Posted on 23, March, 2020
Last Modified on 23, March, 2020
While online shopping around the holiday season has cut into in-store purchases on days like Black Friday and other weeks around the holiday shopping season, plenty of crowds still gather in lines at stores on Thanksgiving night and early Friday morning to get great deals.
Every year there are viral videos on social media and news footage from shoppers at stores during this season. Some of that footage happens to catch lines and crowds in messy store traffic situations. Issues created by heavy in-store traffic during those times can be inevitable, but there are also easy solutions to alleviate some of those issues in several ways.
There are several examples why you need well placed marketing signage with necessary information, specifically wayfinding signage on Black Friday and all throughout the holiday shopping season.
1. According to research from Google, there is a 65% increase in foot traffic in stores on Black Friday compared to a typical November day. That is a significantly higher number of shoppers in your store on any given day of operation. Retail stores have a lot to plan for ahead of Black Friday to be ready to successfully receive that increase in traffic. This increase in foot traffic alone is just one reason to utilize well-placed, identifiable wayfinding signage in your store.
2. No matter how well staffed you are during the holiday season and how well you prepare your staff, they will still be heavily outnumbered by customers. Wayfinding signage such as Poster Stands can serve as extra help for your staff guiding customers towards sections, products, and checkout areas without needing a staff member’s help.
3. While you should be also using crowd control signage and products in your store during the holiday shopping season, wayfinding signage can also be used to keep customers pointed in the right direction so that they can avoid being stuck in areas or lines they do not need to wait in. This can cut down on potential traffic jams of people throughout your store.
4. With all the extra shoppers your store is likely to receive on Black Friday and during the holiday shopping season, it is likely they will encounter longer than normal checkout lines or lines to get to the items they want to purchase. Wayfinding signage improves the customer experience, even during the busiest of shopping hours by easily directing shoppers to the locations of those items. Atypical retail wayfinding signage like the Quest Banner Sign Stand that can not only easily help identify the location of items to shoppers, but also store inventory directly beneath the sign itself. Thanks to its portability and slim design, you can use it just about anywhere in your store if you need to make inventory more accessible in other areas.
5. If real estate within your store is at a premium during the holiday shopping season, this still wayfinding signage you can effectively utilize. Custom Printed Floor Decals can be placed on any flat surface in your store to help direct shoppers to where they want to go in a space saving, efficient way. Retail stores must be flexible on days with high volumes of customers in-store and these floor decals allow you to peel them from the surface and re-apply them other places in your store if you need to direct shoppers in another direction for any reason. Just be careful that you’re not using these as your only means of wayfinding signage so that customers are continuously looking while trying to walk through busy crowds.
6. Black Friday might be the busiest in-store shopping day of the year for your business, but (hopefully) that doesn’t mean business is going to slow down the rest of the year. Wayfinding signage is necessary throughout the season, but your information and messaging are bound to change because of the volume of business as well as offering different deals. Easy to use signage such as Snap Frame Sign Holders allow you to quickly install new signage into the frame for when messaging does change. The frame is easy to open and close and the entire display is compact enough to fit in any area or aisle of your store.
7. In 2014, Time Magazine’s website ran a story about Black Friday Facts that cited a survey from RetailMeNot, a coupon cite, that suggested 12% of people who took the survey admitted to being under the influence of alcohol while shopping on Black Friday. This could affect customer’s ability to read wayfinding signage but having easily readable signage can only help if this is true for any customer. Letterboard Signs are extremely easy to setup and read thanks to the big block letter that come with them. They are also easy to change on the fly as well. Just beware of these customers changing your words and messaging for you.
Post Up Stand provides a 48-business hour turnaround after artwork proof approval on printed displays so you can have your signage in plenty of time for Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season if you need to replace any of your signage.
Other Sources: https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-black-friday/