Black Friday Seller’s Guide

In about a month we will have Black Friday and Cyber Monday, coming with opportunities for your online store or physical store to increase sales. With this guide that we will review, we will be able to find how to make the most of the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday (BFCM), as well as find the best customer experience, while maximizing the income of your business with strategies and techniques.

What is Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

They are one of the biggest shopping events of the year, starting from the Friday after Thanksgiving, and then this weekend having Cyber Monday. It can be seen that sales during the week of BFCM in the past year exceeded $100 billion when Cyber Monday arrived, on Black Friday 2021 sales were over $8.9 billion, with a drop of 1% compared to 2020, however, it is estimated that this year after the pandemic, sales may increase.

How to use BFCM to promote and increase sales

You must be prepared no matter what products you offer in your business, you must take advantage of them in order to offer the best experience to your customers. Also, online stores should be prepared in advance, so you can organize the products that will go on sale in the season, as well as the prices and what kind of marketing campaigns benefit you and what you want to use.

It’s a good idea to start building email marketing lists and the technology you’ll want to use for campaigns, as well as advance social media posts, offers, and all the content and ads you want to post to your customers; also adding relevant content to each website under management is important to be prepared and not waste time.

Ecommerce vs. in-person shopping

Many times in the news we can see the madness of Black Friday since the purchases are big and can create riots, for this reason e-commerce is a great idea for buyers and sellers, there were around 88 million buyers doing their purchases in online in 2021, compared to 66.5 million who did so in person at a physical point.

However, the experience of being able to see and touch a product before buying it is still very important, you can have a very flattering option for merchants who have both an online store and a physical store, they can give their buyers the option of buying online. line and pick up at the physical point.

If you have an online and physical store, it’s important to be able to merge shopping online and shopping in person.

What shoppers expect from BFCM

It is taken into account that expectations have been formed for quite some time since Black Friday dates back to the 1950s and it is important to know some concepts:

Sales

Using promotions you can set up a discount, it is not necessary that all your products are on discount, it can be only some specific ones, for example, some products or items, even a specific product category can be exempt from the sale and promotion. However, when it is announced that the sale is site-wide, the interest is much greater so that customers can review the products and choose from the offers that are available.

Coupons

This is a very easy way to encourage buyers and visitors to your website, many times they do strategies such as mystery codes where visitors click on a button or popup to reveal a code, which will have a discount code on the purchase, and you can also put a minimum and a maximum in the values of the products and purchases so as not to have losses.

Free shipping/Pick up in store

For example, we have Amazon and Walmart offer free shipping over certain dollar amounts, this is a very good strategy for your business especially on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which will make your site more competitive and not reduce the cost of the products.

In case you have a physical store, you can offer the option of collecting the products purchased online directly at the physical point to avoid shipping, for this you need to organize personnel and adequate space to carry out this activity.

Free gifts

A gift is also a good strategy, when a customer’s purchases have a fixed amount in their price, you can offer a gift of their choice, usually they can be low-cost products, or even gift cards that they can use then or even cash rewards.

How to communicate BFCM events for your business

It is important to know when the offers are announced, as well as the planning of the strategies, it must be with a specific time to generate emotion in the buyers. You can announce that there will be special offers, but not give details, it is good to generate expectations without revealing everything and as the day approaches you can publish the offers.

Social media

Creating and publishing posts on social networks increases the excitement of the offers, you can use bright colors and striking images, likewise, you can encourage the publications to be shared, using hashtags, stories and news posts helps to reach more audience and in In case you choose to run ads on social media, you should use a firm budget.

Email marketing

With a newsletter and using an email list you can let your subscribers and customers know about Black Friday. You can make your emails more personal before Black Friday/Cyber Monday, you can also offer promotional codes to your subscribers when they finish shopping.

Word-of-mouth

Reviews and testimonials go a long way and are great for displaying on homepages or product pages, should you have a negative review you can best address it by responding to all concerns.

In-store advertising

You can use brochures, posters, among other things that attract attention in your physical store, this generates emotion in the buyers, and this can be done by arriving on the day or the same day of the promotions.

Have a game-plan for unexpected complications

Be vigilant and ready for any issues, for example, during BFCM it is known that servers can be overloaded and websites can go down, as well as slow performance, which can affect your sales.

Server downtime

You can use Pingdom to test your website for bugs and how to improve them.

Shipping delays

Due to some secondary effects of the pandemic, or natural disasters, including carrier delays, the impact of maximum volume, among other factors that can affect and delay shipments, you must be aware of these cases to give the information of this to your customers. 

Unhappy customers

The ideal is to be real with your customers, generate empathy and create the best brand message to overcome the problems that may arise.

Low inventory

It is important to mention and notify when a product is no longer in stock, especially for multi-channel sellers as this can greatly affect not only them but other sellers.

Other issues

Evaluating any other problems that may arise is important, especially for your type of products in your business, you can take a moment to review any obstacles that may arise and generate ideas to resolve these conflicts.

How to keep customers after BFCM

You can start by generating incentives, for example if they are first time purchases or anyone who signs up to receive your emails. On social media, make sure you have profiles on all the major platforms and then entice shoppers to follow you ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You can begin to come up with various strategies to keep customers after these important days and not lose momentum in attracting and keeping your customers.