2025 Starts Here + BFCM Data You Need to See

[00:00:00] Richard Gaffin: Hey folks, welcome to The Ecommerce Playbook Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Gaffin, Director of Digital Product Strategy here at Common Thread Collective. And I'm joined today here in the aftermath or kind of in the middle of, still in the middle, really of Black Friday, Cyber Monday weekend. I'm joined by Taylor Holliday CEO here at Common Thread.

Taylor, what's going on?

[00:00:17] Taylor Holiday: You know, yeah, you're right. We're, we're still in it. It's 10 a.m. on Cyber Monday. And so we're in the, like the fumes we got what happens is, is that this day on cyber Monday slow the mornings, not the energy, right? Everybody's actually back at work. So nobody's really shopping, but we have that late night surge that restores all of our energy for a last gasp still coming where we just ring everything out of the American economy that we possibly can here starting about four p.m. Pacific. So not through it yet. One last big hurdle to cross, but definitely definitely been a long weekend.

[00:00:52] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, that's right. So like, we want to talk about maybe some initial signals coming out of Black Friday weekend and then kind of transition into talking about what 2025 is going to look like and kind of how we're thinking initially about how to plan for that for our clients and sort of the general industry.

So, yeah, so let's talk about some initial signals coming out of Black Friday. I mean, on first glance, it seems like everything's up year over year, but what, what stands out to you?

[00:01:13] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. So we have our sort of data set up about 17 percent through Black Friday or through Saturday. The 1 caveat being is that we have a number of customers that are realized revenue on ship date, not on transaction date. And so that number will go up. I'm guessing we'll see the number coming closer to 20 percent year over year across the data set in terms of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, that's with, that's comparable to some of the things that I've seen shared on Twitter.

I think Jeremiah, our data partner at no, we'll have some cool stuff that he's been doing that he'll bring to bear in our TTC index report that we'll do. But yeah, overall. That's the case. Now, the breakdown is, is that the gain came a little bit more from new customer revenue than returning customer revenue.

And there is one story here that I think is if brands struggled on black Friday, cyber Monday weekend, what I saw was that they went into the weekend way ahead of their returning customer revenue number because they started their sale way earlier. And maybe there were more days before that black Friday, cyber Monday.

Than we were used to. And so some of that revenue got pulled out across those days a little bit more. And then the, the number on black Friday itself was a little softer than anticipated. And so that's a, that's a narrative that I've seen play out is that the returning customer revenue looked really strong early in the month.

And then it kind of didn't show up as much on black Friday, cyber Monday for some of the larger stores in particular. And this all goes down to the complexity of planning that went into this really weird day. I also think that there's a a big opportunity in these last, the following black Friday, cyber Monday.

I think these next days are going to be awesome. I think they're actually going to overcomp because there's less days now until Christmas than normally following black Friday. And so I think we're going to see December build a narrative of strength. That's that working theory is that I think there's some, some of the bigger stores are just going to see an odd distribution of the revenue in a way that they didn't totally fully anticipate for.

[00:03:08] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, so you mentioned kind of first the narrative of drying out the Black Friday sales cycle, potentially harming, let's say, returning customer revenue on Black Friday itself. Is that, does that feel unique to this year? Because I mean, that trend's been kind of happening for the last four or five, six years. Does it feel like there's something finally happened where that has made a meaningful impact across our data set or?

[00:03:31] Taylor Holiday: I just think if you're a, if you're a shopper and a sale started on November 10th, let's just pick a day that the weekend after veterans day this year, you had like 26 days to see that sale and to potentially transact on it. Whereas in the past, that would have been five fewer days. And so I just think that initially, the theory was that Black Friday, Cyber Monday might be peakier this year.

But I actually think what we're going to see is the opposite. I think December is going to be bigger, and we're going to have really big December year over year comps because of Cyber Monday, because of those two days being brought into December. Everyone is going to feel really good about December, is my anticipation.

Is that they're going to, Look at their year over your columns, because that is just such an ingrained reality for us. And they're just going to be feeling awesome. They're going to be, especially after these like first week, they're going to be like, man, December is on fire. And I've even seen some brands that are like, man, I was only up 11 percent in November, but if you were plus 11 percent without cyber Monday, that's a mat.

That's a really good comp. And then what's going to happen is your December is going to comp 30 or 40 percent year over year. And so that's what I I'm, I'm anticipating that the. The better days, the higher energy days, the people really feeling like they're doing an awesome job are going to be these next two weeks.

I think they're going to get real real energetic.

[00:04:45] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. So is, is a lot of, and we were kind of talking about this a little bit before it hit record, but the sentiment on. Twitter or X seems a little bit kind of mixed, I guess, in terms of some people did great. Some people, the response is a little more muted. They didn't perform quite the way they wanted to perform.

Is that really just a function of the weekend being split over two months and that kind of messing up your, over your comps? Or is there something else to that?

[00:05:06] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, I don't, I don't think we'll know for sure yet. I do agree that the response was mixed sort of, mid, if you will and I think it is going to be related to that. I think that what you're seeing is that for the bigger brands in particular, we're returning customer revenue is such a big piece of it that it was just weirdly spread in different ways.

And so I think, I think we're going to see those brands in particular, start to feel a little bit more positive energy after these next two weeks. Whereas new customer revenue, which appears to be pretty solid and strong over those few days. If more of your revenue came from that portion of the stack, I think you probably had a better day.

So, and an illustration of that is even, even the bigger brands that I've seen, we're talking doing well or we're up more percentage. They would be the kinds of LTV. They have more revenue coming out of their new customer stack all the time. And so this is a working theory is that returning customer revenue was spread over the more days before black Friday, cyber Monday.

And so the kinds of brands that one were on black Friday, cyber Monday itself, where the brands that were new customer revenue dependent and the brands that struggled a little bit with those that were more returning customer revenue dependent. And so that's sort of a little bit of the mix. There in terms of what I'm seeing and I'm working on a deeper sort of hypothesis around that specific issue as we go forward.

[00:06:21] Richard Gaffin: Yeah, no, totally. One thing that would be interesting to look at is comping to 2019, right? Because that's the last time we had a late Black Friday, December Cyber Monday, I believe, where Cyber Monday ended up being on December 2nd, I think. That year. So, I don't know. I don't know if you recall anything about what 2019 was like, but that might be an interesting comp to look at.

[00:06:42] Taylor Holiday: I mean, Richard, I can't remember what I did last 

[00:06:44] Richard Gaffin: I know. As I asked the question, I was like, I don't know.

[00:06:47] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. 2019 that might as well be another lifetime ago. That was pre COVID. 

So we were just a just a frivolous serendipitous species wandering through the world without the idea of a global pandemic at that point. 

[00:07:00] Richard Gaffin: I know, yeah, different times. 

All right, cool. Well, so, I mean, this is kind of our initial thoughts on black Friday. Obviously, we're going to have more coming up with some deeper insights into the data. But I think what we want to talk about now is just to transition into talking about what 2025 is going to look like. Some initial thoughts, maybe that you have Taylor on what. I don't know. Macroeconomic forces, microeconomic forces are going to be shaping 2025 and how it might look different from this year. So, yeah, so let's, let's, let's get into that a little bit.

[00:07:27] Taylor Holiday: Well, I think what this all highlights to me is the importance of planning as an exercise and really getting clear because relative to what you wrote down as your goal for the month could really alter the sentiment of the organization and the corresponding behavior that would apply to it. And I've seen this in some cases where I'm watching brands who feel like they're down.

But I look at it and I'm like, I just think this is a bad exercise in planning. Like, I just don't think the model was right. That you were working off of for this really unique set of dynamics. And so I think it illustrates to me repeatedly more than ever before, because so many really important decisions are made in e commerce related to your financial plan, namely inventory buying.

And as well as like, as a leader, your sentiment of the organization, That being able to build a plan at which you can turn wins in against confidently is so critical to organizational momentum, which is a very real thing is that if you as a leader, and I've, I've lived through both versions of this, have to stand up constantly and talk about why you're behind.

And what you're doing, it is very discouraging to people versus being able to come on and say and show up. We're winning. We're going to keep winning more. Here's what we've done. That's a really important thing to get right. It is so hard to be on month nine of missing forecast and re energize everyone again to try and solve the problem.

It is really discouraging. And so I think it's to me coming out of this, I just continue to believe so much in how important it is to create a really cohesive, we call it an operating plan, a connection between a marketing calendar and plan with a financial plan where every day the organization knows where it's coming, where it's headed.

And one that you can achieve that you could really go out and succeed next year and build some really positive momentum for your company.

[00:09:11] Richard Gaffin: Yeah. And of course, part of what we're talking about is, is basically our, our profit system which is, is the system that we use. Obviously, if you've listened to the podcast, you'll know that this is the system that we use for our clients to build those plans. So as, as we think about putting those plans together for our clients in, in the upcoming year, Is your sense of 2025, at least initially that it's going to be, we're just going to focus in on the same things profit, making sure you're cutting costs where you need to, all that type of thing.

Or is there, is there anything else that feels like it's …

[00:09:41] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, I think it's going to be the year where we continue to grow and mature in this way. And we're going to have moderate growth expectations. And hopefully what we're seeing is more people achieving the thing that they set out to do versus it still feels like we're living in. A bunch of the residual of bad plans that make people feel like their business is struggling.

And so I think we're going to get to moderate growth expectations in the 15 to 30 percent range for a lot of businesses. And they're going to go out and try to achieve those in a way that's going to make them feel like, all right, we're making positive progress. We're going to see bottom lines grow.

We're going to see a healthier ecosystem as we go forward. And and it's going to be a better year, but it may not be this banner hyper growth thing. That's not really the point as we look out into 2025.

[00:10:22] Richard Gaffin: right. So in a sense, 2025 could be the year of good planning or the year that good planning finally achieves maybe cultural significance amongst in the e commerce space that maybe it hasn't before or something along those lines. Cool. All right.

[00:10:35] Taylor Holiday: I think that's right. The other thing I'll say is that the other big initiative, and I'm working on, as I often do, I kind of start to develop these like operating thesis that I think I'm going to wrap a lot of our company positioning around, and one of them for me is the omni channel marketing plan. and this is the, or even maybe more specifically, we're calling it like the digital enterprise media plan.

So if we set aside retail, I don't, I don't think I'm suggest really is concerned with that as much as how does your marketing plan drive impact across all of your digital revenue channels? Specifically, your website and com in your native country, international and Amazon. I watch brands sort of existing chaos of how to relate to these three things.

And so I think one of the biggest opportunities for us as an agency and for brands in general is to build a cohesive marketing plan. With clear revenue expectations and growth expectations, as well as measurement solutions for how their dollars impact all 3 of those locations. And that's going to be a big theme as we go into 2025.

[00:11:48] Richard Gaffin: so I'm part of what plays into that is, of course, like, I'll talk to Tony and Luke, and this actually may be coming out in subsequent weeks about our profit allocation model, which is to say, included in the profit system is this idea of an incrementality plan or getting a clear sense of. The incremental sort of value, I guess, of those, those other channels.

So it's not a sense of just expanding for the sake of expanding. You're expanding.

Cause you know, what's actually going to happen, right.

[00:12:15] Taylor Holiday: And so the big efforts we're putting in on the technology side right now is. Amazon integration. So we've got that live in status now so we can begin to absorb the revenue and spend history to be able to model out the impact of all of your dollars in both places. And then second, it's like a measurement roadmap to begin to build incremental measurement of how your ad dollars are affecting not just your dot com, but also your also your Amazon in particular.

And so I think that's really important for brands that are in both places. And if you have duplicitous merchandise, meaning you have the same product available in both place. If you don't develop a point of view on the measurement of your media, your, your, in particular, your meta dollars on Amazon, your YouTube dollars on Amazon, you will suffocate your funnel and you'll create conflict and struggle.

This is really important. So if you're a brand out there that looks at Amazon, Looks at international as key growth areas. We'd love to talk and help you build a plan to integrate a solution for both, because I think it's going to be one of the key, key themes of 2025

[00:13:13] Richard Gaffin: Yep, and and on that point, we have a limited number of profit systems slots available for you guys. If you want to go to commentary code dot com hit that high risk button. Let us know that you're interested. We would love to talk to you about building that type of plan for your 2025. Taylor. Any any final thoughts here on a on this upcoming year or.

Reflections of black Friday or anything.

[00:13:35] Taylor Holiday: as a leader, often it's exhausting in e commerce to walk out of this crazy busy weekend, but the burden. of leadership is heavy and I know that one of the things right now is 2025 planning. So if you feel even the slightest sense that you're behind on that and that you aren't walking into next year with the clearest and best financial plan that you've ever had, let us help.

It's what we do. We can help to alleviate. That massive burden and make you feel like you can walk into next year with a plan that you can put foot put in front of your company, that you can stand up and say, this is our goal. We're going to go out and achieve it. And if we do this company becomes more valuable.

And so I know how important it is for me to be able to stand up in front of my company and offer that same direction and opportunity. And so, I would really encourage you to lean into that and we're here to help if you need it.

[00:14:21] Richard Gaffin: All right. Cool. All right. I think that's going to do it for us for this week. Thank you all for listening. And we're going to have more on more updates on data on black Friday coming up via the DDC index. And of course we'll have more thoughts on 2025 in a couple of weeks, but thanks all for joining us.

Take care. Bye bye.