How to Prepare for Black Friday Success

18/10/2024

For ecommerce businesses, Black Friday is the most anticipated shopping event of the year. It's the perfect opportunity to increase traffic, increase sales, and attract some new customers. Therefore, it's crucial to be as prepared as possible, as your users will expect unbeatable deals, a smooth website performance, and an excellent user experience. Here's how to get your ecommerce website ready to make the most of Black Friday.

What is Black Friday?

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, marks the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season. The first Black Friday was in the 1960s, it became known as a day when retailers would offer significant discounts to attract shoppers. For some, Black Friday will still conjure up images of long queues and crazy shoppers fighting over TV's in brick and mortar shops. However, today, Black Friday has also evolved into a global online phenomenon, extending beyond just one day to include Cyber Monday and some retailers even extend their sales for an entire week or month. Online shopping has brought this experience to a new level, where ecommerce websites can capitalise on the excitement.

1. Start Early

Although Black Friday is traditionally a single day, consumers have come to expect deals that extend over the entire weekend, through Cyber Monday, and even into the following week. To make the most of this, it's best to start building anticipation early. One way to do this is through email marketing, which you could start 1–2 weeks before Black Friday with teaser emails to alert your customers about your great upcoming deals. Then a second wave of emails the day before, or early on Black Friday morning will help to ensure you’re in the front of your customers' minds.

2. Optimise your Website for Speed and High Traffic

Excellent website performance is essential. If you have built enough anticipation then you're likely to experience a surge in traffic to your website on Black Friday. While this is great, if your site crashes then it's useless! Also optimising your website speed is crucial as a slow-loading website can quickly annoy your users and lead to high bounce rates. Try compressing large images, minimising code and caching content. Having these measures in place will improve your website's performance and keep your users happy. 

3. Create a Sense of Urgency and Scarcity

Creating urgency and is one of the most effective ways to drive sales and consumers feel more pressure to buy the things they want as quickly as possible the scarcer something is perceived to be. Emphasising time-sensitive deals and the limited quantity of stock has a powerful effect on users, making them feel as though “I might never have this chance again.” You can consider using countdown timers on your site or in emails to remind shoppers that stock is running low and that the offers aren't available for long. 

4. Set Up Abandoned Cart Emails

Abandoned cart emails can work hand-in-hand with creating a sense of urgency and are one of the most effective ways to recover lost sales. By reaching out to customers who have items left in their cart, you can remind them to complete their purchase before the offers end!