shopping in a physical store.
In the online format, doorbusters seem like a "sell more, lose more" situation. I remember working at a company back in the bubble days and we tried the doorbuster in the form of $1.99 software titles. The result was we got a ton of orders for $1.99. I've never seen so many $1.99 orders in my entire life. The promotions didn't get people to purchase add on items, they just grabbed the special deals and checked out. Our site had cross selling and upselling tools. It used logic to promote related products. In the end though, the $1.99 customers were only there for the deal.
So I want to hear from you. Have you tried doorbusters? Do they work for you? Am I totally off my rocker in my stubborn belief that you don't need to give away margin in order to have a successful holiday season?
This post is filed under By Merchants, For Merchants and has the following keyword tags: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, ecommerce.
