In e-commerce, Black Friday is THE biggest and most valuable day of the year. The main sales event always falls on the last Friday of November, although it is crucial to remember, though, that many e-commerce businesses will launch their sales earlier and keep them going through Cyber Monday (which is the next week) and December. This encompasses many industries, from electricals to fashion, so it’s crucial to have a knowledgeable and practical Black Friday sales strategy well in advance.
To take advantage of the increased traffic during this time, planning beforehand is crucial. This can include what you’re offering for Black Friday and where you’re going to promote your offers, as well as preparing your website ready for the watershed of customers – this can include promo codes to tempt customers to spend during this limited time. Or, another clever Black Friday sales strategy is to create an optimised post-purchase email strategy to increase retention rates, even after the event has passed.
Our Black Friday Pointers
You can never be over prepared!
To make the most of every opportunity, provide a sneak peek of what’s on offer for Black Friday. Given the increased web traffic, providing a sneak peak could encourage typical consumer behaviour prediction and keep customers coming back because they’ll be more likely to return if they know what’s on offer in advance.
What time are most people likely to shop on Black Friday?
The early bird buyers are likely to be online first thing in the morning to avoid the virtual lines on Black Friday; typically, online users across e-commerce websites increase in number from 8 am onwards, leading to the first peak hour at 12 pm (noon).
In stark contrast to desktop activity, when the peak period for online purchasing has been 11am, mobile users’ peak time for online traffic from their devices is around 9pm. Three-quarters of people prefer to surf on mobile devices all day long to find their Black Friday bargains. This highlights the differences in browsing habits on mobile and desktop. An important realisation that e-commerce companies can take advantage of.
Make sure your website and marketing initiatives are active well before the 8 am rush to take advantage of early buyers. As you’re likely to have a significant surge in traffic, you should make your website as fast as your competitors’ websites to avoid having your conversion rates drop.
Ensure shoppers push that e-cart all the way to checkout!
Due to the urgency and desire to snag a deal, sales occasions like Black Friday are known to reduce cart abandonment rates. But don’t let this lull you into a false sense of security, it is still necessary to use content to ensure shoppers go through the motions and hit the “pay now” button. Despite the fact that cart abandonment rates decrease on Black Friday, keep your customers “in the bag” by utilising abandonment and conversion rate optimisation services in the months leading up to the event.
What can you do, then, to differentiate yourself from your competitors? Do you provide guarantees or free delivery? How can e-commerce retailers assist customers? During this crucial time, anything that will benefit your buyers will also help increase your sales. Focus on enhancing the user experience on the website by eliminating distractions from sites or, as an example, providing a simple pop-up that directs users to the checkout to aid the whole ecommerce customer journey.
Be ready to face the worst case scenarios!
Being cautious entails regularly asking hard questions and getting ready for the worst. Do you have adequate backups set up in case something goes wrong? What occurs if the delivery business you use gets too busy? Or what happens if your inventory doesn’t arrive when it should? How rapidly is it possible to change your product plan?
We don’t want to arouse irrational worries, but it’s crucial to be ready for difficult circumstances. Additionally, it is vital to plan for delays given the well-documented shipping delays encountered during the pandemic and the warnings already made by shipping companies. Consider the worst-case situations that could happen to your company, and wherever you can, develop backup plans. Planning early is far simpler than troubleshooting during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.
Create a “never to be repeated” offer!
To draw people into their store, many retailers would run a “jaw-dropping” bargain on a well-liked product. There’s a possibility that shoppers will purchase additional things while en route to the register once they’ve arrived for the steep discount. This product is occasionally used as a loss leader, with the difference being made up by shoppers adding more items to their cart than they would have without the steep discount on the flagship item. What kind of “can’t miss” deal will get customers into your shop? Instead of promoting all of your Black Friday Cyber Monday bargains at once, if you’re sending an email to your subscribers, think about concentrating on the one sale item you feel is the most alluring.
Black Friday vs Cyber Monday – can you simply repeat the process?
After Black Friday, you may choose to use any data gained from online traffic and sales to improve your promotions for Cyber Monday and the following week by concentrating on what customers were looking at on your website. The week following Black Friday still sees a lot of traffic. Overall, the week after Black Friday sees greater traffic than the week before.
With all this newly acquired knowledge, you can go ahead and capitalise on Black Friday spending while also extending deals throughout the following week to really get the most out of this seasonal promotion linking into Cyber Monday. E-commerce retailers can use their data to understand the best days for sales. Given the proximity of the two sales events to Christmas, any information you can get on customer behaviour will be quite helpful when planning your holiday buying. Black Friday may only be one day, but you can carry on the hype for a long time after.
