In the world of e-commerce, every day is full of opportunity, but one day stands head-and-shoulders above the rest: Black Friday. It’s not enough to make sure your e-commerce site is equipped to handle more traffic; it needs to be fully optimized to ensure you’re not missing out on the biggest shopping day of the year. Keep reading to find out exactly how to do that, and how to stay ahead of the competition.
In an increasingly competitive digital buying world, running an online business can be a challenge at the best of times, let alone, when COVID-19 is significantly impacting e-commerce businesses. Yet savvy businesses are adopting different tactics to encourage customers to buy more and more. These customer conversions don’t just happen; you need to optimize your e-commerce store well to make them happen.
The countdown to Black Friday has already begun Despite Covid-19 impacting all aspects of our lives — or perhaps because of it — this year’s Black Friday is expected to be bigger and more lucrative than last year’s record-setting edition. Don’t believe us?
Take a look at these Black Friday sales statistics:
- Black Friday 2019 saw over 93 million buyers shopping online.
- Black Friday 2019 sales hit $7.4 billion, an all-time high.
- Nearly 40% of shoppers made online purchases on Black Friday 2019 via phone.
With these stats in mind, it’s no wonder that e-commerce store owners are leveraging e-commerce 2020 trends and gearing their businesses up. Though businesses can easily adopt basic optimization practices, when it comes to advanced optimization, many are turning to an e-commerce web development agency that can professionally optimize their online store and help them take full advantage of Black Friday, resulting in increased conversions and sales.
8 Practical E-Commerce Site Optimization Tips To Boost Black Friday Sales
Optimize Your User Experience
Black Friday provides the perfect motivation to finally upgrade your load capacity, usability, and mobile-friendliness; optimized solutions that will help boost your customer base long after the holiday has come and gone.
User experience plays an integral role in any business, and e-commerce business is no exception. We recommend three key areas you should be focusing on: home page, product pages, and checkout page.
Re-Evaluate Your Sales Strategy
After optimizing your user experience, it’s time to outline your selling strategy for the Black Friday season. If your current strategy is to rely on discounting to bring in new customers, it’s time to think outside the box. There are various tactics to maximize the impact of your planned Black Friday campaign, like offering free shipping, exploiting FOMO, discounting only as needed, and more.
Go Mobile First
$2.9 billion worth of Black Friday sales happened through mobile phones in 2019, meaning shoppers are more likely than ever before to shop on their smartphones. That’s why you need to develop a mobile-first responsive website so that your e-commerce site can be easily accessed on mobile devices throughout the holiday season and beyond.
Your mobile site should be fast and easy to navigate. Optimize your images and web designs for mobile, making access and purchasing as easy and intuitive as possible.
Take Stock of Your Inventory
Customer demand is only lucrative if you have the supply to match it. When sales are at their peak, you can’t afford to run out of inventory. Choosing the right e-commerce platform can make all the difference.
Make sure you’re using an eCommerce solution that is reliable, scalable, and fast, such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Lightspeed, or OpenCart, so that your store is updated immediately when a product sells out, and you know even sooner.
Check Your Checkout Process
Particularly during the holiday season, online buyers have thousands of e-commerce options to choose from. It would be best if you don’t give them a reason to skip your site in favor of your competitors. One such reason could be the checkout process. Did you know that e-commerce brands lose approx $18 billion in sales revenue each year because of cart abandonment?
During Black Friday, try removing unnecessary steps during the checkout process like unrequired registration or fields, offer multiple payment options, make checkout mobile-friendly to provide your customers easy and fast purchasing.
Emphasize Your Marketing Plan
Spending time crafting a well-rounded marketing campaign is one of the most useful exercises in driving people to your e-commerce store.
Buckle up and make sure you’ve devised plans for targeting email marketing, social media, social media ads, Google PPC ads, a Black Friday offer landing page, and affiliate marketing, to make sure you’re drawing and keeping your customers’ attention.
Fix Broken External Links and Errors
As the name suggests, broken links are the links that lead nowhere or show users an error. During the shopping rush of the season, the last thing you would want is a reason for customers to be skeptical of your site.
Fix all your broken links not to lose sales and traffic during the Black Friday season. The best tools to easily find broken external links are Ahrefs or Google Tag Manager. Leverage them and promote your e-commerce site without any hassle.
Offer Excellent Customer Support
Every online shopper expects reliable customer service, especially during the holiday. A global survey reveals that 83% of consumers state a need for some form of support during their online shopping journey. You need to optimize your e-commerce store with online chats, email support, and a detailed FAQ page so that your customers feel assured while shopping on your site.
Closing Thoughts
Black Friday is approaching to kick off the holiday shopping season, and that’s why you need to optimize your e-commerce website right away! By following the tactics mentioned above, you can ensure your e-commerce business stays ahead of the competition. Are you ready to up your sales game during Black Friday?
