With Black Friday and Cyber Monday right around the corner, stores everywhere are gearing up for the biggest shopping days of the year. The weekend isn’t just about shopping physically, though. Online sales continue to skyrocket each year, and this year will be no different. If you haven’t thought of prepping for the Black Friday weekend (or you just haven’t had the time), that’s okay! We’ve got five Black Friday eCommerce tips that’ll get your site ready:
What is Black Friday/Cyber Monday?
Before we get started, let’s go over what Black Friday is for the uninformed. Occurring the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday is America’s dedicated day for holiday shopping. On Black Friday, stores will often hold massive sales to ring in the holiday shopping season, and things can get pretty hectic– dangerous even! That’s where Cyber Monday comes in. The Monday following Black Friday is dedicated to online shopping. Although the tradition isn’t as old as Black Friday, Cyber Monday has quickly become the more profitable of the two days simply because online shopping is more accessible to the average household.
Shops often prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday with sales and discounts that last all weekend.
1. Prepare for Oncoming Traffic
The first and most important tip for your Black Friday eCommerce strategy is to get ready for a lot of site traffic. Since these two days (and the whole weekend) are so essential for holiday shopping, it’s natural for customers to come to your site in greater numbers than you’d typically get. While this is great for business, it’s not the best for your servers.
To prepare for the influx of customers, we suggest looking into your site’s current speeds and traffic statistics. Making a note of your average site speeds and server capacity would be a good starting point to prepare for potential upgrades to your site’s bandwidth and disk space.
2. Set up Some Sales
The Black Friday weekend is perfect for setting up sales, and most businesses take advantage of that by adding huge discounts and a giant countdown for when the sale ends. Sales are a great way to earn some extra revenue, but setting up for them is the tricky part. You’ll want to create some urgency around your discounts, too. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to redesign your site with a giant countdown clock, but instead, try using automatic emails or site notifications to tell shoppers when an item in their cart is running out of stock or perhaps to let them know that they have items in their cart.
Another way to create some extra urgency is to use a customer’s potential losses on Black Friday as a way to set up for Cyber Monday– perhaps they missed out on a product that you’ll be restocking over the weekend. Incentivize buying on Monday with an extra coupon or private discount code.
3. Make Shopping Fun
This helpful hint is partially related to the last one, but let’s be honest: nobody likes shopping on Black Friday. Providing a nice customer experience while they shop is a great way to boost your sales and keep your customers coming back. Creating an exclusive points system or free shipping over orders over a certain amount are common ways to encourage shoppers, but you can also gamify the shopping experience with interactive media, affiliate promotions, and contests.
4. Provide Customers With Easy Check-Out
On the biggest shopping days of the year, shoppers need a streamlined checkout system to make their Black Friday eCommerce experience as seamless and satisfying as possible. One-click checkout services are a great way to help shoppers save time by allowing them to autofill their information and check out instantly.
5. Enhance Security
With the ability to autofill information comes the risk of data theft, so it’s always good to ensure your site is safe for shoppers whether they’re first-time visitors or frequent buyers. Incorporating two-factor authentication in your Black Friday eCommerce strategy is the best way to keep your shoppers’ information safe, but what about fraud protection?
Fraud protection add-ons are vital around this time of year, especially when it comes to warding off scalpers who use fraudulent data to by limited products. Installing a fraud protection service can help lower the chances of fraudulent shoppers and ensure that your customers get exactly what they need.
The holidays are a difficult time for any business, but you don’t have to do it alone! Even if it’s just tune-ups for the Black Friday weekend, contact us for a consultation today.
