As consumers embrace event-based purchasing – Black Friday, Cyber Monday – the shift away from purely seasonal trading is disrupting established trading patterns and threatening to eat into sales and margins. In the UK, for instance, British shoppers spent £810 million on Black Friday promotions alone. Meanwhile, the way in which consumers shop at peak times is also evolving, with online, especially mobile, playing a greater role in the path to purchase.
With this in mind, Retail Week and Akamai ask:
Why was Black Friday such a hit with UK consumers last year?
What do retailers need to do to ensure they can meet consumer demand during these peak trading periods?
How can retailers understand their website capacities and vulnerabilities to better handle these capacity demands?
And what do they need to do to ensure that the customer experience matches next-level consumer expectations?