While everyone is frantically preparing for this year’s Black Friday sales period, Dr Dough Donuts is carrying out a boycott.
The small, online-based donut business from NSW never participates in Black Friday, nor Cyber Monday. In fact, it doesn’t participate in any sales whatsoever, year round.
CEO and founder, Kristy Bannister, has several reasons for ditching discounts. First and foremost is the cost of advertising during the period.
“One of our greatest means of advertising is through Meta and Google paid ads,” she says. “And during that time, the cost increases because it’s just so saturated.”
It’s not just that getting the most out of Black Friday often requires investment in expensive advertising, investment that many small businesses can’t afford. Kristy also doesn’t like positioning her business as one that does sales. She believes that discounting products devalues both them and her brand.
“When you discount, the value of that product then becomes a discounted price,” the founder explains. “It sets an expectation in the customer’s mind about the value of the product that they’re receiving. It’s quite rare for us to discount.”
Kristy explains that discounting is not a part of the business’ philosophy due to its pricing strategy: giving the best price to the customer at all times.
“Everything is factored into giving the customer the best price,” she says. “That being our greatest philosophy, there isn’t really all that much room for discounting.”
Dr Dough’s BFCM alternatives
For some, it might sound crazy to miss out on the heat of Black Friday. But Kristy has set things up so that Dr Dough Donuts doesn’t necessarily miss out on the extra sales. The business has a huge corporate customer base, many of whom do concentrate much effort on the period – and consume donuts as they do so.
“[Our corporate clients] have a lot of people who are working for them and who are under the pump,” Kristy explains. “They tend to send a lot of donuts, cookies, cupcakes to their employees as a way to say thank you.”
The founder explains that she has corporates who have her “pretty much on speed dial” for all their events or gifting situations. While Dr Dough Donuts does do marketing in other periods, their existing customer base can keep business going at times of the year when ads get costly.
Additionally, Kristy’s products are in year-round demand; her customers are unlikely to wait around for sales periods to purchase them.
“Our customers seem to order just as those special life moments occur,” says Kristy. “They will order for somebody’s birthday or for an event that’s coming up, or as things happen, like the birth of a newborn.”
If, unlike Kristy’s, your business is gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we’ve gathered valuable insights from experts and successful business owners on how to maximize your results during this key sales period.
