Here at Zando.co.za, we don’t do things small-time and we certainly don’t slack in our efforts to remain the best online retailer in South Africa, despite comfortably holding that spot for 7 years now. As we gear up for the biggest event on the retail calendar, let’s reflect on our previous Black Friday Sales and highlight how we have grown throughout the years.
What makes a successful Black Friday campaign?
One key factor that comes into play is preparation. Hence, you need to ensure that you’re prepared for the web traffic and that your e-commerce store can handle the logistics of thousands of orders.
Sascha Breuss (CEO) explains:
“Early preparation and experience from past years has been the key to success. We increased our headcount in both Warehouse and Customer Service well in advance so that we could rely on well-trained and experienced colleagues, come Black Friday. We also went through some intense testing of our site with loads up to 15 times the average daily amount of visitors. So, when the actual day came, we were confident in our systems.”
How does Zando.co.za execute such a massive event?
One word: Teamwork. Our staff’s collaborative effort is solely responsible for the major success that Zando.co.za has enjoyed over the past few years. Not only did they put the required extra hours in and worked hard until the job was done, but they also showed real team spirit. As for the specifics of how we manage to have such a huge campaign each time, Sascha sheds some knowledge:
“In the build-up to Black Friday, we added additional server capacity and changed the way we handled the flow of traffic. This made us very flexible to switch on additional capacity wherever required. So it was a combination of intensive preparation, close monitoring and ultimately very little sleep for a couple of days to ensure we monitored our system health 24 hours a day.”
How does Zando.co.za ensure a seamless experience between website and app?
We know that our customers are browsing Zando.co.za on all platforms, desktop, mobile and app so we implemented some handy features to make the transition between each platform easier. For example, shared baskets and wishlists are now a feature. Some of the deals, however, have been app-only and sometimes we reward our app users with early access to shop the best deals ─ So it is definitely worth it to download our app.
What is the best time to shop on Black Friday, given past statistics?
We saw a high volume of traffic during the night. Visits started to increase every minute before midnight and during the first two hours of the day, we saw peaks that were higher than on our strongest weekday. This traffic never dropped with a lot of orders being placed between 2 am and 3 am on Black Friday. However, in 2016, one item sold per second with peak shopping times recorded between 08h00-12h00.
What can you expect for Black Friday 2019?
Michelle’s team has sourced a crazy number of unmissable deals, so you’ll find everything on your festive season wishlist at our Black Friday sale – from sneakers under R150 to jeans under R250 and dresses under R200! The fun part is that shoppers won’t know what is going to be part of the deals until they go live. We enjoy mixing it up every day, so start now by adding your favourite items to your cart. FYI, we offer free delivery and returns anywhere in South Africa, even during Black Friday period.
Why should you shop online on Black Friday 2019?
Grant Brown (MD) says:
“You don’t have that chaos and you can basically do this from the comfort of your home – on your phone, on your laptop, at any point in time. So I would really advise people to shop online, as opposed to going scrumming in-store to find the best deal.”
Stay tuned for more updates on deals for Black Friday 2019.
