Black Friday and Cyber Monday have become some of the most popular shopping extravaganzas for buyers and sellers. It is that time of the year that consumers save for all year. Now with tremendous development in the online shopping experience, this trend continues to escalate more and more each year. This makes it the best opportunity to increases sales and revenue for e-commerce businesses.
As per stats collected by Software giant Adobe, Black Friday sales last year alone were $3.34 billion on online shopping venues. Add Cyber Monday to this, and the number increases even more. This means that if you are an online business venture, this is your time to flourish!
So what can you do to prepare your e-commerce store for the upcoming Black Friday Sale season? Here are 5 ideas for you.
1. Provide Information in Advance
Did you know that buyers start looking for offers as early as the middle of October? This is a hint for you. The sooner you release your plans for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the more you will be able to capture the attention of your target audience.
From email subscriptions to SMS alerts, reminders through pokes on Facebook to adverts running on other websites, you can shout to the world how and what you will be offering this sale season.
One creative way to stand out is to let your customers make their shopping plans with you. Either provide them some gift ideas or allow them to create a cart on your e-commerce website. This way, more and more people will start visiting your site from October onwards.
2. Prepare for Mobile Shopping
This is something that simply cannot be considered a side plan. It needs to be a significant investment. If your e-commerce business store does not already have an app of its own, then you are missing out on a vast market.
Records show that 53% of all orders placed last year on Thanksgiving Day were from mobile devices. This clearly indicates that this year, use of mobile devices for shopping will only be higher.
One more thing that you need to pay attention to increase mobile revenue is to offer one-click purchase options. You should also consider improved navigation around the website and high uploading speed. If you haven’t already done this, then you need to pay attention to this now!
3. Social Media is Your Most Reliable Aid
You already know that this is the age of social media. If your online presence is weak, you most probably be left behind in the game of sales this Black Friday. You should spend both time and money in social media marketing as that is going to get you some of your surest customers. Get active on all social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and others to let the audience know just how you plan to benefit them this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
4. Tailored Shopping Experience
This may seem like a relatively difficult thing to do, but it is something that customers expect from their favorite e-commerce websites. If you don’t offer great user experience, your competitors will. So give your visitors a personalized experience where they get to see deals that cater to their needs. The more efficiently engaged they are, the more likely they will check out. Sales increase? Check!
5. 24/7 Availability
Customers don’t need humans sitting behind screens, they need access to sellers who are present at all times of day and the night. This means that you need to automate the system as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that people prefer communicating with e-commerce sites through messages rather than emails since they just don’t have time for that. This simply refers to the concept of bots taking over.
Get Chatbot software which gives way to a personalized experience through the chat box. You can search for more information about this software and get it for your commerce store as soon as possible. You will be surprised by how well your target audience reacts to it.
So have you implemented any of the plans mentioned above? If no, then you need to do it before 2017 black friday sales, and Cyber Monday are upon you! Good luck.