With Black Friday approaching, online retailers have a major chance to capture new customers, reward loyal ones and significantly boost sales.
As consumer behaviour shifts, this shopping day remains one of the busiest and most important in the calendar. It’s not just about offering discounts, it’s about delivering an excellent experience too.
The difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Though often grouped together, Black Friday and Cyber Monday serve distinct roles in the ecommerce and customer service industry. Black Friday began as a largely physical-store event, now extended online. Cyber Monday, on the other hand, was conceived to drive online purchases after the holiday weekend and has evolved into a powerhouse ecommerce day.
How to get your store ready for Black Friday
Success on Black Friday isn’t just about big markdowns, it’s about getting your website, products and marketing assets ready across your whole ecommerce operation.
Key areas to focus on include:
Website & performance audit
In order for your customers to shop with ease, your website needs to be working at its best. Your site must load quickly, work smoothly on mobile, and be easy to navigate from start to finish. Slow speeds or confusing layouts can lose customers before checkout, especially during a time when they are trying to purchase something quickly and could be in a bit of a rush. Using tools such as Google’s Core Web Vitals to review loading time, interactivity and layout stability will ensure that your customers aren’t facing any issues when moving through the site and can complete their transaction with minimal interruptions. During this process is also recommended to remove any unused apps/plugins, compress images, tidy navigation and keep the experience streamlined.
Checkout & payment flow
Cart abandonment often spikes around the holidays as customers are faced with such a broad range of competition and irrational shopping habits. You can reduce friction by supporting guest checkout, stored preferences, and one-click options whilst also offering a variety of payment methods (digital wallets, “buy now pay later”) to meet customer expectations and allow them to follow through with their transaction easily. Even when on the go.
Mobile & cross-device testing
With mobile expected to drive over half of all ecommerce sales during the season, it’s vital to ensure your site’s mobile version is flawless. Every page, banner, product and image must fluidly adapt to different devices and browsers as your customers are coming from a range of different gadgets. When checking your mobile friendliness, you will need to check the whole customer journey, from the moment they land on your website to their product transaction.
Inventory & channel syncing
A deal loses its appeal when the item’s sold out by the time someone tries to buy. Forecast demand using previous years’ data, align sales channels in real-time and set up “back in stock” alerts to recapture missed potential. One of the last things you want when it comes to Black Friday is for your stock to not be accurate or tracked properly and to invest in areas where you might not actually have the demand.
Customer support
Black Friday peaks can stress even prepared support teams as you have such a high amount of questions, queries, orders and possible cancellations flooding in. Every ecommerce business should have sufficient staffing, live chat availability, and trained staff for complex queries which can’t be handled with AI. Using chatbots can massively assist with basic questions; however, it’s still important to have additional human support where needed.
Marketing tips for Black Friday
Email marketing & SMS Campaigns
Get ahead with promotions by launching teaser emails, sneak peeks and personalised recommendations before the rush hits. To make these campaigns even more effective, you can segment your audience based on behaviour to ensure you are targeting products or collections which they know they interact well with. These marketing campaigns can then also be used to implement automated follow-ups like abandoned cart reminders to push your customer to make that final action.
Social media marketing
Social channels are vital for product discovery, research and final purchase decisions, especially during seasonal periods where there is such a high amount of gifting going on. By using compelling content (videos, reels, UGC) to build hype around your brand, you ar enot only bringing more customers in, but are also presenting items in a unique and more interactive way. Many ecommerce brands will also invest more budget into collaborating with influencers that match your brand voice to reach broader audiences and build a more trustworthy profile.
Implementing a sense of urgency
Shoppers look for both deals and uniqueness when shopping online. Due to the sheer amount of online competitors, you have to be able to offer your customers something that stands out. Strategies include incorporating countdown timers, limited-time access, exclusive codes, bundles or limited-edition items. These then inflict a sense of urgency amongst your customers as they will feel as though if they wait any longer, they would be missing out on a great deal.
Automated retargeting
Not everyone converts on the first visit, so using marketing automation to re-engage visitors who browsed but did not buy is an easy way to connect with someone you know was previously interested in your product or service. This can include showing them what they recently viewed, offering incentives or reminding them what’s at stake if they miss out on the chance to buy. These “nudges” can significantly improve conversions and are often cheaper and less time-consuming them acquiring brand new customers every time.
Seasonal SEO & on-site pop-ups
SEO plays a key role in driving traffic during Black Friday. Optimise your product pages and landing pages with seasonal keywords like “Black Friday deals” or “holiday discounts,” and ensure your meta descriptions clearly highlight offers. Check that your site loads quickly, images are compressed, and all links work properly to avoid lost sales. Creating a dedicated Black Friday page and linking to it from your homepage or blog can also help search engines—and shoppers—find your deals more easily.
Ecommerce Website Design & Digital Marketing Services
Want to make this Black Friday your best ever yet? If so, you’re in the right place! Here at Imaginaire, we offer digital marketing services with a particular specialism for all things ecommerce. We help our clients succeed online through ecommerce web design services as well as a whole host of Black Friday focused marketing techniques.
Our clients include a vast range of companies, including those within the ecommerce industry. As well as designing websites, we’ve even designed packaging for our clients as well as social media campaigns, while creating monthly content marketing. So, as a company that’s familiar with all aspects of the ecommerce process, we can use our vast experience to supercharge your efforts this Black Friday.
Simply book your free consultation and we’ll get to work on devising a strategy tailored to your business. Or, drop us an email or call us on 0115 647 4153 to find out more about our work through the engineering, construction, jewellery, retail and luxury e-commerce sectors.
You can even get a free website review from our specialists. Just head over to our free website review page and we’ll take a look!
