The essential ecommerce manager's guide for Black Friday

The golden quarter is approaching in the world of merchants and like a good ecommerce manager you already have a key date on your calendar: Black Friday. The first tip in our guide: start early and make a plan.

We always know it will come. But still, every year we get stressed and prepare for this day perhaps too late. It is not uncommon to get stressed over important occasions like this, but you have to keep a cool head and prepare for any situation. This day has to be perfect, since Black Friday can make or break the year, for many digital businesses it is like that.

There are many different ways to conceive this day. Many companies celebrate the day, the week and some even the entire month, giving incredible deals and great discounts to their buyers.

On the other hand, companies like IKEA choose to focus on reuse and sustainability. So an important action is to identify how your business wants to approach this day.

Keep in mind that your client remembers better than you think. If you choose sustainability positioning one year and offer sales and other discounts the next year, you could become a victim of scrutiny of your company's values, which in turn could weaken the brand's reputation.

There are many success stories of companies adopting a more sustainable approach. But this is not the central topic of this post. In this article we will share an essential guide that, as an ecommerce manager, will help you prepare for Black Friday with less stress so you can achieve your goals more calmly.

Let's start!

Planning: the key to success

Planning is always the key to success. You don't want to discover at the last minute that you're missing content or that the products on sale are missing images or other important elements for your Black Friday campaigns.

Let's take a look at the most important areas when preparing for Black Friday. We review them below:

• Start preparations early
• Optimized landing pages
• Optimizations and technical audits
• Plan B (you always need to have a Plan B)
• Customer service
• Digital marketing
• Your own channels

Start preparation well in advance

The sooner you start preparing, the better. Start by creating a schedule of what needs to be done and when. When all tasks have been created, it is time to prioritize them and assign them to the appropriate resources.

Some important areas to clarify in advance:

• What products/services should be on offer?
• Ensure sufficient stock.
• Decide what your offers are.
• Should there be any offers for Black Days?
• Who needs to be informed and when?
• Estimate orders and products sold.
• What marketing materials do you need?
• Establish a marketing budget.
• Create a detailed schedule.

Landing Page Optimization

Most ecommerce sites experience a much higher number of active users during the week of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber ​​Monday. 

The last thing you want is for your online store to crash during the best Black Friday sales hours, so it's very important to optimize the most popular product pages and landing pages.

Ensure good loading times and images are compressed to reduce the impact on servers during high traffic times. Optimized pages are not only based on technical optimization. Make sure all your offers are easily found throughout the site and work with easy-to-use navigation.

At Orienteed, we have good experience in optimizing landing pages, product pages and in general the monitoring of all the pages of an online store, especially those that have a large volume of products, operate in several countries and are multi-currency, facing high traffic peaks during the season.

Technical preparation

Make sure the technical team is prepared for the expected traffic.

There are several adjustments that can be made to improve the performance of a website when you have a large number of visitors. Some examples are reducing the number of requests sent to different services, increasing caching, and as a backup measure, perhaps adding a queuing system.

Queuing systems have become a popular solution as an additional layer of security for any downtime.

If you see that your site has problems, you can activate the queue. Another benefit of the queue feature is that you can regulate how many users are on a certain page or service at the same time (e.g. checkout).

It's better for users to wait a couple of minutes than to have downtime and not get any sales. Very important to consider.

Always have a plan B

As an ecommerce manager you may already know this, no matter how much you prepare, there are certain things you just can't control.

What happens if a payment system fails or other external solutions you rely on stop working? You should always prepare for the worst case scenario and have a plan B.

Create content and copy in advance for quick updates on social media and the website if something goes wrong. Hopefully, you won't need this, but it's best to be prepared. This can also be reused year after year, so you'll be prepared if you're ever unlucky.

Keep customer service close

The first line of your business and the one closest to the customer is your customer service.

Create a direct line between you and customer service. So that information can be provided quickly and through two-way communication.

Customer service You're usually the first to know if something isn't working right on your site, like a call-to-action button that doesn't work or a product that can't be added to cart. Many small problems can be difficult to discover in other ways. Especially when you are in the middle of the season.

Digital marketing

Black Friday is probably the most expensive day to advertise. So you need to strategize how you should spend your BFCM marketing budget.

There are several ways to do this, but unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Many start promoting their offers weeks in advance because it is cheaper. But it's harder to stay relevant for a long time, and competitors can easily copy and respond to your ads. The closer Black Friday gets, the higher the price of the digital marketing.

This is something you should keep in mind.

We've seen many companies choose not to spend money on marketing on Black Friday itself, but you really have to make sure you're at the forefront of your users' minds and relevant in advance.

I have said before that clients remember more than we think, but in this case it is the opposite. Your customers are exposed to so much marketing material and great offers, that they can quickly forget about you and your offers. It is a very dangerous jungle.

Maximize the potential of your own channels

If you have an email list, make sure to create inspiring and interesting newsletters about your offers. This also applies to social media.

If your customers have subscribed to your newsletter or follow you on social networks, it means that they want to receive offers or news from you. Additionally, you may want to encourage them to share the news with their friends and family.

Black Friday is also a good time to collect email addresses for your newsletter. Before Black Friday, you could have information on your website or social media and tell them “sign up to be the first to receive the offer” or “stay up to date with our offers” and encourage them to sign up by appealing to the benefits of early purchasing.

Optimize for mobile-first shopping

In the United States alone, most consumers spend between five and six hours on their phone per day, not including using the device for work. If your mobile ecommerce experience does not live up to what your customers demand, they will surely spend more time... in your competition's store.

While some customers still make online payments from a desktop and use mobile to browse, according to Shopify during Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday 2021, mobile transactions accounted for 71% of all sales, compared to 29% on desktop computers. Additionally, it is estimated that by 2025, 42% of all retail sales in the United States will be made rom mobile devices.

You can increase your probability of success in mobile shopping by improving website navigation and speed. Offering a better shopping experience, especially for users who prefer to do so from the palm of their hand.

Simplify the checkout process and review the abandoned cart rate

A poor user experience creates frustration. And these types of emotions generate abandoned carts. That's why we always say that frustration is the enemy of purchasing. Pay attention to the abandoned cart rate of your ecommerce. Can you imagine if you could convert at least half of those people? Your sales would surely increase significantly.

People often leave items in their cart for a reason. Maybe they use it as a wish list, were frustrated by the payment, or just weren't sold on the offer. Or, maybe they intended to buy and simply forgot.

Simplifying the purchasing process at checkout is a critical action if you want to improve sales. To boost impulse purchases during Black Friday, try to reduce the barriers to purchase from the product page to checkout. For example, one-click purchasing allows customers to purchase items with a single action, this can be much better than making too many clicks before checking out.

If you have the email address of potential customers, you have the opportunity to improve the abandoned cart rate. For example, automating a message that reminds the customer that the products they selected are still waiting to be purchased. Remember to prepare a friendly message in which you can also offer help with making the purchase.

Last but not least

Yes, the months and weeks leading up to Black Friday can be stressful. But don't forget to enjoy what may be the biggest and most fun day at work in all of business!

Remember that Black Friday is more or less a holiday for shoppers and you are responsible for their experience during this period.

Imagine it's some kind of surprise party for someone you really appreciate and want their day, week or month to be simply amazing.

Be creative, have fun and let the joy of great deals and promotions spread far and wide.

Good luck!