Starting with Black Friday, Black Weekend or Cyber Monday up to the complete Black Week. Black Friday, which originally started as a single day, now spans an entire week or even an entire month. Over the past few years, Black Friday has developed into one of the biggest shopping events in the world and is getting bigger and bigger. The time of BFCM is not only crucial for increasing sales - new customers can be acquired, existing customers are encouraged to repurchase and sales increase.
Time to optimize your store
The right marketing, strong customer service, smooth shipping ー there are so many points that need to be considered in online retailing and often become a challenge, especially in high-turnover times. In addition, in the time of BFCM, the supply wave is getting longer, the marketing budget is bigger and price wars and competition are steadily increasing. But what good is such a reach to an online retailer if the store cannot withstand the rush? An online store serves as the primary point of contact ー the first impression that every customer gains of a company and accordingly decisive for or against a purchase.
According to statistics, on a BFCM weekend almost 80% buy in an online store that is still foreign to them - a huge opportunity to win some of them as new customers. However, this should not be clouded by the first impression. The store should be set up in the best possible way, be clearly laid out and, above all, withstand high traffic. After all, almost 89% of consumers change providers after a bad experience.
To make sure this doesn't happen, we'll show you where you can optimize your store to be in the best possible position for a successful Black Friday.
Technical Quick-Wins
Above all, it is important that your website is technically well positioned. This does not only include an optimized checkout process or well-prepared product pages. It is much more important that your store can withstand high traffic. No marketing campaign, no matter how good it is, will be of any use to you if the server or your store crashes or is overloaded. This is where Shopify Plus comes into play. If your store is expected to have high traffic, Shopify Plus offers you a stable and reliable store solution. After migrating or moving to Shopify Plus, some merchants have been able to significantly increase or even double their sales during the BFCM period.
Page Speed
In addition, it is important that the pages load quickly and the images used are displayed correctly. Because a page that takes forever to load, where only half of the content can be seen or is not even updated are not good prerequisites for being able to convince in the shopping marathon of many people. Deals and offers are comparable at most online retailers and are often not the decisive point for a purchase. It is important to set yourself up in the best possible technical way and to be convincing in this way. The product pages of your store should not take longer than 3 seconds to load ーso check your pages regularly in advance using Google PageSpeed to be able to optimize them in time.
User Experience
In the abundance of competitors, the store and user-friendliness are decisive for a purchase, in addition to prices and offers in the time of BFCM. User experience is therefore often the top priority in online stores. Improved navigation, the exact search for a product, the page layout, or the optimization of the loading speed of your store are all geared to the needs of the customer and allow an online purchase to be made conveniently and easily from home.
Mobile Optimization
We live in a world in which the majority of people are mobile, especially via smartphone and tablet. Whether it's quick research on the go, browsing a wide variety of websites and stores, or direct shopping via smartphone. To address the widest possible range of your target audience, your store should also be mobile accessible.
The themes of Shopify are all designed for smartphone, tablet and co. Nevertheless, you should note that the user-friendliness mobile is at least as given as it is the case via desktop. This includes navigation, readability, accessibility of buttons, size and fit of image content as well as the abundance of content.
Page layout
The layout of the homepage and product pages should also be well considered. Are the pages well structured, focused and can they be navigated clearly and easily? If too many images or keywords are used, pages can quickly become confusing. Think about what you want to show on the pages in any case, how you build them and make sure that you give all the necessary information in a way that is easy to understand, but as compact as possible.
You can also prepare corresponding landing pages for BFCM to display special offers, discounted products and promotions separately and make it much easier for customers to find what they are looking for. In combination with a gift guide, for example, you can also provide inspiration for possible Christmas gifts and encourage impulse purchases.
Checkout Process
The store withstands high traffic and the pages are optimized? Then the only thing missing in the last step is the checkout! Because even if the store has already convinced the customer up to this point, the checkout process is often the reason why the customer cancels the order process at the last minute. In order to avoid shopping cart abandonment as much as possible, you must also convince customers in the checkout process.
Because who does not know it: The searched article is found, available in the desired color and design and at a top price in the shopping cart. But to complete the purchase it takes half an eternity. Viele Klicks, viele Einwilligungen, viele Daten, die angegeben werden sollen und es wird unübersichtlich. Many have at the latest at this point lost the desire for the article and abandon the store.
.For this reason, your checkout process should be designed lean and uncomplicated. Just give your customers an overview of the products, the delivery times and most importantly, all the costs involved. The purchase itself should be completed in just a few clicks. The guest checkout option also often reduces order abandonment. Because also with regard to the data query applies: the less, the more customer-friendly. You should therefore only ask for the data that is really needed for the order, invoice and shipping as mandatory fields. Everything else should be provided for the customer to choose from.
Optimize your store and increase sales!
As you can see, you don't necessarily need the perfect marketing campaign to increase sales during Black Friday. In order for a purchase to be made, your store should primarily be in the best possible position. Only then does the right marketing strategy count to attract the attention of potential customers to your store.