The holiday season is a bustling time for retailers, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday leading the charge. In recent years, these shopping extravaganzas have evolved significantly, influenced by emerging retail trends and shifting consumer behavior.
In the context of an uncertain economy and a consumer base that is becoming increasingly price-conscious, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals will become even more crucial this year. With Cyber Monday bringing in $11.3 billion in 2022 alone, these annual sales can mean big bucks for organizations who are able to take full advantage.
How to get ready as a Marketer?
As the old adage goes, with great opportunity comes great responsibility. To stand out in a competitive retail landscape this holiday season, brands must endeavor to offer unique buying experiences that captivate consumers.
The best opportunity to do so lies in the ability to provide exceptional customer experiences that encourage engagement through product data quality and personalization. Brands that can deliver on this stand to gain a competitive edge this year, reaping the rewards of enhanced customer loyalty and satisfaction.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the driving trends that stand to impact Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year – and how your brand can take the most advantage of each one.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Trends
1. Promotions and Discounts
Promotions remain the cornerstone of Black Friday and Cyber Monday success. Now more than ever, amidst the ongoing cost-of-living-crisis, shoppers are on the lookout for irresistible deals, discounts, and exclusive offers. It’s important to note here as well that the landscape has evolved beyond simple price cuts; today, consumers are seeking maximum value for their hard-earned money.
Add Virtual try-on as 3D-view, buttons or links in all possible promtional materials - website, landing pages, email susbcriptions, SMS marketing, SoMe promotions, Google ads. For printed promotional materials like newspaper ad, banner or flyer - add QR code so customers can scan and try them everytime.
2. Personalized recommendations and Product bundles
In a competitive market where consumers are inundated with choices, personalization has emerged as a fundamental element for fostering customer loyalty and satisfaction. Brands are beginning to recognize that one-size-fits-all marketing or product offerings no longer suffice. Instead, they are leveraging data-driven insights to deliver highly personalized experiences that resonate with individual shoppers based on individual actions and preferences.
Personalization goes beyond addressing customers by their first name in emails. It’s about understanding their preferences, purchase history, and browsing behavior. Armed with this knowledge, brands can craft tailored marketing messages and product recommendations that captivate and engage shoppers.
This is where WebAR can play as the ace of hyper-personalized buying experience.
3. Hybrid Experiences: ROBO & BOPIS
Convenience and accessibility have become paramount for consumers, and will continue to dominate this holiday shopping season. Hybrid experiences, achieved through strategies like ROBO (Research Online, Buy Offline) and BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store), are transforming the way customers interact with brands and make purchase decisions.
ROBO and BOPIS are customer-centric strategies that acknowledge the diverse shopping preferences of today’s consumers. Shoppers often initiate their purchase journeys online, researching products, reading reviews, and comparing prices. However, they may prefer to complete their purchase in a physical store where they can see, touch, and try the product before buying.
However 3D virtual try-on can let the users dive through ROBO & BOPIS funnels faster.
4. Providing consistent experiences across all customer touchpoints
Consumers interact with brands through a multitude of touchpoints, from physical stores to websites, mobile apps, and even social media platforms. This proliferation of channels has given rise to the need for consistency in the customer experience as modern consumers expect a seamless transition between online and offline shopping experiences. If the experience is disjointed or inconsistent at any point in this journey, it can lead to frustration and, ultimately, abandoned shopping carts or lost sales.
Using AR selectively to provide this consistent expereince can yield better sales easily.
5. AR can make shops bigger without buying any real estate
Small retail outlets cannot showcase bigger or many physical items to the customers. Customers coming from ROBO & BOPIS funnels often can get disappointed by the limited items available in the stores.
AR can make a huge difference there. Storeowners can show unlimitited items from their tabs or smartphones to the customers to finalize a deal and get them sold easily, without having the entire physical product catalogue at store.
Prepare for the 2023 Holiday Season
Halloween is around the corner but there's more festivals on their way until the year ends. In the past years, brands which have adopted 3D virtual try-on as part of their marketing campaigns and promotional strategies have observed significant sales growth during the tenure.
Taking decisions and implement them within a shortwhile is always a challenge for marketers. Especially if this is related to Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, time is a precious resource here. A good strategy is to begin with the most popular items or the highlighted items for the sale - to begin 3D virtual try-on with. This reduces the friction to begin with experimentations and see the results soon.
Final Tips
Marvin XR is using Hybrid AI system to create digital twins of products simply using 4-6 images of it. Thus lowering the cost, faster turnaround and almost no involvement from customer side to scan products etc. Using a digital twin, it takes only 5 min to create AR based virtual try-on using Marvin's special SaaS AR studio.
Contact Marvin XR to get a free demo to see how to empower the promotional strategies for your brand in 2023 and see the conversion rate growing like anything.
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