Black Friday Success

“A horse! My kingdom for a horse”

Richard III
William Shakespeare

This cry has changed little over the last several hundred years. The tech retailers though, are looking for customers rather than horses, but the concept is the same. The problem is, where to find them? The other problem is, how to keep them. Much of the money is still there, but tech retailers will have to work harder to get it. Black Friday is coming up and the ads are starting to appear. You can see who gets the concept and whom doesn’t

Tech retailers face two problems, one is finding new customers and the other is persuading old customers to buy again. On the plus side, it is reported that Apple is finally going to price match. That is good for Apple, but bad for other retailers. It’s not a new concept; Apple has just been late to the party. The other retailers that now find themselves with more competition from Steve will have to get inventive. On the other side, I see software companies that advertise great Black Friday savings, but with a catch. Some are excluding updates and upgrades. I don’t know whether they’ve thought it through or not, but a business that doesn’t retain their old customers doesn’t survive. Companies with multiple products, especially those that work together or have versions with more features, should have an upgrade path to encourage customers to come back and buy again. Frankly, if they have not already received that update payment, they may not and this would be an opportunity to get the customers to look at them again.

Excluding updates and upgrades to more expensive versions from sale prices can, and will, turn off existing customers. For example, I was thinking about buying organization software from a company having a week long Black Friday sale. I own their note software and have been a customer since version two of a previous package that was replaced by the current note package. I can get the organization upgrade at a small savings since half of the full price is about ten dollars cheaper than the upgrade. Yes, I saved money and got what I want, but the savings are only ten dollars for me and fifty for a new customer. The reason for the difference is that the organizer software includes the note package. This means that the customer who doesn’t own any of their software gets a better deal to buy new then the customer who has repeatedly paid the update fees. I have invested more in the company than the new customer. What do I get? If I bought the upgrade to the package with more features then I would be on the hook to keep it updated as paid up. I don’t think that most people who buy updates wait six months or longer to possible save some money at Christmas time.

Christmas time is important to tech companies, especially software vendors. In the upcoming weeks, we will see the traditional software packages released. You know, the ones for forty-nine dollars with a mix of stuff you want and stuff you’ve never heard of. Those deals can be great. I'm writing this on a piece of software I purchased as part of a bundle. To be fair, the license I received as part of that bundle was my second. I'd been supporting this author for a while and saw it as an opportunity to get another license for a family member. The fact remains though, as a consumer I look for good deals to better my computers and their tools. Treating my past support like chopped liver isn’t a good way to keep me coming back for more.