Black Friday Checklist: Follow These 9 Essential Tips!

As the holiday shopping season ramps up, e-commerce sites need to prepare themselves for a wave of online shoppers looking for discounts and deals.

Black Friday has a long checklist. Be it digital marketing services in the UK, updating your website’s visuals, or offering discounts to improve your return policy.

This checklist will walk you through a few things you can do to prepare your e-commerce site for this year's holiday shopping season.

Let's get started!

1. Start Planning Early

The very first thing you need to do is: start planning early and continue your campaign till November lasts. If you've already started, make sure you're reviewing your inventory levels and product offerings periodically.

If not, now's the time to lay out your game plan for holiday sales.

Ensure that your e-commerce platform is ready to go (i.e., all items are linked), update your site's visuals to reflect seasonal colors, and start promoting your discounts.

Moreover, you'll need to start thinking about your return policy and consider what type of shipping options you can offer shoppers.

But let’s have a look at everything in detail so we might not miss any essential information.

2. Review Your Inventory

It doesn't matter how good of a discount you're offering if you don't have the product in stock.

Make sure that your inventory levels are adequate to handle holiday sales before they happen by identifying which items are most popular with buyers and what quantities you should order.

You'll also need to make sure that your site's search function is robust enough for people looking for specific items.

Additionally, your site may need to be optimized for mobile shoppers, who often use different websites or apps than desktop users.

If Black Friday is at peak and you run out of stock that’s a nightmare indeed.

3. Follow Up on People Who Abandon Carts

Another crucial step in preparing for Black Friday is by following up with shoppers who abandon their shopping carts during check out.

Customers are more likely to return if they feel like you're genuinely interested in selling them your product, so use the opportunity to highly visualize your brand and during holidays why they should buy from you rather than a competitor.

Keeping tabs on these abandoned carts will ensure that you're only offering deals when it's appropriate and maximizing chances of getting sales.

This way, you'll also avoid having unsold inventory after the holidays.

4. Improve Your Return Policy

Another important consideration is your return policy. If you're worried about shoppers returning an item and asking for a refund, consider how to handle it by:

Offering free returns or expedited shipping to customers who made a purchase in that timeframe (i.e., within the last month).

Offering store credit instead of a full refund after an item has been returned.

You need to remember that your return policies should be personalized to your brand and item offerings, so make sure you test different policies throughout the holiday shopping season.

When shoppers know your brand is trustworthy, they'll be more likely to hit that checkout button.

5. Offer Free Shipping or Expedited Shipping During the Holidays

Offering free shipping during the holidays is always an incentive for potential customers to buy from you because it saves them money - and time!

Set yourself apart from your competitors by offering expedited delivery (or same-day/overnight shipping) during the holiday shopping season.

Offering free shipping will become your best friend to boost sales and meet the demands of holiday shoppers.

Also, make sure to plan ahead and factor in the appropriate shipping time, as all of your packages will be delivered at different times within a specific timeframe.

6. Update Your Pricing for Black Friday and Holiday Shopping

People love discounts! Especially with Black Friday!

Update your pricing to reflect a discount for Black Friday and holiday shopping. Whether you're marking down select items or offering a percentage off everything, this will make it easier for customers to find deals on your site.

Use this opportunity to clear out inventory you couldn't move at regular prices, too! The best strategy would be to offer 20% off of select items at the beginning of Black Friday, then 30% on Cyber Monday.

This way, shoppers know they'll get the biggest discounts on your site during these times of the year.

7. Update Your Website’s Visuals

If you haven't already done so, now's the time to update your website's visuals to reflect what people should expect from holiday shopping.

You'll want to add in: festive colors (red and green), any relevant imagery (trees, gifts, wreath), and anything else that will reflect the spirit of the season.

Discounted prices might land your customers on your site but good visuals will keep them there. If you want to go the extra mile, consider updating your logo or website header image to reflect the season.

8. Leverage Digital Marketing

This is a great opportunity to drive traffic to your site in preparation for all of the holiday shopping by:

Offering discounts and incentives through social media and promoting must-have items on your site through email marketing campaigns

Generating hype with PR efforts such as blogger outreach, press releases, and engaging influencers who will spread awareness about your brand for free!

But as a business in the UK, you will hardly get to handle everything yourself.

Solution? Most small businesses trust UK digital marketing services from those who are in business for years - delivering top-notch results to clients backed by case studies.

Utilizing UK digital marketing services will increase the chances of you maximizing Black Friday efforts.

Digital marketing is a great way to stand out from the crowd and get more eyes on your site.

9. Have an Email Sign Up Form

The best way to take advantage of all these opportunities is to build your email list. This way, you'll have first dibs on offering discounts and deals directly to your subscribers during the next big shopping event!

Ensure that everyone who visits your site can see a prominent email sign-up form, and make sure to include a relevant call-to-action at the end of your emails.

Also, make it easy for potential subscribers to sign up by having an email signature with a link that goes directly to your signup page.

You can also execute an incentive right off the bat—offer your potential subscribers 20% off their first order.

Frequently Asked Questions About Black Friday E-Commerce Marketing

1) What is e-commerce Black Friday?

E-commerce Black Friday is the phenomenon of sales on large merchants' websites that are featured around Thanksgiving. The sales are designed to reflect consumer demand as it relates to holiday shopping, which results in a flood of traffic on Black Friday.

2) What is the Black Friday marketing strategy?

Black Friday is a marketing event created by retailers and not a holiday. Retailers use the term to create hype and attention around their sales that occur on a specific day.

3) How do I prepare for Black Friday e-commerce sales?

The first step to preparing your e-commerce business for Black Friday is to create a shopping strategy. This will give you an idea of what products to put on sale, how to display them in your store, and when to discount.

4) When should you start marketing for Black Friday?

Black Friday has evolved into a marketing event in and of itself, separate from the holiday shopping season. To attract more customers to your site, it’s best to start marketing at least eight weeks in advance of Black Friday.

Conclusion:

Make sure your site is set up to handle the traffic that Black Friday will bring. The last thing you want is for people to go to your site and not be able to check out because your server can’t handle the number of users on it!

Additionally, if you want to stand out from the crowd, consider leveraging digital marketing strategies - best is to hire credible digital marketing services in UK to save your time and investment.

Promote your site through social media outlets and use email marketing to reach customers who haven't shopped with you yet.

Don’t forget to give customers an incentive to buy from your store!

So, offer an exclusive discount for the holiday shopping season to get them excited about your site, and make sure that incentive is visible from where they land on your site.

Lastly, make sure that if you already have a list of subscribers, use the holiday shopping season to rally them to buy from you again.

By VROX Content Team - 21 Oct 2021