How many of us have changed our shopping habits and turned to online during the pandemic? I know that I have used amazon more than ever this year to order items that I may have ventured to one or more stores to acquire.
Physical retail locations have long dominated Black Friday with over 84.2 million shoppers in-store in the United States in 2019. There’s an excitement to physically going to stores on Black Friday, 31% of shoppers say that’s their biggest motivator. Amazon is taking an interesting approach to taking a portion of that business…Football! Beginning in 2023, the NFL will add a Black Friday game to their thanksgiving schedule that will be streamed on Amazon Prime.
For the NFL, this is a way to increase TV revenue as well as broadcast a game on another day of the week where Americans will be seeking entertainment without interfering with the high school or college football game that builds their grassroot fans base.
For Amazon, this is a master stroke that will bring millions of customers to their platform for 3 or more hours on the busiest shopping day of the year. The creation of a game to be broadcast will keep football fans at home during Black Friday for their core hours As of 2019, Amazon already owns 24% of online retail sales on Black Friday and their market share surely increased over the lockdowns.
The broadcast itself will for cross-promotion with Amazon’s Black Friday deals. This aligns with the strategy to own the entire household purchasing patterns displayed more recently with the purchase of iRobot.
As a business leader, how can you learn from Amazon and find a complementary product or service that would create synergy and increase revenue or profit margin?
Dan Julien's Musings 