Black Friday is just around the corner. If you’re running an ecommerce store, then now is the time to get ready.
The last three months of the year can be the most profitable for ecommerce retailers. The sales season starts from Black Friday and continues until after Christmas and New Year’s.
Held on 25 November, Black Friday is an American sales event that is growing in popularity in Australia. It is an important opportunity for ecommerce stores to kickstart their sales for the festive season.
Black Friday is highly competitive, so if you want your store to perform, then you need to be prepared. Follow our checklist to prepare your ecommerce store for success.
1. Prepare your website:
The first thing you need to do is to prepare your website. It is crucial for attracting customers, driving sales, and communicating your brand. If your website is not up to scratch, then visitors will quickly leave you for a competitor. Here are a few areas that you should look at to improve your website:
- Responsive and mobile-friendly design: A properly optimised website is a must-have for ecommerce. It should be easy to navigate on any device, to ensure that your visitors have a good experience.
- Loading time: Your website shouldn’t take longer than 2 to 3 seconds to load. It’s one of the most important factors in user experience.
- Keywords: Without the right keywords, you can’t have a successful ecommerce strategy. Optimise your content for relevant phrases like ‘Black Friday’, ‘deals’, ‘discount’, ‘special offer’, ‘best buy’. Do research to tailor your keywords to your offer and target your message to suit.
- User experience: Make sure that navigating your website is simple. Pay attention to both usability and visuals. Check if your page is intuitive and guides the user through all stages of the buying journey. Analyse your offer and try to put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Does your discount code work? Is the information about discounts clear and visible? Do you need a countdown timer?
- Check hosting and server: It’s important to be prepared for the increased traffic to your site on Black Friday. Make sure that your hosting and server will be able to cope with the demand. This will help you to avoid embarrassing situations like your website crashing.
2. Create Stunnning Visuals:
On Black Friday, you’ll want your brand to stand out from the crowd. One way to achieve this is through stunning visuals on your website, ads, and social media. Create eye-catching CTAs that communicate your brand and your offer.
On your website, you can use banner ads or change the hero/header image on your homepage to promote your sale. You can also create a dedicated landing page for your Black Friday sale that includes visuals to grab visitor’s attention. If your store is on Shopify, you can use their theme editor to customise the look of your store.
3. Streamline your Checkout:
Next, you’ll want to take a look at your checkout. Make sure that it is simple, short, and only asks necessary questions. This is important for improving your website’s conversion rate. In fact, having a lengthy and complex checkout process can be one of the top reasons for cart abandonment.
Look for any potential barriers between your customer and completing their purchase. Optimise your cart to remove these hurdles and reduce friction. Try adding accelerated checkout options like Shop Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, ZIP and AfterPay to increase mobile conversions on your Shopify store. These buy now, pay later options are important for driving sales and being competitive on Black Friday.
4. Ensure Stock Info is Accurate:
Then, you need to look at your stock information. Don’t frustrate your customers by advertising a product that’s actually out of stock or unavailable. Make sure that your website stock info is current and uptodate. Also ensure that you have enough products in stock to cope with the increased volume of sales.
5. Prepare your Sales Channels:
Before Black Friday, it’s a good idea to invest in multichannel selling. For example, you can sell your products through an app, social media, and your online store at the same time.
This makes it easier for customers to find your products and make a purchase. Think about where your target shoppers are already spending their time, and then choose the sales channel that will best suit them.
On Shopify, you can set up sales channels through Instagram, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and more. Then you can sync your products and centralise everything in your admin.
6. Prepare Shipping and Handling:
A high volume of sales in a short period can make it hard for you to fulfil these orders and get them to customers quickly. Taking too long can result in customers complaining about your brand or service, which can damage your reputation. This is why it’s important to be prepared for Black Friday. Here’s how:
- Optimise your fulfilment area (whether it’s a warehouse or just your basement, make sure that it’s organised and efficient)
- Get helping hands (hire staff or ask friends)
- Communicate clearly with delivery team
- Arrange faster shipping
- Prioritise and organise orders
7. Prepare Customer Support:
Providing good customer support is crucial for a successful Black Friday campaign. Customer support helps to improve your customer’s experience and satisfaction, leading to a higher conversion rate. Make sure that your company’s contact details are visible on your website and that you have a customer support team ready to handle questions and complaints.
When a customer seeks support, you need to respond to them quickly and courteously. It’s a good idea to prepare responses for common situations, like:
- A customer’s order is lost or delayed
- A customer is unsatisfied with their purchase
- A customer’s package or product arrives damaged
For ecommerce businesses, investing in a chat bot for your website can be well worth it. Chat bots can provide quick and efficient answers to most of your customer’s questions. In fact, 70% of ecommerce chat inquiries can easily be handled by automation. They are a useful tool for engaging with customers, increasing conversion rates, and driving sales.
Learn more about how to use chat bots for ecommerce in our blog.
8. Prepare Back-Up Plans:
Despite all your best intentions, sometimes things can go wrong. It’s best to have some back-up plans in place to protect your business and your customers. For example, ask yourself:
- What happens if the shipping company you work with becomes too busy?
- What if your products don’t arrive on time?
- What if your products become damaged or faulty?
The pandemic has brought disruptions and delays to shipping, so you need to be ready for these delays. Remember to order stock ahead of time.
Think about the worst-case scenarios for your business and plan ways that you could handle them. It’s better to plan now than to run into problems during the busiest ecommerce sales period of the year.
9. Prepare Returns Policy:
Returns have become an important part of the user experience, not just on Black Friday but all year round. Most customers expect easy and free returns and often won’t make a purchase unless they have the option to return it later.
Make sure that you have a return policy on your website that is clear, fair, and well-communicated. This will help to build trust with your customers and convince them to make a purchase. It helps to increase confidence in your product and remove potential risk.
Places to showcase your return policy:
- Shipping and Return Policy page
- FAQ page
- Product page
- Order notification emails
Summing Up:
Preparing your ecommerce store for Black Friday can be a big task. Follow these tips to ensure that you are ready to make the most of the sales and see your profits soar.
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