How to Prepare Your Online Store for Black Friday?

Black Friday is coming! How will you make the most of the upcoming festive weekend?

Last year, a record 196.7 million Americans shopped in online and physical stores during the Black Friday Holiday season. That’s 17 million more people than the previous year, and the number is expected to rise higher this year.

 So, what’s your plan for getting ready for the upcoming festive week?

In this article, we will guide you through the steps to prepare your online store for Black Friday. If you’re an eCommerce store owner looking for ways to be ready for the Black Friday week, you’re in the right place.

Before we begin, some of you might be wondering why it’s important to prepare your online store for this upcoming sale. So, let’s be clear with it first.

Why you should prepare your online store for the Black Friday season sale?

Black Friday is not just a random festive sale day. It is the most important shopping week for online and offline stores during the financial year. Most eCommerce store owners will be offering discounts and offers to attract shoppers during this period. 

Here are the five major reasons why you should prepare your online store for the Black Friday sale:

1. Your shoppers are expecting discounts

It has become a trend that eCommerce stores will have the most deals during this season. So most of the shoppers are expecting discounts and price cuts during this period. If you aren’t offering any discounts, chances are they will be looking for some other alternatives and end up purchasing your competitor’s products.

In essence, you will be delivering potential customers to your competitors on a silver platter.

2. Increase your revenue

Black Friday season is the time you receive maximum sales on your eCommerce website. So if you have prepared your online store for the big festive sale, you can leverage the opportunity to get more sales and increase your revenue.

3. Clearing your inventory

Black Friday offers an excellent opportunity to clear your excess and outdated inventory on your eCommerce store. You can run a stock clearance sale during this period with great offers to attract customers. So, by the end of the festive season, you can clear your outdated inventory.

4. Attract new customers

During the festive season, you can create offers like welcome bonuses, referral programs, and sign-up discounts to attract new customers. This way, you can get new sign-ups on your store and increase your website traffic. 

5. Increase customer retention

During the sale period, you might be experiencing more web traffic than usual. If you have taken the necessary measures to deliver a smooth shopping experience during this period, you can gain loyal customers who return to your store for future purchases. This will also reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rates on your website.

Now that you understand the reasons to prepare your online store for the Black Friday season, let’s see how you can get it done.

How to prepare your online store for Black Friday?

Black Friday is the biggest shopping event of the year across the world. Even though it is a single-day event, it is a part of the Thanksgiving holiday week, which marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season every year.

Preparing for Black Friday means you are preparing for an entire week. It’s not about giving discounts to your customers. Instead, you have to make sure that your customers will have a nice shopping experience in your online store. Giving discounts and offers is one of the ways to amaze customers, but there are other things you should do while preparing for Black Friday.

1. Set your goals for the sale days

You should begin by setting up your goals and Key Performance Indicators for the sales season. Define the goals you are trying to achieve during the sales season, and what are your KPIs for measuring your success. It could be increasing your revenue and conversion, reducing cart abandonment, clearing up inventory, etc. 

Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can then determine the necessary steps to reach these goals effectively.

2. Plan your budget

After identifying your goals, you can plan your budget for marketing and promotions. Preparing for Black Friday may require running multiple marketing campaigns to draw customers to your online store. Additionally, you might need to invest in various tools and services aimed at enhancing the overall shopping experience on your website.

So, it is crucial that you be aware of your expenses and allocate your budget accordingly. You should also plan for your investment budget for purchasing new inventories as well. 

It’s a good idea to plan your budget at least a month before the big sale days. This way, if you run low on funds, you have time to get a loan and won’t have to rush things during the sale.

3. Optimize your website for maximum performance

During the sale days, you can expect more traffic to your website than usual. Make sure that your website can handle the extra traffic, and see if you need to upgrade your web servers. The last thing you want during the sale is for your customer to see an error page while making a purchase on your website.

Most shoppers use smartphones for online shopping, so it is important that you have optimized your website for mobile devices. Optimizing your website is also important to reduce the page loading speed and the chance of failed orders.

4. Manage your inventory

Managing inventory means not only purchasing new inventories for the sale. That’s important for sure, but you should also focus on managing the backorders and addressing the challenges in the supply chains. Do a complete analysis of the current inventory levels. This will help you decide how much you should stock up on new inventories. 

If there’s a delay in the supply of the inventories, you should consider other supply chains or place your orders as early as possible.

5. Develop strategies for pricing and promotion

It is really important that you price your products in the right way. Lowering the price by a huge margin may attract shoppers but won’t do any good as probably losing revenue. 

Have a detailed analysis of the current market trends and determine your pricing strategy accordingly. Instead of giving regular price cuts, you can consider making creative offers and discount campaigns like Buy One Get One, Cart abandonment coupons, bulk order discounts, etc. These types of discounts not only attract customers but also motivate them to purchase more from your store, which will increase the revenue and average order value. 

If you are a WooCommerce store owner and want to create such creative offers, you can use any WooCommerce coupons plugin with these advanced coupon features.

6. Planning your marketing campaigns

Identifying the right marketing strategy can be a bit tricky. It depends on the types of products you are selling, your customers, market conditions, pricing, etc.  If you’ve been in the business for a while, you might already know what works best for you.

If you are new to eCommerce business, you can start with strategies that are known to work for most businesses, like email marketing, affiliate marketing, social media ads, or Google Ads.

But here’s a tip: When it comes to email marketing, many people get so many emails every day that they might not even open yours. To make yours stand out and add value to your emails, consider giving exclusive gift cards to your customers. You can use any gift cards plugin to create gift cards and loyalty reward points on your store site.

Similarly, you can use different tools and plugins for your marketing campaigns. When you have the right set of tools, things will be a lot easier for you.

7. Manage logistics and shipping

Managing shipping and logistics is one of the biggest challenges faced by most eCommerce store owners. it gets even more challenging during sale days when you’re handling more orders than usual. This means that any existing logistical issues can become twice as troublesome during this period.

So you should consider hiring more laborers during the sale days if you are on short on manpower. You can also consider partnering up with multiple courier companies to make the shipping process seamless. 

No matter how great your deals are, if the shipping takes more than two weeks, most shoppers will leave your site and search for faster delivery options. So it is crucial that you reduce the delivery delay as much as possible.

Here’s a tip: Attach a shipping label to the package before you send it to the courier services. If you don’t know what a shipping label is, it is a document that displays all the required information, such as a delivery address, contact number, sender address, tracking number, payment information, etc, to deliver the products to your customers. This will help prevent any mix-ups or losses during delivery and ensure a seamless delivery.

For WooCommerce store owners, here’s a handy shipping label plugin for WooCommerce that can help you create these labels.

8. Prepare for the post-sale days

Once the sale days are over, you have to deal with customer queries, support tickets, and refund requests. Here also you can expect a higher number than your usual days. So you should be equipped with enough resources to manage the technical issues and refund requests. 

When dealing with these matters, it’s important to prioritize refund requests. Delayed refunds can frustrate customers, but a fast resolution can leave them with a positive impression of your business.

Conclusion

In conclusion, preparing for the Black Friday season can be a hectic task, but it is totally worth the effort. If you have taken enough measures to ensure a smooth shopping experience for your customers, it can increase your sales and revenue by a huge margin. 

This article was intended to help you prepare for the big sale weekend. If you find this to be informative, please let us know in the comments.