How To Make Your Product Stand Out with 15 Black Friday Strategies in E-commerce
Every year retailers and buyers are impatiently waiting for this special November day – Black Friday. Clients can find discounts for products in literary every category – from electronics, clothes, and toys to tickets or workshops. On the other hand, retailers outdo each other in special offers ideas to reach as many potential clients as possible. Creativity is a must when it comes to attracting customers. However, proper pricing & promotion strategies are as much important as outstanding marketing concepts.
In this article, we will discuss in detail what Black Friday really means and how to prepare to draw clients’ attention and maximize November’s profit.
Black Friday – what’s that?
Simply put, Black Friday is a shopping spree day. Every year shortly after Thanksgiving special offers start. The first mentions of Black Friday appeared in the 1960s, but the tradition survived and evolved to the present day. Dozens of people hold on to their purchases to pick up a Black Friday bargain, and buy as many products as possible, both online and offline. In 2022 Black Friday falls on November 25th.
For retailers, Black Friday means a time of harvest, but also a great effort. On the one hand, increased interest in buying may be highly-profitable, on the other – the competition is fierce and merciless. Even a small mistake may bring a financial loss. That’s why you should always prepare in advance and employ the best strategies for your Black Friday sales. In this article, we will help you to prepare your Black Friday plan step by step.
Black Friday or Cyber Monday? – differences and similarities
Before we jump to the e-commerce strategies for Black Friday, let’s briefly explain what Cyber Monday is. In a nutshell, Cyber Monday is a Black Friday counterpart for e-commerce. While Black Friday focuses on both online and offline sales channels, Cyber Monday is mostly targeted at e-commerce merchandising. According to the latest reports though, customers are more likely to buy electronic devices on Black Friday, and clothing and accessories on Cyber Monday.
Either way, e-shop owners should prepare themselves for a long-run sale in November.
Black Friday in numbers
Even though Black Friday has a long marketing history, the real “Black Friday’s boom” kicked off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns forced consumers to start buying online which caused an exceptional increase in e-commerce traffic. The results may be seen in 2020 Black Friday statistics. According to Shoper’s reports, transaction value in 2020 increased by 53% compared to the previous year. Moreover, as stated by Blue Media, the total transaction value during the Black Week shopping spree in 2020 increased by a whopping 91,5% compared to 2019.
Consequently, in 2020 total sales values (depending on the industry) on Black Friday multiplied by 2-3 times. Also, according to Shoper’s reports, the Black Friday transaction value noted on their platform increased by 154%, and the sales value – by 161%.
Although the pandemic disturbances seem to be over, a huge number of consumers continue buying in online shops and are willing to take part in Black Friday bargain-hunting. For instance, in Poland, up to 75% of customers plan their purchases on Black Week.
However, 2021 was the first year retailers were faced with a decrease in sales. According to Adobe reports, Black Friday brought 1.3% less income than in 2020, and Cyber Monday sales dropped by 1.4%.
And what about the prices?
As retailers are tempting clients with enormous discounts, reports show contrary results. According to Deloitte and Dealavo’s survey, in 2021 the average price decrease of the analyzed products amounted to … 3,6%. Even though buyers might have found double-figured promotions, they referred to one flagship product only.
The highest discounts were offered in the gaming industry where some promotions reached 20%. Noticeable discounts might be found in the beauty industry as well as in electronic device offers. Surprisingly, one-third of the analyzed products had a higher price compared to the pre-Black Friday offer, and 20% of commodities kept the price. The highest price decrease amounted to 36%.
As Deloitte experts claim, 68% of product prices were higher than in 2020. This situation though may be mainly caused by a general economic crisis, growing inflation rates, and supply chain disruptions.
15 Black Friday strategies for e-commerce retailers
Inform your clients first
If you want your clients to intensify their purchases in your e-store, inform them about your special offer. You can use Social Media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, but don’t forget about your mailing lists. Contact your best clients to offer them special gift cards, discounts, or coupons. You can also create special “VIP” offers to increase brand loyalty.
The sooner you reach out to your customers, the better. It will also give them time to check your offer and pick more items to buy.
Make SEO and SEM adjustments
Social Media is an enormous, yet limited sales channel. To make sure you will target the proper client sector, prepare your website upfront. Of course, you should check your SEO&SEM activities daily, but during Black Friday, shopping spree search engine optimization is a must.
Revise keywords, verify Google Ads strategies, and launch new marketing campaigns as soon as possible. Make sure your store displays on the first page of Google search – you will see the results immediately.
Improve your website
There is nothing worse than investing time and money in pre-Black Friday marketing and forgetting about the website. Why? Imagine that you put an effort to redirect clients to your e-shop and your website crashes due to excessive web traffic. That may cost you not only money but also your clients’ trust.
To prevent such a situation, prepare your website first. Check the servers, contact your e-commerce platform provider, and if necessary – double-check third-party apps and services. You should also consider making corrections within the website – improve the navigation, so your clients will not feel lost or confused when searching for products. If possible, try to implement a one-click purchase option, to make the customer journey as easy as possible.
In other words – take every possible step to improve your site performance.
Don’t forget about price monitoring
E-commerce is an extremely changeable environment. Under normal circumstances, the prices may fluctuate even a few times a day. However, in the Black Friday – Cyber Monday period retailers should expect the unexpected.
That is why if you want to make a profit at that time, price tracking is essential. However, manual price monitoring is highly time-consuming and prone to human error. If you’d like to eliminate mistakes in setting prices and become a leader in your branch, we highly recommend you use a price tracking tool, such as Dealavo.
To stay competitive, online stores have to be well-informed about the market situation. Thanks to competitor price monitoring software, you can implement the best e-commerce pricing strategy on your website, and win using marked-based pricing on any occasion.
With Dealavo you will be constantly informed about competitors’ price reductions and their promotional activities.
Find out more: Best price monitoring software you need to compare in 2022.
Special offers will increase click rate and create a sense of urgency
Let’s say you’ve taken care of the pre-sales strategy and improved site performance. However, if you’d like to extend the conversion rate to the maximum, you need customers to visit your store more than once. How to achieve that?
It’s easy – launch time-limited offers. Make sure your clients will be surprised with promotions every one to two hours, and your CR will skyrocket. However, easier said than done, especially if you don’t use any automated pricing software. To manage your prices effectively aim to price monitoring software with the Dynamic Pricing feature.
Dynamic Pricing is a pricing strategy in which prices are changed based on predefined rules and market conditions. Dynamic pricing (also referred to as repricing), is an increasingly frequent solution in e-commerce. More and more online stores use dynamic pricing software to fully use their margin potential.
To find out more about repricing rules, click here.
Not only does the price matter
It’s obvious that on Black Friday the cheapest product wins. However, it’s not the only way to attract your potential clients. Use various incentives: coupons, cashback, or gift cards.
You can also encourage your customers to more purchase by using cross-selling techniques.
Finally, remember about the delivery. Tempting prices with high delivery costs may discourage many buyers. That’s why it’s good to provide free shipping or delivery for your clients.
Turn on your clients to brands beforehand
People buy with their eyes. Of course, when it comes to making a purchase decision usually a low price is a crucial factor, but customers tend to buy products they are attracted to or intrigued by. Make sure your marketing will meet their needs. Make it visual, make it curious.
But make what? Which product should you promote?
There are a few ways to choose to proper product to promote. Firstly, check your sales reports – which products are the most popular ones. Yet, it’s not all. There is a chance that your competitor offers exactly the same item as you or- on the other hand – that some profitable commodities are not available in their store. That knowledge would give you the opportunity to expand the product range, supply inventory, and – as a result – stand out from your competition. This information and much more you find in our Competitor’s Assortment Report.
Extend promotion time
Thanks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, November is an as hectic month for retailers. Customers can wait even a year just to pick up a Black Friday bargain and finalize the purchase. However, experienced retailers know that it’s not the end. The upcoming Christmas season makes a great opportunity to increase your sales and make a significant profit.
Last but not least, not everyone wants to take part in Black Friday shopping madness. Think in advance of the potential customers that may be interested in your offer, but are a bit skeptical or simply don’t like Black Friday fuss. Target them with post-promotion… promotion. It’s a win-win solution for both sides: retailers and customers.
Use omnichannel marketing
As a retailer, you probably use multiple platforms, apps, or websites to promote and sell your product. But did you know that also your customers check and compare multiple channels before making a purchase? Therefore, you should always try to create a unique and consistent brand experience for customers across different touchpoints.
A proper omnichannel marketing strategy will not only maximize your ROI but also strengthen customer loyalty.
Nevertheless, managing omnichannel sales requires the right software assistance. With Dealavo omnichannel price monitoring is not a problem. We’ll help you control and verify your pricing strategies on various channels to boost your sales rate and competitiveness.
Find out more: Omnichannel strategy for e-commerce.
Lower prices, but keep the margin
Under normal circumstances, a 15% or even 20% discount seems to be a bargain. Unfortunately, when it comes to Black Friday more decisive steps are needed. At that time customers are looking for something they cannot have every day, something special. That’s why to meet their needs retailers often offer excessive discounts of up to 40 or 50%. This may attract new clients, but also lead to a financial loss. Many e-shops have attractive offers from the consumer’s point of view but not when you’re looking at the margins.
With a price monitoring tool though you are able to monitor prices and control margins. In practice that gives you a chance to find a product you can sell cheaper, yet still, make a profit.
Contact us to find out more about Dealavo’s solutions.
Rescue abandoned shopping baskets and cards
On Black Friday customers’ decisions often change rapidly. Due to numerous promotions, your clients will be probably driven by impulsive buying. In practice, this variability of the decision-making process means that plenty of shopping baskets and cards will be abandoned in the middle of the customer journey. This may drop your conversion rates as well as decrease your profit. For that reason, use e-mail marketing or Messenger to remind your clients of unfinished shopping.
Be mobile-friendly
According to various research, even 40% of total purchases are made on a smartphone. Therefore, while improving the site’s performance don’t forget about its mobile version. To accelerate mobile speed make products’ images lighter and enlarge the font. Also, advertising pop-ups may look good on your website, but never in the mobile view – remember to eliminate them. What’s more, change the button size and its placement, especially when it comes to a one-click purchase. Make the mobile view and the customer journey as smooth and unproblematic as possible.
Automate your e-store
Black Friday Increased promotion offers, as well as website traffic, means you need to manage large data sets. Handling them manually is not only time-consuming but also risky and may cause many human errors.
Retailers who like to sell more on a daily basis or increase their sales rates during Black Friday should always consider implementing automatic solutions to their business. You can automate many sectors – from updating stock levels, pricing updates, or integrations to customer service. During Black Friday season think about using chatbots as well as price automation tools. Pricing automation with the help of price rules and AI can increase profit even by 50%, as demonstrated in the case of a client from the sanitary fittings industry. Your company can also benefit from these solutions.
Read more: How to use business process automation in e-commerce?
Monitor inventory levels
If all your efforts work out, your sales rate increases remarkably. However, as customers’ behavior on Black Friday may be unpredictable you cannot fully anticipate the results. Price tracking is the first step to monitoring changes in the market, but you also need to pay attention to your and your competitors’ stock levels. This will give you a chance to react properly in case of sudden or unexpected product shortages on both sides. Analyze and optimize your assortment constantly to make sure your store will succeed.
Implementing inventory management software along with a price monitoring tool will help your business grow and stand out from the competitors.
With Dealavo we guarantee you accurate and high-quality data that gives you an in-depth analysis of the current market situation. Check our Competitors’ Assortment Report and Dynamic Pricing to overtake competitors.
Always examine your strategies beforehand
Every theory put into practice must be verified. That also concerns e-commerce. Even though you may have a vast knowledge of pricing and marketing strategies, and you may even find “the one” it doesn’t mean your choice will work perfectly. Don’t be afraid to check various options. Implement, evaluate, and change them if needed before you go live.
Read more: Pricing strategies in e-commerce.
Summary
Black Friday is truly a big day for e-commerce retailers. However, along with great merchandising prospects comes a risk of missing them. We are certain though that with the tips listed above you will be well-prepared and ready to take advantage of Blac Friday’s opportunity.
How are going Black Friday statistics look like in 2022? We’ll find out in December. Articles with detailed data will be also available on our website.