Joe: So every year it seems to move even faster, how customers are using the Internet and their shopping. You know it’s like we could talk about it one year and if you spent all year preparing and doing what you thought was all you had to do. It’s like a whole new intensity the next year. And I don’t know that necessarily what you have to do is changing a lot. But the intensity of how to apply the Internet to help your customers buy from you seems to be getting more and more intense. And so I thought let’s talk about if businesses are being found by Christmas shoppers because this is a time that there’s a kind of shopper and they are doing certain things are certain trends and are looking for certain things.
So I wonder what it would take to educate businesses on how to be found by the Christmas shopper. I came across this article by Emily Eberhard for Think With Google and it’s called “‘Twas the week before (and after) Christmas, when shoppers went nuts,” and this article is really fascinating. Here’s the thing, I know I’ll probably say this too many times but Google is watching everything everybody does. They’re watching what website you go to next. They’re watching how long you’re on a site, what you type in, if you type in deals ideas near me, all of this kind of stuff. And so now what Google’s doing is they’re starting to expose that data and the actual research that they’re putting into that data to us. I might actually read a lot of this article because I don’t want to get some of it wrong.
Ok, so this article, by ‘Think With Google’ says, “Would it surprise you to hear that we see 34 percent more shopping searches on Christmas Day than on Black Friday?” Searches include; What’s open, what can I buy, Last Minute Deals, that kind of thing.
Chauncey: You know what this makes me think is that our entire race is a race of terrible human beings and that we all woke up on Christmas morning didn’t get what we wanted and then started shopping right now. You know it’s like you open your present and it’s socks and underwear.
Joe: They might be shopping for their own stuff. OK so let me go on. “Mobile shoppers know they can easily find and get exactly what they’re looking for until the last minute” So despite all of the improvements retailers have made to shipping speed and product availability, which everyone’s working on, people still wait to buy. That means that a lot of December holiday shopping happened right before, or even after Christmas taking flight.
Google knows when a purchase happens, they know what people are looking for, they know when you go into stores. So this isn’t guesswork on their part.
Joe: Let’s say my wife thought to buy me a drone for this Christmas, The Mavic Pro specifically. I’m not hinting or anything, Dear, or Mom, or Andrea. Well I know I don’t have to wait for the newspaper, I don’t have to wait for grandma to be done with the Sunday paper. I can now, with my phone, find out how much batteries are for this. Is there a case for my DGI drone? I can research what else I can buy for that drone. How ironic is that that if I’m interested in that, I can either order it and it will be here pretty soon, or as we’re going to read in a second if I can get far enough in this article, people are looking for it nearby.
Chauncey: I thought of one other reason. For the past couple of years, and I’m a musician and a tech guy, most of my family doesn’t know what to get me. So what I ask for every year is Amazon and eBay gift cards so that I can go buy my own tech stuff that they don’t necessarily understand. And so I get that on Christmas Day.
Joe: Here’s another interesting fact. So here’s the thing, ” When shoppers consider a new purchase for Christmas season they spend 13 days on average shopping for the item. But once they decide to buy, almost half expect that either same day or next day. In fact, mobile searches relating to same day shipping have grown 120 percent since 2015.”
Chauncey: I have a hard time wrapping my brain around same day shipping.
Joe: Yeah but it’s possible and it’s not possible everywhere. You can now order from wholesale stores in the area and they will deliver it. It’s funny because this already exists in other industries. For instance, if you’re a lawyer or in the medical profession and you need to get records from your law office to another office, someone drives over, picks it up, and drives it somewhere else.
Chauncey: I mean you’re looking at things that are worth hundreds and thousands of dollars. I mean if I order something for 15 bucks, the cost-effectiveness and the logistics of getting that to me the same day is mind-blowing to me.
Joe: It is mind-blowing but it’s being met because the consumer expects it. With a high enough quantity, they can package those things up and deliver it. So if we ask ourselves what does this tell our local businesses, it is that consumers are spending 13 days on average to shop for things. They’re not just going on and just saying they want something and buying it. So this means that there are all kinds of opportunities for these local businesses to be found. During this Christmas shopping phase, customers are asking, what brand should I look out for? What are the best drones? What are the worst drones? Those are words that are being typed in.
That’s an opportunity for you to have created content or to be answering those questions as a local business so that you’re being found in that 13 days of shopping before those products are purchased.
Chauncey: Think about the advertising power of being the only place open on Christmas in a town that normally closes down. Maybe five people come in and it’s not enough money to cover your stuff. But those five people are walking into rooms of 30 or 40 people talking about how they went to the one place that was open. Those five people now just told 300 about your business.
Joe: So let’s go to this next one. Christmas may be over but the shopping isn’t. I think we hit on one of the reasons for that. That is because well, now I got something and I have to buy something for what I got. Here’s what this report says from Google: “The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve are just as busy as every other day in December. So for general shopping queries such as shopping near me and store hours, Google sees a 34 percent increase in searches on Christmas Day than on Black Friday. Those searches for where to buy, increase up until December 23rd. The queries recover to pre-Christmas week levels and stay steady for the final week of the year.”
Chauncey: I know exactly why. So me and my kid’s mom had a baby, and I married my wife who had a baby with somebody else and we both have parents. They got divorced and remarried. I have like six Christmases. They don’t all happen on Christmas Day. They happen around then and BAM. So I’m not necessarily being prepared for that day. I’m being prepared for just tons of Christmases because we live in this world of families being put together out of other families and there’s a lot of Christmases.
Joe: What you just said nails this. I think a bigger point in that is it’s really easy, as business owners, to think of our customer like us. You know, if you have a single family your kids are all of your kids, there is no extended family and you have one Christmas Day. You tend to think that’s how your customer’s lives are. But the truth is there are bigger groups out there that have different needs. The point of Google here is that they are Google servicing all of those needs. Google is saying if you need to shop a week before Christmas, we’re going to help you. If you’re shopping after Christmas, we can help you do it. So as businesses, that’s something we need to integrate into our thought process and our marking process. Google is telling us about these different types of buyers.
We’re coming to the end of this segment. Thanks for listening to the Being Found Show, listen to the full show here: Being Found Show Episode #40
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