Black Friday is an annual celebration dedicated to shopping lovers. Although until recently, this sales campaign was associated mainly with the American market and long queues in stationary shops, a significant change has been visible for a few years. Offers available in online shops are becoming increasingly popular. How to prepare for this day, so that our e-commerce can also generate profits at a satisfactory level?
Will this year’s Black Friday be popular?
This year’s sale campaign in connection with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic may prove even more interesting for buyers. According to research conducted by Domodi, this year 47% of consumers already know that they will take part in the Black Friday, while 43% remain undecided about it. Only 10% of those surveyed declared that they are not interested in Black Friday shopping opportunities.
Buyers are mainly attracted by low prices, discounts, the possibility to buy more things and free deliveries. Among the benefits mentioned in the study, the respondents also indicated the option of buying branded items at attractive prices. How long do you think Black Friday should last? For 51% of the respondents, the optimum duration of the sales campaign is a weekend, for 36%, the ideal period is a week, and for 6% of the respondents, one day is enough.
What is essential, as much as 55% of the respondents admitted that every year their purchasing activity during the Black Friday was focused mainly on online activities. Despite the situation related to the pandemic, as many as 73% of respondents declared that this year their shopping habits related to Black Friday would not change. The most famous shopping categories include clothing and footwear, cosmetics and home furnishings. Other places are occupied by consumer electronics, household appliances and other electronics.
So how do you prepare the online shop for Black Friday?
1. Assortment selection
Start your preparations for Black Friday by selecting the products that will be discounted. Decisions should be based on an analysis of shopping preferences of people who visit your e-shop, market trends and profitability calculations. As e-commerce owners, we must remember that Black Friday promotions, like any other, must be profitable.
2. Choice of communication channels
The primary place to communicate with customers and provide them with information about Black Friday discounts is the online shop. So prepare a dedicated information banner for the occasion and add a select category “Black Friday” or “Sale” to the menu, where you can place all products included in the promotion. This will make it easier for customers to find the products they are interested in and the chance to complete the transaction will increase.
Support these activities with an information campaign on social media. Publish regular posts about the upcoming sale, which will put your fans in a wait-and-see mood. You can also create a Facebook event and encourage your fans to join and share information with others. Make it clear in the posts that the number of products on sale is limited. This will encourage customers to shop.
Remember that Black Friday is also an ideal opportunity to expand your mailing base. If someone decides to leave you their contact details, promise privileges – priority to information about the sale or more significant discounts. Allow your customers to subscribe directly to the home page of the online shop via pop-up or on the landing page specially prepared for this occasion.
Remember also that you can support promotional activities with paid advertising campaigns. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are ideal for this role.
3. Content creation
The effectiveness of the promotional campaign is also determined by appropriate preparation of the content and graphic design. So take care of visually coherent materials, comprehensive product descriptions and good quality photographs. People who will visit your e-shop must have easy access to information on shipping costs, availability of goods or forms of payment.
4. Monitoring and analysis
After the launch of the promotional campaign for Black Friday, monitor the effects. Verify which channels of communication work best and engage your audience the most. In these areas, you can step up your efforts to reach an even larger audience. Statistics will be helpful in this regard. Both those available in Google Analytics and individual on social media.
5. Efficient shipment organisation
Black Friday means a time of increased work. More traffic in the e-shop, more enquiries, more orders. You need to prepare yourself for this and provide the right amount of staff. Remember to stock your online shop in advance and to test the service for increased traffic. Efficient organisation of shipments or communication with customers is equally important.