Top Tips To Prepare You For Black Friday & Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the biggest shopping days of the year, and as an eCommerce business, you need to be prepared to take advantage of the huge surge in online shopping.
Here are our top tips to help you prepare for this shopping event:
1.Start planning early. Shoppers tend to start shopping earlier for the holiday season and it’s important you are communicating with your audience on your offers and promos. If you’re in a position to do so you may wish to extend your BFCM offers beyond the set BFCM calendar dates.
2. Create a desirable fun offer. A lot of e-comm businesses incorporate the BFCM sales period into their strategy and you’ll want to ensure you stand out and not get lost in all the noise! Think of an exciting offer your audience just can’t say no to! You could also incorporate bundles, upsells, cross sells in the purchase journey to checkout.
Tip: We are all about implementing conscious strategies into business where we can. Just because the BFCM period is approaching doesn’t mean you have to come under this “banner”. You could use this time to call your offer something different or even check out Green Friday.
3. Organise your inventory and sales. Do a stocktake and review how much inventory you have in your product range. Are there products you need to stock up on? Are there products you need to move and can create a special offer during BFCM? Be sure not to not leave this to the last minute (there’s nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed!) and plan your promos in advance in alignment with your stock, margins and your creative ideas.
4. Organise your email marketing. Start building hype inside of your emails to your subscribers and create curiosity and insight on what’s to come in the lead up to when your BFCM offer goes live. This way when you do finally announce your sales and offers you’ll have your audience warm and most likely ready to get shopping! Once live, you’ll want to ensure you have emails going out sharing about your offer and also reminder emails for when your sale is about to finish so your audience doesn’t forget.
5. Optimize and update your website. Make sure your website is optimized for the increased traffic you'll receive on these shopping days. Test your site's speed and functionality to ensure a smooth shopping experience for your customers.
You’ll want to ensure your website is user friendly and shoppers can clearly see and understand your offers and have a great checkout experience.. Update your banners, home page, and product descriptions to reflect your specific offers and to create smooth touch points in the customer journey.
TIP: Reminder to check how your website is user friendly on mobile for those customers who shop from their phone
6.Utilise your social media channels. Review your social media channels and select the channels that have had the best results for your business and put a plan in place to execute specific BFCM content across them to help support sales and lead shoppers to your website.
7.Communicate your shipping terms. Communication is key! Be transparent and communicate your shipping timeframes clearly with your audience so they know what to expect if the shipping will be fast or if there is a certain time frame due to the busy period.
You might even like to review your shipping strategy - free shipping can be a huge incentive for online shoppers (of course review your figures first! Only add this if absorbing the cost is an option or there is a way to include in your pricing).
An option could be to consider to offer purchase online and pick up in store for those who are local to your business. If you’re offering this, you will also need to review staffing and ensure you have everything set up to be organised and for this to go to plan.
7. Have a plan in place for increased customer enquiries: Be prepared to handle an increased volume of customer service inquiries during these shopping days.
TIP: Go over your customer service with your team and common questions that may be asked so you can have a template ready with replies you can respond with. Customer service is everything! And you want to ensure you are providing quality service so customer’s remember their experience and come back and shop with you
8. Prepare for worst case scenarios. We know it’s not fun to look at things from a negative perspective, however it’s important to dot your i’s and cross your t’s and view all angles of what could potentially happen. For example challenges that may arise and the pivots that may need to take place. It’s always a good idea to have plan a, b and then c!
Some examples of things that may arise are: delays with your manufacturing, issues with your courier or shipping company
9. Follow up with customers. Follow up with customers after the shopping days are over to thank them for their business and encourage them to shop with you again.
By following these tips, you'll be well-prepared to take advantage of the huge shopping surge on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Happy selling!
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