Black Friday and Cyber Monday Super Savings?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are upon us once more.

It’s that time of year again. We’ve been bitten by the “buy bug”.

Perhaps some of us are impervious to that sweet siren’s tempting call to action, to simply buy-buy-buy.
In reality, few of us can escape the temptation to gorge on the banquet spread so alluringly before us.

What has been a tradition in the US for years, has now become all the rage in Europe as well.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are, ev-e-ry-where.

Newspapers, online ads, social media, are all awash with the archetypal advertising terms of “don’t miss, don’t forget to, check this out, buy now, save now”.

Marketing guru’s, UX Managers, Webmasters and web-designers are working overtime, frenziedly ensuring that all offers are in place and that the back-end technology is geared and prepped, ready to process the peaks and spikes of real-time online orders and transactions, which are expected to take place.Servers are running hot and peak website visits are being closely monitored by nervous network specialists.

Visions of Scotty on the Starship Enterprise come to mind…

The same goes for nervous CTO’s and Management teams at countless Payment Service Providers and Acquirers across the globe. It’s difficult to imagine the potential number of payment transactions processed per second, and figures vary per PSP. Peaks can be expected though, regardless of whether a PSP/Acquirer is processing for WalMart, BestBuy, or “smaller” companies.

The number of transactions processed by Alibaba on Singles Day 2018, estimated at 325,000 orders per second is quite astounding and keeping the tech up and running in the background is an impressive feat.
It pays for Companies of all sizes to check with their new and existing Payment Providers, that they are able to handle the peak number of transactions coming in per second, in order to avoid bottlenecks, time-outs and declines taking place over their payment processing. It can and does happen from time to time.
By ensuring that there are fallbacks and alternatives in place, potential mishaps can be avoided and processing safeguarded. A failed transaction means a lost sale and can also mean that the customer will not return to buy on that website in the future.


This is to be avoided at all cost!

A smooth customer journey and checkout experience will undoubtedly lead to increased customer retention and future return sales. It’s one thing to offer that initial discounted sale, but quite another to keep customers interested and have them return to the website, or brand.
Blake Morgan wrote an interesting article for Forbes about customer retention, which you can read here.
Customer Journeys and Experience are going to play a much larger role in Sales in the coming years.
There are myriad companies online, all selling the same products, at the same crazy discounted prices; but in the end, we prognosticate that only those companies that do the best job of client contentment and satisfaction are going to win the race. And in fact, why wouldn’t they? No one goes back to a restaurant where the glasses or cutlery are dirty, no matter how cheap the food is, or how friendly the maître d’ is. The same applies for Online Shopping sites. If the experience is poor, no matter the price, the customer will not return.

That said, this goes for anyone and everyone involved in the value chain as described in this article.
In the end, we are all the shopkeepers, flaunting our goods and the customers, seeking gratification and looking for “the best value deal”!

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