Stress-test Readiness: Ensure your data is Black Friday ready 

Every retailer marks the Golden Quarter on their calendar—a time when customer traffic peaks, offering unparalleled opportunities and challenges. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, failing to prepare is preparing to fail, especially when stakes are higher than usual. But fear not, Loqate is here to help! This roadmap outlines crucial steps to turn your sales and fulfilment into well-oiled machines before Black Friday. Let’s get started! 

What is the Golden Quarter?  

With the end of summer comes the all-important transition to autumn and winter for online retailers, and with it the start of what has become known as the ‘Golden Quarter’ – a time when large uplifts in retail site visitors and revenue can occur due to known sales periods such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Christmas period.  

Prepare for Golden Quarter Success  

Most retailers understand the Golden Quarter’s importance to their annual profits but often miss out on some crucial aspects. Sure, it’s great to have a well-stocked product line with shiny new items, and seasonal exclusive offers can help outshine competitors. But what use is all of that if the customer experience is poor, due to systems that can’t meet the increased levels of demand? That’s the part most retailers miss. Here’s how to avoid this common pitfall: 

• Recognise data is king: The rush of the Golden Quarter means a surge of customer traffic will head your way, especially on peak days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Given the amount of order communications and marketing emails you’ll need to send out to maximise sales success, it’s paramount that your customer data is clean, accurate, and up-to-date. Inaccurate addresses, be they email or physical, lead to missed promotions and failed parcel deliveries, causing customer dissatisfaction at the exact time of year where you have the most potential to win new, loyal buyers. 
• Testing…testing…: High customer volumes can cripple weak systems – and if your marketing lands, what was ‘high’ last year might be small fry compared to this year’s traffic flows. That’s why it’s key to stress test your website, mobile app, and payment gateways well in advance to identify and rectify any potential bottlenecks. Define your scope first, by identifying specific areas you’d like to test, then build user personas, ideally based on previous usage data, to model how customers may use the site based on their needs. From ‘Add to cart’ to payment methods, user login to shipping methods, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong in a checkout journey. Stress testing ahead of time will pay dividends once Golden Quarter volumes begin to ramp up. 
• Communication is Key: Clear and consistent communication doesn’t just mean letting your customers know of your Black Friday discounts. It covers every stage of the customer journey, from the initial marketing, to purchase / shipping confirmation emails, and even well-timed post-purchase follow-ups. Businesses who get their communications right make their customers feel valued: not only are they kept in the loop of where their parcel is and when to expect it, but they have a line of contact with the supplier in case they have questions. That leads to repeat business and customer loyalty, or even advocacy. However, all of this relies on having accurate customer data in the first place, ensuring those well-thought-out emails don’t bounce or reach the wrong person. 

Proactive Prevention – getting ahead with data preparation 

Don't wait for data issues to disrupt your business’ golden opportunity this year. Here's how to identify and fix the most common issues before they happen.  

• Data Duplication: Duplicate customer profiles are one of the most common problems for retail businesses, but cause a great deal of annoyance for customers. Having duplicate data can lead to repeat emails which come across as spammy and diminish your brand image, and that’s not to mention the difficulties that come if only part of the data is deduplicate. If you have two identical customer profiles, but with slightly different addresses, how do you pick the right one? Implement data matching tools to identify and merge duplicate entries, ensuring customers receive only the relevant information. Loqate’s Capture solution is perfect for this – not only does it recognise and prevent duplication issues at the point of entry in forms, it’ll also automatically check and fix your existing database at a click of a button. Learn more: What is data deduplication, and what are the benefits? 
• Missing Information: Incomplete customer profiles limit your ability to personalise the shopping experience. Offer incentives for customers to complete their profiles where possible, and also look to streamline the process of the most dull – yet essential – parts of form filling, by implementing a type-ahead data validation solution such as Loqate. Rather than the laborious process of manual address entry, customers need only input a few keystrokes to fill in validated address, email and phone data. Those time savings often translate into more optional information being filled in with the saved time. The result? More personalised customer profiles, better analytics, and ultimately, a greater return on marketing investment.   
• Inaccurate Addresses: Incorrect addresses result in delayed deliveries, frustrated customers, and lost revenue, not to mention the cost of redelivery and wasted marketing efforts. Address verification is the answer. Loqate’s solution is the one-stop shop to ensure your customer shipping information is accurate, minimising these risks and avoiding the significant cost of failed deliveries. Learn more: Find out the true cost of failed deliveries with our ebook.  

Step Ahead Of The Competition With Optimised Operations: 

Precise data management paves the way for operational excellence. The thing that unites some of the very best and most successful brands, from Amazon to Apple, Gymshark to HMV, is a streamlined operation which ensures customers are put first at every stage of the buying process, from initial marketing to the checkout process, to post-order communications.  

• Personalised Recommendations: Once you have your accurate customer data through a well-tuned address validation process, it’s time to put it to use through personalisation. Utilise customer data on past purchases to deliver targeted product recommendations. If your business is multinational, ensure that recommendations take account of stock levels and shipping considerations for users’ specific geographies.  This not only enhances the shopping experience but also leads to higher conversion rates and potentially larger basket sizes, not to mention repeat business if the recommendations hit their mark. 
• Targeted Promotions: Following on from our last point, the impact of personalisation doesn’t need to be limited to on-site customers. Instead, use customer profiles and phone and address data to create customer segments. You can tailor promotions and discounts to specific customer groups, or even introduce regional discounts where stock levels are high, or sales need a boost. This targeted approach ensures you're maximising the impact of your marketing efforts and reaching the most receptive audience.
• Inventory Management: It’s no good having all the traffic in the world if supply can’t meet demand, and that’s never more true than in peak season. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Christmas, it’s logical to expect large customer surges throughout the winter period, so it’s critical to leverage your past sales data and customer trends to forecast demand accurately. A data-driven approach to inventory management ensures you have the right products in stock, minimising stockouts and lost sales opportunities. 

Embrace the Golden Quarter with Confidence  

The Golden Quarter offers unparalleled opportunities but can be daunting for unprepared businesses. By following this plan, retailers can transform it from a stressful period to one of exceptional growth and customer satisfaction. 

Success relies on meticulous preparation, proactive problem-solving, and leveraging data to optimise operations for maximum impact. Fortunately, there's a straightforward solution to ensure your data and systems are ready for Black Friday and the Golden Quarter: Loqate. With easy installation and a single API, Loqate ensures crucial customer data—such as addresses, emails, and phone numbers—are autocompleted and validated quickly in real-time or through bulk verification. Additionally, Loqate can check, verify, and clean your existing data, ensuring you're fully prepared for the winter rush. Best of all, you don’t just need to take our word for it – we’re trusted by thousands of retailers, including Gymshark, Huel, Charlotte Tilsbury and so many others. 

Claim Your Free Data HealthCheck 

To further assist you in preparing for the Golden Quarter, Loqate offers a complimentary data health check. This service ensures your customer data is accurate and ready for the peak season, helping you avoid common pitfalls and maximise your sales potential. Don’t miss out on this exclusive offer—claim your free data healthcheck today and step confidently into the busiest shopping season of the year. 

Ready to optimise your operations for the peak season? Speak to your account manager or product specialist today to get started.