Black Friday Dilemma: How to Balance a Sale and Customer Relations

[mrssyvo]

I have a bit of a dilemma, and I would like your advice. I had a Holiday Bazaar at my home last week, and I invited all of my customers that live in my area. Not too many of them came, however. I have a large customer base from several areas in the state. I would like to do a Black Friday sale, but I will be gone from my home for the entire weekend, away from my computer. Does it seem silly to do a Black Friday sale if I will be unavailable to take the orders, and do I offer it to my locals customers also. I do not want them to feel bombarded by me, and since I send out monthly newsletters, they will be hearing from me again the first of the month. Also, I would like to encourage the husbands to buy for their wives for Christmas, and want to include an incentive for them to buy as well. I am not quite sure how to pull this off, but I have done phone/internet sales the past 2 years, so it is somewhat a tradition. I thought about waiting until Decemebr, to give a bit of a break, but I could use the sales for Sell a thon. All opinions welcome.

 

[ahammons]

Could you make it into an e-mail/voicemail sale? You could use the time stamp to see when they called/e-mailed for any hourly specials you may want to do.

I'm doing one next Friday as well - I gave everyone my cell # just in case I need to leave the house.

 

[Geekgirl69]

I would tell them to leave phone messages or emails with the orders and that you would call back to get the card numbers since you don't want them leaving that on an unattended machine.

 

[aPamperedBride]

You said you've done Internet sales, so you must have a website. Post the rules on your website, setup a catalog show under your name and email out the invites from your website (or send one to yourself and forward to your address book since there's no way to import guest lists!). You'll know what hour they submitted based on the email copy you get in your inbox and they can securely type in their credit/debit card info. Let them know that their orders will be adjusted by you for the specials and will not reflect when they enter the order, but you will confirm the amount prior to submitting it.

JCPenney and Kohl's have no problem telling you about their Day after Thanksgiving Sales, even though they just had Veteran's Day sales last weekend. If you include locals, just put a note that because so many couldn't attend the Holiday Bazaar, you decided to have a Black Friday sale to help them save $$ while Christmas shopping.

 

[ragschef]

I think you could do fine just doing the email and voicemail orders. Everything that's been said is very good info. I'm doing one on Black Friday and Saturday and I'll be away from my home for Friday. I'm planning on including that in my invites when I send them out today. I'll give them all a call on Saturday and will collect pymt from them when I call to confirm their order. I wish you the best of luck with it all.

 

[cookinthehouse]

what are you offering as your Black Friday Sale... I am in need of doing one.. I am short for my incentive this month..... HELP

 

[mpkegley]

I am curious as to what everyone is offering for a Black Friday sale too. I won't be home either, but doing the sale from my website sounds like a good idea.

 

[stacywhitlow]

I am doing a week long sale. If interested in the email, pm me & I will forward to you. I use Constant Contact and love it. I also send a monthly newsletter. Sometimes they get 3 emails in one month.

 

[karlene]

black fridaycan someone tell me if it's possible to create your own email "template" in our PWS for something like this? I have almost 500 email contacts in my PWS and want to send out my black friday info to them..problem is, I don't have these contacts in my regular outlook express address book? Or does someone know how to export those contacts to my outlook express?
thanks bunches

 

[stacywhitlow]

I don't think you can. That is why I dont' use the PWS for emails. Not sure how to export them though.