10 Tips to Prepare your eCommerce Store for Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the pinnacle shopping events of the year. It’s vital to have a solid strategy in place to ensure you capitalise on the possibilities these occasions present.

In 2021, nearly 155 million Americans shopped during Black Friday. During the holiday season in 2021, retail sales increased 14.1% over 2020 to $8.9 billion—a new high despite the continuing COVID-19 epidemic and supply chain problems.

We can’t predict much these days, but one thing is certain: the buying patterns of tomorrow will be based heavily on eCommerce. In this guide, we’ll go through what you need to do to prepare your eCommerce business for Black Friday.

Ways to Prepare Your eCommerce Store for Black Friday

Here at Pixel by Hand Photo Editing Service, we recognize the added pressure of attempting to conduct a successful sales campaign while running your business. This is why we’ve compiled a list of techniques for preparing your eCommerce website for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

1. Test if your store can handle a traffic surge

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the busiest shopping days of the year, so it’s important to make sure your eCommerce site can handle the increased traffic. This means investing in additional server space and improving load times for faster browsing and checkout processes.

For example, you may want to try using a content delivery network (CDN), a collection of servers spread out across the world that can help your site load faster by managing traffic and caching data. You should also review your hosting plan to make sure you have enough storage space and bandwidth to accommodate any surges in sales or orders.

In Shopify, you can easily monitor your site’s performance and check the number of page views and orders per minute. If you notice that these metrics exceed your current limits, it might be time to upgrade your plan or consider hiring a specialist to help optimize your site for peak traffic.

2. Create sale banners with impact!

When it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need all the marketing tools you can get. One of the most important things to consider is your sale banners. These should be eye-catching and stand out from the rest of your website’s content, so users know that they can find discounts and special promotions here.

You may also want to consider using animated graphics or video in your sale banners, as these can help increase engagement and conversion rates. Make sure your banner is optimized for all devices, including mobile phones and tablets, where screen sizes are smaller.

If you have a store on platforms like Amazon or eBay, make sure you create custom storefronts or web pages just for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This allows you to highlight your best deals and promotions and will make it easier for shoppers to find them when they’re browsing on the go.

3. Build suspense and create a buzz

Another important component of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales is building anticipation and excitement around your offers. Whether you’re promoting a special deal or running a campaign, you can use social media, email marketing, and other channels to create buzz and build up suspense before the big day.

You should also consider using teaser content on your website – for example, by posting a countdown or sharing sneak peeks of your best deals – to create anticipation and excitement. This is especially important if you’re running a multi-day sales campaign, as it will keep users engaged throughout the holiday season.

4. Offer several payment methods

One of the most important factors in a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign is providing several payment options for your customers. This helps eliminate barriers to purchase by allowing users to pay with credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, or other preferred methods.

This also allows you to reduce cart abandonment rates and turn more shoppers into paying customers. In addition to providing multiple payment options, you should also consider offering incentives like discounts or free shipping to encourage users to make a purchase.

5. Meet customers’ delivery expectations

It’s also important to remember that shoppers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday often have very high expectations when it comes to delivery times. After all, they’re used to getting their items quickly using services like Amazon Prime or one-day shipping.

One way to meet these expectations is by partnering with a reputable shipping carrier, such as UPS, FedEx, or USPS. You may also want to consider adding a fulfillment center near your target shoppers so you can easily meet their expectations for shipping speed and costs.

Also, make sure you communicate your shipping policies. It’s critical to be honest with customers about delivery schedules throughout the Black Friday sales. Communicate your shipping costs and methods to your clients clearly. Give a clear shipping policy that guarantees your client understands how long the delivery time will be in today’s market.

6. Optimize for mobile

It’s absolutely critical that you optimize your website and marketing efforts for mobile devices. These days, many users shop on their phones or tablets during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, so you need to ensure that they have a great experience on all devices.

This may involve optimizing your site’s layout, images, fonts, and menus for smaller screen sizes, as well as making your website responsive. You should also consider investing in mobile advertising and SMS marketing to reach mobile shoppers.

7. Use Reviews to boost sales this Black Friday

Reviews and testimonials are important aspects of your marketing campaign. The more reviews you have on your website, the higher conversion rates you’ll see when customers visit your site.

You can use reviews to build consumer trust, especially around this time of year. This is extremely important if you’re selling products that are very popular with shoppers during Black Friday. Let your customers know that thousands of other people are satisfied with the results that you provide.

8. Recover abandoned carts

Abandoned cart recovery software allows you to send emails and push notifications that remind shoppers about items in their shopping carts. This can help you recover lost sales and boost your conversion rates during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Offering a discount or coupon code as an incentive for users to complete their purchase is also effective – but it’s important to note that Black Friday shoppers may be less likely to use coupons.

9. Email marketing campaign

Your email marketing campaign is one of your most powerful tools during Black Friday. This type of marketing can help you increase sales and reach more potential customers in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Typically, this involves sending promotional emails with coupons or other incentives to encourage users to purchase on Black Friday. You should also consider segmenting your email list so you can send more personalized and targeted emails to shoppers based on the types of products they’ve purchased in the past.

10. Secure your site

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are popular times for hackers and cybercriminals. This means that you need to take extra steps to ensure the security of your site, customers’ data, and financial transactions this Black Friday.

Investing in cybersecurity tools like SSL encryption can help keep your shoppers safe. You should also consider investing in additional firewalls, antivirus software, and anti-spam measures to help protect your site.

Additional Tip: Get Your Images Ready Beforehand!

Things can get pretty busy, and the last thing you want is to do last-minute edits for your product images. Optimizing your product images for conversions is extremely important, and you should take the time now to ensure your product images are big, clear, and high-quality.

At Pixel by Hand, we can help optimize your images for conversion and ensure that your products stand out on Black Friday. With our expertise in product photography, we can help you get the perfect images to showcase your products and drive traffic to your site this Black Friday.

Planning Ahead for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Many companies make the mistake of waiting until the last minute to start thinking about one of the most important online sales periods of the year. But by engaging with your target audience throughout the year, you can keep your brand top of mind and ensure that when customers are looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, they’ll remember your company first.

Customers start looking for deals in October, so businesses should make sure they have offers available. Plan ahead of time and get the word out to your consumers as soon as possible about your Black Friday discounts. The sooner they hear about your discounts, the better prepared they will be to take advantage of them. And the more sales you can have.

Plan and write a checklist. A checklist can help you make sure that your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy is complete and that nothing gets overlooked. First, start by assessing your current website and marketing efforts, as well as the products or services that you offer. Then work through the items on your checklist:

1. Develop a promotion plan and schedule for key marketing channels such as social media, email marketing, website ads, etc.
2. Finalize your product or service offerings and discounts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
3. Make sure you have plenty of stock to meet demand during these busy shopping periods.
4. Consider upgrading your website security to help keep your customers’ data safe online.
5. Create and run email marketing campaigns to notify customers about your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
6. Design and order promotional materials such as flyers, social media graphics, etc.
7. Continue writing and publishing content on your website or blog that engages with your target audience and encourages them to purchase during these key shopping periods.
8. Plan and write content for your email marketing campaigns, segmenting your list based on past purchases and interests.
9. Stay active on social media by creating relevant content that will interest your target audience during the weeks leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
10. Complete any other tasks or preparations to promote your business and products effectively during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

By taking the time to plan ahead for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy, you can ensure that you are prepared to take full advantage of these key shopping periods and generate more sales, traffic, and revenue for your business this year.

Pixel by Hand eCommerce Product Images Editing

Make sure your images are ready before the holidays begin! Pixel by Hand is a trusted name in the eCommerce product image editing industry. Our expert creative editors have worked with various brands to help them achieve top-quality, professional product images that stand out and drive more sales. Whether you need quality product images for Amazon or other eCommerce platforms, our team can help you create engaging, high-quality product images that will delight your customers and keep them coming back for more.

Say hello to us in the chatbox below! We offer a free trial for new customers and are happy to answer any questions you may have about our services. We look forward to hearing from you!