It’s not a secret that people tend to spend more money online during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas than any other time of the year. These holiday season sales just keep increasing from year to year, and if compared to 2017, in 2018 online sales have increased by 19% during this period, counting $850 billion in total revenue.
One of the main reasons for big sales is Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. BFCM is the biggest sales event of the year which now affects almost every existing eCommerce shop. Last year BFCM grossed $20.5 billion, and November 26, 2018, aka Cyber Monday, is now determined as the biggest online shopping day ever in American history.
As for Shopify stores – according to Shopify’s report, they have processed over $1.5 billion in total sales during BFCM 2018’s sale, having 10,978 orders per minute and $37 million sales per hour at their peak, which is 60.9% more than previous BFCM 2017’s $23 million sales per hour.
The secret of their sales success is the marketing they did before the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales. So how can your online store run a successful BFCM sale this year? Check out these easy and effective ways to get your Shopify store ready for this year’s BFCM sales that will help you manage your store’s promotion, get the attention of sales and discounts hunters and holiday shoppers, leading you to make great revenue.
7 Ways to Get Your Shopify Store Ready for BFCM 2019:
1. Spread the Word About Your Store’s BFCM Deals
The first step to get your customers’ attention is to inform them about upcoming discounts and awesome deals on your website by sending out emails to them. During last year’s BFCM sale, Shopify store owners noticed higher conversion rates from their email marketing. So this year it’s more likely that email marketing will play an even more important role in the success of most sales. Every online store owner needs to launch a few email marketing campaigns in order to bring more customers to their website.
So now it’s time to begin planning, creating, scheduling and launching the email campaign about your BFCM deals. Timing is everything. Send an email now, and send another one when the promotion will actually start. It’s better to create separate email campaigns for different segments of your customers. Not all customers are the same and have different wants and needs. Share your upcoming promotions sneak-peek to tease your customers with hints on your deals, discounts and exclusive products.
2. Retarget Old Visitors and Customers
When you retarget your website’s past visitors, it gives you an opportunity to reach those customers that may have forgotten about your shop and otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to see your sales deals. Use Growave’s automated emails feature as a reminder to your past visitors and customers to check out the items that they’ve previously liked and added to the wishlist but never actually bought it. Those emails help you turn your one time visitors into customers. Also this month we’ve upgraded Wishlist’s page design, and you and your customers will definitely love it.
You can also retarget those customers that have previously purchased items from your store. It’s much easier to reach out and market to existing customers that already had an experience with your brand rather than new customers. Those customers who already had a relationship with you and your shop are more open and excited to hear about your Black Friday Cyber Monday sales.
3. Hire Additional Staff
It’s important to make sure that your online shop is ready for increased customers’ demand because you might need to hire additional staff during those crazy 4 days of sales. Managing all of the orders fulfillment and shipping will become more difficult, as the amount of customers and orders is several times more during BFCM sales. Probably the worst thing that could happen to you as an online business owner during BFCM is losing sales opportunities because you wouldn’t be able to meet all your customers’ needs and demands. So measure your current team’s capacity and if you feel like you need more manpower – it’s time to take care of it.
And if you work with separate suppliers or shipping companies you should contact them now and make sure that they are ready for high demand and big amount of orders at once.
4. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
During 4 days of BFCM sales in 2017 and 2018 Shopify stores noticed more purchases made from mobile than desktop. The trend for BFCM mobile shopping seems to constantly grow from year to year, and probably this trend will continue this year, meaning that all Shopify stores need to prepare for a huge amount of mobile shoppers.
As we know all of Shopify’s themes are mobile-friendly. And there is also a lot of apps that can help your website with AMP. Check if your website is mobile-friendly here, as mobile users will bring huge sales this year.
5. Test and Improve Your Website Performance
The sudden growth of traffic may occur excessive simultaneous website requests, and your online store might bog down or crash your website. Not all stores have the capacity to handle a surge in traffic, in fact, 1 in every 5 shopping carts are left abandoned because of the website crash. So it’s a good idea to ensure that your host can handle a spike in traffic.
Test the server load capacity of your store on Load Impact or other tools to ensure that your website can handle traffic growth. It will help you to measure the current gap between customer demands and your website’s capacity to reliably and consistently meet those demands.
6. Up-sell and Cross-sell Related Products
It’s easier to sell more products to a customer who is already on your shop’s website by up-selling and cross-selling. Especially during BFCM sales, when customers are hunting for package deals for a better price. Cross-sell by suggesting similar products before the checkout or create combos of 3-4 related products that go well together and offer a discount for the whole package. Up-sell by suggesting more expensive products to your customers, but remember the rule of 25. The rule is not to suggest your customers purchase a product that is 25% more expensive than the original product that they were intended to buy. It’s better to avoid any useless recommendations for your customers.
7. Give a VIP Treatment to Top and Loyal Customers
Your loyal customers bring you the most revenue. Usually, it’s 10 times more during the lifetime, than a regular customer, so it’s important to show them that you care and treat them differently. And BFCM is a great opportunity to offer value to your top customers and increase sales on your online store. What types of extra treatment you can provide? It can be a percentage-based or dollar value discounts, complimentary gift or free shipping on all orders.
It’s not a secret that people love discounts and rewards, so consider designing Rewards and Loyalty Programs, as they let you reward your customers and motivate them to like and promote your brand, to repeat purchases and to increase their customer lifetime value. This month Growave is launching new features like Reward Analytics and Notifications, helping you to analyze your customers’ shopping behavior and drive more action by suggesting to redeem their rewards on the cart page.
Get a great deal yourself!
You should also remember that BFCM it’s not only a great opportunity for you to offer discounts and make more sales as a Shopify store owner. You can get a great deal yourself, as StilyoApps made this list of amazing deals and opportunities for Shopify apps and services, especially for you, for BFCM.
And if you are still not sure which Shopify app would fit your online store the best, PluginHive has done research on the best Shopify Apps based on the most important features required for a Shopify store and created a list the Best Shopify Apps. Check it out and choose the best apps for your store.
Conclusion
If you want your online store to succeed during this upcoming BFCM season, then your work starts now. It takes quite a time to prepare your website, plan and manage promotions and attract as many customers as you can, but in the end, it will help you get the most out of the holiday shopping season. It’s a great opportunity to raise your brand’s awareness and make lots of money on sales. Hopefully, this article will help you with your campaigns. Happy BFCM Sales!