Prepare your Ecommerce Business for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

When we hear the words “Black Friday and Cyber Monday” consumers tend to think of the special shopping deals and discounts that most intend on taking advantage of. 

On the other side of the coin, ecommerce merchants and entrepreneurs are mapping out a lucrative consumer holiday filled with business opportunities for the online and retail arenas.

Just last year, the US holiday shopping season brought in more than $1.2 trillion, with a growth rate of 16.1%, making it the highest retail growth in over 20 years. According to EMarketer, Black Friday sales, which generated almost $9 billion, was the next-largest online spending day after Cyber Monday, which saw a 1.1% increase at $10.8 billion.

Given these Black Friday and Cyber Monday numbers, online stores should prioritize ways to increase sales during what is sure to be a highly profitable shopping season.

Are you and your Shopify store prepared for the increase in visitors and sales on the fast-approaching Black Friday and Cyber Monday dates? Are you looking for ways to improve your online sales in November? You’ve come to the right place.

In this article, we talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022, giving you 10 tips and ecommerce ideas on how to get your Shopify store ready to take on the busy shopping season ahead.

The Difference Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Two of the biggest shopping days of the year, Black Friday always takes place the day after Thanksgiving, and in 2022, Black Friday will be on November 25. Cyber Monday, on the other hand, takes place on the Monday after  Thanksgiving, falling on November 28th of 2022.

Black Friday first began as a single day of in-store shopping. Online shops also started providing Cyber Monday bargains in 2005 as a result of the growth of ecommerce. 

To ensure that customers remain interested throughout this lucrative shopping season, retailers try to keep things interesting for shoppers across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Merchants advertise discounts using a variety of methods, including influencer marketing, social media, email marketing, and more.

During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, According to BCFM statistics from 2021, the average cart price for Shopify store merchants was at $100.70, and the highest sales per minute across all Shopify stores was at $3.1 million.

With these profitable statistics out of the way, here are 10 tips to get you and your online store ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday: 

1. Create an Action Plan

Shoppers have been known to plan their Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022 purchases as early as March, therefore you should also be planning ahead since consumers certainly are.

It's time to map out your calendar so that you can stay organized during the hectic shopping season. We assure you that organizing ahead of time and developing an action plan will make life much simpler in November.

It's crucial that you schedule the days and times you will:

• Update the visuals in your store to match the shopping event
• Promote your sales via Google, social media, or via email.
• Adapt your product lineup
• Promote your exclusive deals and sales

To increase the possibility of sales during the season, some merchants decide to advertise or promote their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals a month in advance.

You should also take note of the special shopping dates when mapping your action plan:

• Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 24
• Black Friday: Friday, November 25
• Cyber Monday:  Monday, November 28

2. Create Amazing Store Deals

The reason shoppers get excited about days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday is because of those sales and discounts. As we mentioned, shoppers tend to plan ahead when it comes to items they will check out of their cart, so make sure those deals are sweet. 

Keep in mind that other online stores will be running their own Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022 campaigns, so you shouldn't wait until the last minute to plan or launch yours. Instead, you should start by notifying your email and social media followers weeks, if not months, in advance. This way, you will have an interested audience when you roll out your deals. 

It's vital to also note that even though Black Friday shoppers are looking for bargains, they are also willing to spend more and buy more than any time of the year!

Here are a few tips and examples for deals and strategies you can use for Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

• Give email subscribers or social media followers special early access to Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. This may also help you get more customers to join your email list, which will increase the reach of your promotions and continue to pay off long after the 2022 holiday shopping season.
• Create buzz. Promote your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in advance with hints! Inform your customers and followers that you will be sharing long-awaited promotional information via email and social media soon.
• Offer Free Shipping. If you don’t already offer free shipping, you can influence buyer decisions by offering it during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• Offer limited-time sales. Offering time-limited sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday creates urgency in shoppers. After all, these sales won’t last forever, and it encourages shoppers to take advantage of your biggest sale of the year. 

3. Promote Your Stores Deals

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are days for huge discounts and sales, so it's important to start advertising your store early—at least as early as October and throughout the entire month of November. You'll need to develop some unique, theme-based promotions and deals to draw customers into your store to achieve this.

Marketing your store and the coming big sales and deals are a great way to build anticipation leading up to these important shopping holidays. You can use written content and images to create an emotional response in your customers. Words like “We are about to have our biggest sale EVER” are bound to stir excitement and draw people into your Shopify store.

Here are some ideas for how to advertise your business and generate excitement for Black Friday:

Email Marketing- If you have been running your online store for some time, then you’ll have captured the emails of your customers. You’ll want to make sure to create an email campaign specifically to let your customers know about your special promotions, new products, and discount codes.

Social Media Ads- Make sure to run ads on your chosen social media platforms, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, etc., to acquire new customers who are on the lookout for some sweet Black Friday deals and steals. Make sure your strategy includes TikTok as well, a platform that is quickly growing in terms of ecommerce marketing.

Google Ads- As the most popular search engine and browser, people will be searching and shopping using Google and Google Chrome. This makes the holidays the perfect time to launch special holiday-themed campaigns with Google Ads.

4. Focus on Mobile Experience

79% of all Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchases, according to Shopify's 2021 report, were made on mobile devices. In 2014, mobile shoppers overtook desktop shoppers, and their numbers have continued to rise. Before you lose out on mobile customers, test your website and make any necessary improvements.

Because consumers can whip out their phones wherever they are, mobile optimization is absolutely crucial. Today, you can plan your holiday shopping while waiting for a bus, taking a break from work in the office, or while lying in bed. Google reports that more searches are now made on mobile devices than on desktops or tablets, so optimizing for mobile during the busy shopping season is vital.

You also want to make mobile optimization as frictionless as possible. Friction is that irate feeling a customer experiences when they are required to work harder than necessary to complete a task on your website. Having to get past a bothersome pop-up with a close button that is too small, for instance, is a form of friction. Making the mobile experience as seamless as you can while getting rid of any potential sources of customer annoyance should be your main goal. This can be achieved by identifying non-mobile-friendly elements on your website and streamlining the checkout procedure to the maximum extent possible. This may mean also allowing guest checkout.

If you’re on the lookout for an ecommerce solution that is mobile responsive, Shopify stores do this without a hitch, giving customers a seamless shopping experience whether they’re on a desktop, tablet, or phone.

5. Hire Some Help if you Need It

Even though you might enjoy running your ecommerce business alone or working with your fantastic team, there are times when it's better to hire a professional whose knowledge can make your Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022mpreparations go more smoothly.

Redesigning your homepage, producing new content, and managing customer service can all be time-consuming tasks. 

Here are the kind of people and their roles that you might want on board:

• Copywriters
• Social Media Marketers
• Designers & Developers

During the busy holiday shopping season, hiring assistance may be a one-time convenience. A copywriter can assist you if you want to develop some awesome and attention-grabbing email campaigns or need new product descriptions. You can also up your Instagram and TikTok game with the help of a social media marketer, while a designer and developer can help you improve your store’s function and designs.

Even though adding new team members isn't always necessary, it's a great way to free up your time and focus by bringing in professionals who will only help you make the most of this year's holiday shopping by helping you streamline your Shopify store’s operations.

6. Reinforce Customer Support & FAQs

As a consequence of people shopping more during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you may have an increase in customers that also need online shopping assistance. Reinforcing your customer support is crucial during this period because it helps funnel customers down on their shopping journey. Have you ever been inside a brick-and-mortar shop and needed assistance but there was nobody there to help you with an inquiry? Chances are if there was no one there to help you or the shop assistant was too busy, you did not complete the purchase. The same goes for busy online stores with unresponsive customer support.

During this time, it's important to have responsive support, even if It means bringing someone else into the team. 

Due to the increased volume of customers and sales, having a customer support representative can be quite useful, so you can ensure that questions, problems, and messages are resolved in a good and timely manner.

It's also time to go over your FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions page. FAQs allow your customers to get the answers to their most basic questions right away and on their own.

Use the FAQ page on your Shopify store to clear up common causes for confusion and as a place for customers to gather answers to questions you get asked the most, especially on questions regarding billing, shipping, and delivery during Black Friday.

It saves you the time of answering the same questions repeatedly and is a great form of customer support.

7. Review Your Return Policy

Before any big shopping event in ecommerce and retail, you should take time to consider the Return Policy page on your Shopify store. As a consequence of an increase in shoppers willing to buy more and spend more during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the chances of returns also go up.

You should note that a shop’s return policy is an important feature of your online business. Not only does a return policy function to protect your online store and your customers, but a lot of your sales can also hang on this page. Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are likely to first turn to a store's return policy before completing a purchase to make certain that the policy is customer-friendly, with enough room for returns given that an item is damaged or may not be the right fit. If the return policy does not seem customer-friendly enough, they might take their business elsewhere.

Many online stores offer customers holiday-specific policies, such as an extended return window for certain items. Some shops even offer returns and refunds for unopened items within 90 days from the purchase date. However, not all items should be considered for extended returns, and that includes big-ticket items like TVs, electronics, and some personal items.

While you do want your return policy to be generous enough to allow your customers to feel confident about completing a purchase in your store, you don’t want it to be too open for the less-than-genuine types of customers who dabble in return fraud. 

8. Allow Customers to Track Orders

Tracking is important to ecommerce businesses because it's important to your customers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are busy times, and simply allowing customers to track their order places their minds at ease by letting them know where their parcels are. 

This in turn minimizes the need for customers to reach out to you for an update on their order status because of the transparency you provide throughout the entire delivery process.

The vast majority of online shoppers report that being able to track their orders significantly improves the shopping experience, playing on their sense of anticipation, while reassuring customers that shipping is right on track. 

A good tracking system will allow your customers to know:

• When the order is approved
• When it is shipped
• The expected arrival date

Customers love to be able to track their orders, making it one of the keys to a better online shopping experience that you should provide to your customers, especially on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

9. Customer-Friendly Shipping Policy

A lot of packages are going to be moving across the country and around the world during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and because of this, it can affect how fast an order travels from shop to customer.

Before Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022, you should revisit your shipping policy to prepare for the rush and the event of shipping delays.

If your carrier releases an updated shipping schedule to match the onslaught of the holiday rush, be sure to update your customers through your website and let them in on the new shipping schedule.

Shipping delays are fairly common during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so let customers know of any possible shipping delays that may prolong the arrival of their purchase. To help lighten the impact of delays and to make shopping with you more enticing, offer customers free shipping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Shipping is a major deciding factor in hitting that checkout button, and free shipping isn’t the only offer you can make. You can also offer customers priority shipping for a fee that will expedite orders.

10. Go Over the Checkout Process

A vital tip on our Black Friday and Cyber Monday checklist is to make sure that you put yourself into the shoes of customs to go over your checkout process from their eyes. It’s time for you to take the journey now yourself before making any changes needed to optimize the checkout process.

Try to make the checkout process short and simple, without requiring customers to register before checkout. This is a major source of friction found in some online stores that often prompts customers to click off of your site. To avoid this, offer guest checkout and make sure you are asking only for the necessary details and information.

Offering guest checkout allows your new customers a more streamlined experience that ups customer satisfaction.

For returning customers that already have an account, saved shipping details should be auto-filled, allowing customers to skip several steps so that they can get to the end goal faster.

One more tip is to offer alternative forms of payment, such as PayPal and Afterpay. Customers should also be able to modify their shopping carts easily, regarding quantity, size, color, and more.

The goal here is to eliminate as much friction as possible throughout the checkout process so that customers can complete the journey with minimal hangups that may prompt them to abandon cart.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday are Around the Corner

Is your Shopify store prepared for the biggest annual online shopping events? 

Although it is anticipated that online holiday sales will rise even further in 2o22, there is no assurance that your website will benefit—and this is why you need to anticipate the season with a great strategy.

Your strategy should include an action plan and schedule, irresistible store deals, a way to market said deals and reach customers, great mobile site performance, up-to-date content, and design, as well as adequate customer support, tracking, updated shipping and delivery, and optimized checkout. 

Just keep in mind that planning ahead is always important and will help ensure a smooth Black November for both your online store and your eager customers.

In this article, we’ve given you 10 ecommerce ideas and tips to add to your action plan. It’s now time to get your Shopify store ready for a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022 that you won’t forget.

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