Top 5 Black Friday Tips For Your eCommerce Store
This year’s Black Friday will happen on 25th November, followed by Cyber Monday on November 28th. Now is the time to start planning and preparing your online store for the busiest time of the year for all retailers. Here are our top 5 eCommerce tips to make sure your eCommerce store is all ready and set for a successful Black Friday.
1) Convert Better
In 2021, the average global Black Friday eCommerce website conversions rate was 3.2%, compared to 4% in 2020 and 4.5% in 2019*. Due to economic uncertainty, many consumers may skip this year’s deals. This is why it’s more important than ever to convert those who visit your eCommerce website.
How do you do this? Check which of your products have been doing well and, based on your data, pick strong performers for headline deals. Make sure your product pages have clear CTAs, concise product copy and great images. Order product categories by biggest savings first, so customers notice your best deals immediately.
Your online store conversion is greatly affected by website stability and performance. If your website is slow, or you’re on an eCommerce platform that doesn’t offer the flexibility to make your deals stand out, consider changing it. There are plenty of cutting-edge platforms for online retailers to consider like BigCommerce, Magento and Adobe Commerce.
BigCommerce is a SaaS solution and will require signing up for a pricing plan. While Magento is an open source platform, you should be aware of the costs of a Magento website as outlined by DesignRush.
If you’re thinking about migrating to one of these platforms or need ongoing support to your BigCommerce store or Magento store, consider working with Media Lounge. We are a conversion-driven eCommerce agency with over 400 eCommerce stores under our belt.
2) Start Early And End Late
Don’t leave things to the last minute as many customers will start their research weeks before Black Friday starts. During Black Friday, you will be competing for attention with every retailer out there, so why not start early and get some wins ahead of your competitors?
Keep your audience engaged on social media and with marketing emails. Offer early access deals to subscribers and add a countdown timer to your website. While it requires some extra work, starting early will give you more time to refine your deals and figure out what works best. Once Black Friday hits, extend your offer for the full weekend and include Cyber Monday if it’s relevant to your business.
If you run a loyalty scheme, double the reward points on Black Friday purchases and then double their value in the first week of December. This is a great way to get customers back to your eCommerce store before Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas – many customers will use Black Friday to shop for Christmas gifts, so consider extending your returns period to January. This will not only make your offer stand out, but also give customers peace of mind, making them more likely to go ahead with their purchase.
3) Get Your Stock And Delivery Ready
Ready for the busy period by stocking up on your inventory. This is a good time to restock on best-sellers and introduce deals to get slow-movers off your shelves. Create product bundles and combine best-sellers with products that don’t perform well. Then offer a discount on the entire bundle. Remember to check your margins, so you don’t end up with bundles that lose money.
Make sure you have what it takes to deliver the goods to your customers by increasing the delivery capacity. You need to be ready for the best case scenario where sales skyrocket and demand rises, so get prepared now and don’t get caught short in November.
To help deal with the increased demand, consider offering a slow and low cost (or free) delivery service as many won’t need the product until mid December. Whatever you do, remember to be clear when communicating shipping rates and delivery methods to your customers.
4) Think About Your Marketing Strategy
We mentioned promoting your Black Friday deals on social media and with email, creating product bundles, starting early and ending late. But your marketing strategy should involve more than just that.
To make your customers feel like they are getting a more personalised offer, tailor your deals to match their buying behaviours. Offer unique, one off discount codes to reward brand loyalty and consider segmenting your marketing emails. Our partner, Klayvio, found that segmenting your emails can bring three times as much revenue as general marketing messages**.
There are plenty of other marketing tactics you might try like offering a free gift, a prize draw to attract new customers, or a video marketing campaign highlighting your best deals.
5) Focus On Mobile
In 2021, 71% of Black Friday purchases were made from mobile devices, compared to only 29% on desktops***. It’s crucial to make sure your website and product pages look great on mobile devices, and to ensure a smooth customer experience for mobile users.
Black Friday pages might look different than your standard product pages with all the promotional banners and product ribbons added, so make sure all the new eCommerce designs are responsive. Also, don’t forget to check how things look like on your mobile app if you have one.
We hope this year’s Black Friday will be successful for your eCommerce business. If you need help preparing your store for Black Friday then get in touch today at hello@medialounge.co.uk and start a conversation with the Media Lounge team about hitting your objectives for Black Friday and beyond.
