Black Friday Prep Plan for Online Stores
Is your online store ready for Black Friday? If not, then you should hurry up, because there is very little time left. Crazy promotions, discounts, and an influx of website visitors are no worse than on New Year's Eve ... Are you sure you are ready for this? Read on for our online shopping tips for a good Black Friday experience.
Top products for Black Friday
To begin with, let's determine what products are most in-demand on Black Friday? Traditionally, these are footwear and clothing, household appliances, household goods, toys, cosmetics. Usually, all these products have a short purchase cycle: come, see, buy. Categories such as furniture, jewelry, cars, etc. are not so popular on Black Friday, but still, if you think over the right sales strategy, then you can achieve success with this group of products.
Form a goal
It is very important on the threshold to determine why you need to participate in this "race for the buyer"? What is the ultimate goal? Both the strategy and the result depend on this. For example, if you want to sell off leftover goods, then reduce prices to the maximum, if the main goal is to return previous customers, organize an e-mail newsletter with a cool offer, use all possible channels to attract customers to increase traffic to the site, etc.
Identify your target audience
To formulate the tasks correctly, you need to determine for whom you are going to arrange your Black Friday? Create a unique selling proposition for a specific target audience and use different channels to reach each one.
Standard characteristics by which you can segment customers:
- demographic (gender, age, marital status);
- social (education, specialty, source and level of income);
- geographical (country, locality);
- psychological (values, attitude, lifestyle, interests).
Think over the promotion period
Determine in advance how long the promotions in your online store will last. Usually, Black Friday lasts for 3 days, but you can adjust the terms yourself, up to a week. It all depends on how many products you plan to sell. Remember your goals!
Define a discount system
Do not under any circumstances arrange a sale for all product groups. So you run the risk of being left without profit at all. Set discounts on highly profitable products with a higher than average markup. Their cost can be reduced and remain in the black.
Also, to form profitable discounts for you, pay attention to your competitors. In order not to flip through hundreds of web pages for hours, use the automatic price monitoring program Z-PRICE. With its help, you will define the market situation in just a few clicks and will be able to decide on your pricing policy.
Important: you do not need to deceive customers, as many stores do. Artificially inflating, and then sharply dropping prices is a bad form. In this case, the real discount will be no more than 5-10%. In addition, this will affect the reputation of the store, because regular customers know your prices.
Purchase the product in advance
Contact suppliers in advance and purchase the product, because your competitors are also likely preparing on Black Friday. We advise you to order exactly the products you are betting on the most.
Prepare your online store for high traffic and sales
To have a decent Black Friday, it is important to prepare your site for the influx of visitors. The following recommendations will help you:
- Remove all inaccessible pages and products that are out of stock.
- Add big, bright banners to your site with information about the Black Friday mega sale, and display the most promising products on the home page.
- For the duration of the promotion, change the design of the online store, it should be inviting, attractive, festive, add animation and video. Use bright contrasting colors: yellow, red, green.
- Add an up-to-date ordering mode. Due to the influx of buyers, this can be around-the-clock work of the sales department or an increase in the delivery time.
- Start a feedback block, it can be a chat or a call. Also, for the convenience of visitors, display the FAQ section on the main page with the most common questions and answers to them.
- Optimize the mobile version of the resource. Most potential buyers will visit the site via smartphones, and you shouldn't lose that audience.
- Check the loading speed of each page, it should be as fast as possible, otherwise, the visitor will simply leave the site without looking at the offer. A good option is to give the site to a programmer for audit, he will identify all the errors and eliminate them.
Pay attention to your social media
Social networks are now very popular, for sure your potential clients are there too. Take advantage of the moment! Black Friday is a great way to attract attention to yourself, prepare your pages for this. Here are some tips:
- Create a cool design: your page should sell. It is a good idea to place a bright banner on the cover with information about the upcoming sale.
- Create interesting and varied content. Don't just post about discounts. This can be reviews, polls, storytellings and useful articles for subscribers.
- Work to increase your reach. This can be achieved in a paid way by promoting specific publications or free of charge - guest posts in thematic groups. Contests work great in terms of which you need to share the post. This gives you great coverage practically free of charge. You will have to spend only on a gift to the winner.
How about without ads?
You can't do without advertising, everyone should know about your promotions and discounts! We advise you not to skimp and immediately contact the specialists. They will help you set up high-quality advertising campaigns that will bring results. The main channels for attracting site visitors are:
- contextual advertising;
- social media advertising;
- e-mail newsletters;
- advertising on third-party sites;
- advertising from popular bloggers;
And finally ... Do not postpone preparation for Black Friday, so you will have time to plan everything in detail and not miss anything. We wish you to succeed!