Manage inventory and order fulfilment for the Afterpay Day Sales

Australia is set to enter another year of peak shopping moments. The retail calendar is filled with sales days and holidays, perfect for online retailers to capitalise and maximise sales. As the economic forecast for the e-commerce industry in 2024 remains positive, retailers have a challenging road ahead. One of the primary concerns is selling to shoppers who are experiencing hikes in interest rates and pressures from the rising cost of living that tones down their spending.

However, as the purse strings tighten, sales days in Australia, like the Afterpay Day sales, present an opportunity for retailers to cater to deal-seeking shoppers. The discounts and great value deals attract shoppers to online storefronts and help brands boost sales, gain customers, and build loyalty. 

So, if you are an e-commerce business in Australia, let’s look at why Afterpay Day Sale should be on your radar. Find out how you can prepare yourself for the upcoming sales, turn touchpoints into sales opportunities and delight your shoppers.

What is the Afterpay Day?

Afterpay Day is a major shopping event in Australia that happens twice a year. The biannual sale has retailers across the nation offering deep discounts and promotions from a wide range of retailers. Shoppers are eager to discover great deals and spend. But how does it differ from other significant sales days? Afterpay facilitates its buy now, pay later services that let customers make a purchase and pay back in instalments. And during the Afterpay Day sale, customers will be able to grab their favorite deal and pay for it in four easy instalments instead of one.

In 2024, the Afterpay Day is happening from March 14th to 17th. The sale will have retailers across major industries like fashion, accessories, electronics, beauty products, homewares, and more.

Afterpay Day 2023

A Statista report on Afterpay adoption reveals that nearly 40% of Australian shoppers have used Afterpay when shopping online. This percentage has remained consistently steady from 2022 to Q4 2023. During Afterpay Day 2023, AU Post notes that thousands of retailers took part in the mega sale that drew 5 million customers both in-store and online. 

During the Afterpay Day Sale in August 2022, sales increased 11% month-on-month and 7.3% week-on-week, highlighting the sales day’s influence.

What do shoppers look for during the Afterpay Day in 2024? 

When it comes to peak shopping moments, the success of the sale largely depends on curating value deals that woo shoppers. While Afterpay Day is all about discounts, that’s just scratching the surface. As thousands of brands promote their product catalogue ahead of the big sales day, it all boils down to one thing: 

Attract the right shopper >> Offer great deals >> Drive carts to checkout >> Delight them with a superior post-purchase experience

So, while the secret is pretty straightforward, the team from Afterpay analysed sales and uncovered some great insights:

Curating that “great Afterpay Day Deal”

Dollar Vs Percentage

When it came to a percentage or dollar-valued deal, shoppers preferred the percentage discount. That is, between a flat 20% off and a $25 AUD off, shoppers were more inclined to take the flat 20% deal. 

Specificity Vs Storewide

Shoppers looking for deals on Afterpay preferred shopping on online stores that offered a site-wide discount rather than specific discounts on selected products.

When does Afterpay Day Shopping happen? 

Afterpay observed an uptick in sales between 11 am to 5 pm on Thursday, and offline sales generally spiked between Thursday night and on Sunday. During the Afterpay Day sales 2022, nearly 51% of sales take place between 11 am and 5 pm. 

Ideally, this narrows down the ideal time for brands to engage with their customers—during their morning routine. Think of engagement touchpoints scheduled to reach them either when they commute to the office, after reading the morning news, or while they cool off after a workout. 

Where do shoppers buy? 

While the Afterpay Day sales in Australia is focused on both offline and online stores, TikTok and Twitter were the channels that drove maximum engagement during the sale. Other e-commerce platforms that experienced significant sales were eBay, Shopify, Wix and WooCommerce. 

How can retailers increase sales during Afterpay Day?

Getting into your ideal customer’s head and creating the best possible deals can get you in front of your shoppers and maximise sales. But orchestrating a great sale day that increases your business’s profit margin should be on top of your sales checklist.  

Choose a powerful tech stack for managing your orders:

The shopping frenzy may translate into a lot of sales, but as an e-commerce business owner, it is important for you to stay on top of these orders from checkout to dispatch and delivery. Having a powerful order management system can help you with a 360-degree view of all your Afterpay Day sales orders. Digitising your order management can simplify the schedules of your team and have them focus on core business functions. For example, your team can forecast the expected orders they might receive based on historical sales data of your online store. With automatic order tracking features, your customers can track their orders from the Warehouse all the way to their doorsteps. By taking out order tracking queries, your customer success team can focus on resolving high-priority in-store doubts that increase the chances of sales.

Create engagement touchpoints with Multichannel Selling

As more shoppers turn into deal hunters, you can expand your reach to top marketplaces in Australia that shoppers frequently visit. This makes sure that your brand covers platforms that different demographics prefer while increasing your opportunities to turn window shoppers into customers. With eBay, Shopify and TikTok attracting shoppers and amplifying the shopping frenzy during Afterpay Day; businesses can reduce the risk of losing customers to competition across different online shopping platforms and offline retail stores.

Great delivery options, shorter fulfilment and happier customers

Shipping and delivery have often been one of the most influential factors for shoppers to buy from you. As customer expectations during sale days skyrocket, having flexible fulfilment options can help your business gain a competitive edge. Partnering with a 3PL for your e-commerce brand that offers both local and international shipping helps you cater to both local Australian shoppers and international customers. Establishing a streamlined returns process and securing your orders for transit can be offloaded to your 3PL while you focus on setting minimum order value as an add-on deal for shoppers during the Afterpay Day sales.

Effective Inventory management to stay stocked up 

The Afterpay Day sales is normally across 4 days. And if you’re promising shoppers a killer deal, that means you’re online and offline stores are going to see larger-than-life footfall. When shoppers walk into your store, they either will find what they want to buy or will notice a sold-out disclamation. And the experience largely depends on your inventory planning. By using previous sales data, and tapping into what customers are buying from you, you can accurately plan ahead and stock up sufficient inventory in your Warehouse. And with a country like Australia, it is important to make sure that you can split your inventory across multiple warehouses to make sure that you have nationwide coverage and can facilitate quick dispatch for local and international orders.

How can partnering with a 3PL help you this Afterpay Day Sales?

As the nation prepares itself for the first big Afterpay Day sales of the year, managing promotion across online and offline channels can be daunting. Keeping up with customer expectations during high-intensity sales isn’t for the faint of heart. That’s why partnering with Australia’s top 3PL for e-commerce businesses can help you orchestrate a successful Afterpay Day sale.

But how do you decide the best 3PL for your e-commerce brand? We’ll help you decide.

OMS that Syncs with your Sales Channels:

Choose a 3PL that seamlessly integrates with your existing sales channels. When you focus on multi-channel sales, orders will pour in from, let’s say, your Shopify account, eBay, TikTok Shop, and your business website. The right 3PL must seamlessly integrate with all these channels and consolidate all your orders for processing in one single dashboard.

Integrate Logistics for online and offline selling

The Afterpay Day in Australia will bring millions of customers to your storefront, both offline and online. With a 3PL, you can choose to stock up your warehouses and the racks of your retail store ahead of the sale simultaneously. By choosing to unify direct-to-store and your online store inventory shipment, you streamline the process with one logistics solution without having to fragment shipping, inventory and process that could lead to lost shipments, inbounding delays, out-of-stock situations and lost sales.

Flexible warehousing that scales with your business:

Securing a fixed infrastructure comes with a lot of upfront investment and operating costs that can easily overwhelm your budget. With flexible warehousing, you pay for the inventory space you consume and scale as the business, and the demand for your products increase.

Strategic inventory placement for faster fulfilment: 

During the AfterPay Day sales, your brand’s promotion and marketing can attract shoppers from Queensland to Melbourne all the way to New Zealand. Having your inventory split across multiple warehouses that are well connected to these e-commerce hotspots can help you shorten the fulfilment process and delight customers. Distributing your inventory can help you manage your fulfilment better and increase the types of premium fulfilment solutions in your online stores. 

Personalisation at scale:

The unboxing experience plays a pivotal role in boosting brand awareness and customer delight. Whether it is choosing customised packaging or including product testers along with your shipments, personalisation in pick-and-pack at scale matters for upcoming businesses and established players. The flexibility in personalizing the pick-and-pack operation can help give your brand that much-needed distinction. It also gives you room for upselling, capitalising on your brand visibility right on the packaging, right where all your shoppers and potential customers have maximum exposure.

Ship out orders with last-mile contingency:

Relying on one last-mile partner during an important sales day like Afterpay Day sales leaves you vulnerable to surge pricing, sudden changes and disruptive last-mile experience. A 3PL should be able to help you connect with multiple last-mile partners in Australia that offer affordable shipping rates based on your orders. And with automated order processing, the 3PL will be able to allocate the most affordable shipping partner so that you don’t end up overspending on order fulfilment.

With a powerful tech stack, integrating logistics, inventory storage and fulfilment with a 3PL, you can create a shopping experience that meets your shopper’s expectations. This Afterpay Day sale, navigate the peak sales season with great discounts, efficient inventory forecasting, quicker deliveries and reduced shipping costs- just what your shoppers want and turn them into your customers for life.

Frequently Asked Questions