esses, what happens to customers uninvolved in the frenzied sale who went to these websites only to find them down? Retailers lament discounting, yet race to it at a moment’s notice. The pre-sale hype surrounding Click Frenzy has unfortunately spawned a wealth of retailer-own 24 hour frenzied sales from those uninvolved… but what’s the rush, retailers? With 34 shopping days left until Christmas – this is your opportunity to sell your goods at peak margin before the traditional frenzy of anticipated Boxing Day sales. Whether they’re flash or regular online sales, offering exceptionally discounted goods online should be used purely as clearance sales and support your online retailing channel as a commodity and transactional channel. It’s not about brand experience; it’s about moving product – fast. If you are a deep discounter brand it is simply a deep discount exercise and brand damaging if you are not a deep discount retailer. But before you even start promoting your sale, are you prepared? And I mean really prepared? · Can your web infrastructure cope with high sales traffic? We’ve seen the damaging consequences of those who aren’t. · Are you prepared with a crisis team, if not? · Is your brand prepared to welcome new customers online, capture them and still create a truly magnificent brand experience? · Have you prepared your contact options to continue harnessing the potential of these new customers? · Have you briefed your instore staff about the deals being offered online? · Are your instore sales staff briefed to cope with the demands of queries, returns, and opportunities as a result of these exceptionally discounted sales? Now let’s talk about the logistics. If your site is still up and running; ensuring you have the right stock available in the right sizes/specifications to cope with demand will make or break a customer experience and failure to supply could lose them forever. · Have you prepared and staffed up your logistics operations to cope with the influx of orders? · Have you put delivery services and options in place with Australia Post or other courier/delivery services? · Do you have the procedure and systems in place to cope with multiple returns/refunds? While all this may sound straightforward, we see many retailers with very few fit procedures in place to handle everyday traffic, let alone the demands of flash sales such as Click Frenzy. But above all this we raise the bigger question of brand erosion. These types of frenzied sales have no place in a cross channel experience other than moving clearance stock. The channel, be it on line or physical store, is pretty academic. The key is whether this type of clearance activity is relevant to your differentiated retail position. Using bargain basement portals such as Click Frenzy, customers are being driven directly to retailers’ websites. It’s a third party sale window from which customers will enter and experience your brand. Is this truly how you want your brand to be experienced? If you are a discount retailer then this is right, if not, look to be inspirational and stop reducing retail to a bargain basement price. Your brand positioning is your unique differentiator and your highly selective and fit strategic brand activity has to be right and relevant across all channels. So before you consider a sale scenario, have a think about whether you really do need to clear stock, or whether fitter business practices will see you continuing to reap the rewards of higher margins during this key pre-Christmas period. Happy fit retailing. * Brian and Retail Doctor Group can be contacted on (02) 9460 2882 or by email on businessfitness@retaildoctor.com.au. For more information please visit www.retaildoctor.com.au