Festive greetings from Spike
We of course have to start our last newsletter of 2023 with our very best wishes to you all. We know 2023 was tough for many retailers but the end of year holiday period will hopefully bring a trading upside as well as being a chance to take stock and refocus. However your year turned out, we send everyone the very best of wishes as you say goodbye to 2023 and we head into 2024 with renewed optimism and recharged batteries!
From Darryl, Steve and everyone at Spike we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
What's in this issue
Whilst it's too early to get the full picture here's a couple of snippets we picked up:
1. We found a brilliant web page from Salesforce showing some of the holiday trading season metrics. Globally their customers traded an epic $297.6 billion across all of cyber week including $70.9 billion on Black Friday and $48.4 billion on Cyber Monday. The whole week was up 6% Year on Year with Black Friday up 8%. Singling out the UK, Black Friday itself was up but Cyber Monday was particularly impressive at 16% YoY growth. The stats also show a higher proportion of items being ordered online but collected in-store proving that a good omnichannel/hybrid offer remains critical, but also returns are up and therefore continue to be a thorny issue for all retailers.
You can check the stats out for yourself and play around with sector by sector breakdowns using the link at the end of the newsletter.
2. Currys reported a stellar Black Friday, thanks to great products and of course helped by an expertly-tested platform! ??
3. Adobe, Shopify and other major commerce platforms also backed up the rise in trading numbers, as did the payment companies - so a much needed boost.
We'll review the stats again after Christmas trading and update in our next edition.
Peak trading for many retailers of course lasts for more than just Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you missed it, check out our previous newsletter for tips on how to handle large peak periods and mini-peaks - they're valid all through the year.
In a recent Spike team chat, we likened the complex world of retail technology to an iceberg where the visible aspects of retail technology – the point-of-sale systems, e-commerce platforms, and mobile apps – only scratch the surface of the underlying complexity.
What do you think? As an industry are we always just looking at the tip of the iceberg or should more focus be given to making the full end to end flow work seamlessly?
At Spike we focus on proving the stripe, making sure things work as far as possible as early possible to bring true confidence in your tech. We urge everyone to do the same.
We recently updated our services page to bring a bit more clarity to how Spike help major retailers avoid the pain of implementing and running complex technology and raising the quality bar. We tackle all sizes of project from large-scale transformation to targeted initiatives like improving page speed, removing technical debt from test automation and chaos engineering.
But did you know that you can also engage us in two other ways too?
Fractional Test Leadership
Our Fractional Test Leadership service offers high-level expert test leadership without the commitment and cost of an in-house employee - talk to us about our innovative ways to help you get over a short-term bump, or make a killer start to a major initiative. We have three brilliant options for you for on demand support, a focused activity or driving innovation into your testing.
Performance Testing as a Service
Our Performance Testing as a Service (PTaaS) team gives you specialized performance testing expertise without the need to hire and train internal staff. It's ideal for quick proving of your ability to scale for an upcoming promotion or to quickly assess a new product launch. We can also run across either test environments or your production stack.
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Our experts take away all the pain of creating and running the right performance tests including all the setup, tools and results analysis. Everything we do is reusable and if at a later stage you need to take ownership or make this a more regular activity then none if your initial spend is wasted.
If this sounds like the thing for you, reach out to our Head of Performance Mike Forshaw for a chat.
Technology will become even more critical for retailers wanting to lead the way. Here’s a few of our thoughts for what could happen in 2024:
?? AI is not going away but retailers will move beyond experimenting into implementing real solutions. A first step will be a further rise in chatbots and simple process automation to help companies cope with customer enquiries, AI will help chatbots appear even more intelligent.
?? Someone will actually get hold of generative AI and do something that moves us beyond simple recommendations, perhaps bringing in context-sensitivity by including external data like weather or even combining shopping behaviour from other sources. Of course this may be a real challenge as consumers become more protective of their personal data.?Who will crack it first and make something truly useful?
?? AI will also advance in data and analytics to interpret an ever-increasing pool of customer behaviour data. Retailers will use the output to better plan, predict, merchandise and supply.
?? Technology transformation programmes will continue as legacy technology ages further, platform costs rise and as retailers continue to further their sustainability goals by demanding more efficient tech. End to end reliability of new and old tech platforms will remain a major challenge.
?? Physical stores will grow further as hubs for online pickup and online will further enhance the physical store presence, especially in areas like loyalty.?
??? Traditional POS and checkout approaches will undergo change as customers checkout on the shop floor and use their own devices for payment. We may also see further push back on the self-checkout as customers demand a more social in-store checkout experience.
On 3rd October we had a brilliant discussion with retail guru Ian Scott on accelerating omnichannel transformation and innovative ideas to enhance your retail strategy. And on 29th November, Spike's David Williams took us through his experience on measuring and justifying The Value of Change. Here's a few of great takeaways.
?? Getting the basics right is the key to innovation
?? How the beautifully laid-out Rapha store builds community into its core
?? The Value of Change - Experimenting, Learning and Improving
You can also view the full webinar recordings on our website:
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Useful links
Salesforce holiday insights live here.
Spike's own insight articles are here.