Hey there, 👋

As the dust settles from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday storm, it’s time to pick up the pieces and see what has happened.

In a decade of e-commerce experience, I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with BFCM.

Sure, it’s the ideal time to gain massive revenue.

And that’s just the problem. Revenue.

We focus way too much on revenue, while we really should focus on profit.

Let’s dive into our BFCM 2023 numbers.

2022

To begin, we need to take a look at last year.

We did a 15% extra discount on all items.

And while the revenue numbers looked pretty good (€1.5M), it all resulted in a loss.

Making 1.5M in sales with a gross margin of under 30% isn’t the best business case for profit, taking in account you also have to pick / pack and ship the stuff.

2023

So how we did this year?

We made the decision to only give extra discount on selected items that - margin-wise - can take the extra discount.

For the customer it might seem less attractive. But in stormy e-com times, I’d take profit over revenue any day of the week.

So we did less revenue (€1.1M) but our overall margins were way up. Resulting in a profit.

Point is. We focus way to much on revenue, while you should focus on profit.

We even might kill BFCM all together in 2024 to stay profitable.

It’s hard to please your ego when you see revenue dropping. But if you are in the low-margin business, you can’t overcome a bit of ego damage once in a while.

Have a great Sunday.

Erik

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