Black Friday VIPs

The general consensus is that Black Friday resulted in an increase in store traffic, but a decrease in spending per shopper for some overall mild sales gains. But the big question remains, what needs to happen to turn retail browsers into retail buyers? Some brand marketers played the shopper experience card by offering VIP treatment on the busiest shopping day of the year.

A story in the Boston Globe documented some unique approaches. Best Buy offered a limousine ride, special seating outside the store prior to opening, a private shopping tour before opening and a $1,000 gift card. All of this was for winning an essay contest.

The early results of Black Friday show that deep discounting isn’t enough to coax consumers. It also takes an equal amount of clever promotions and some good old-fashioned customer service to close the deal. According to one retail analyst, “The combination of value and service will be the great differentiator,” According to the National Retail Federation, sales for November and December are expected to decline 1 percent.

Some other examples of VIP treatment are free cookies, holiday tote bags, gift cards, subscriptions, limousine rides, wardrobe consultations, shopping butlers, gift-wrapping assistants, video cameras and celebrity wake-up calls. Most of these special offers and VIP contest were advertised via social networking outlets like Facebook and Twitter.