Black Friday 101: How to Prepare for Black Friday

2023 is coming to an end, and Black Friday is right around the corner. Though it’s not until late November that the biggest selling season kicks off, it’s never too early to prepare for Black Friday.

Black Friday is all about massive sales and booming traffic. Hence, it is of great importance to create a Black Friday checklist beforehand to prepare your store for the upcoming BFCM sales. In this article, LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will walk you through:

• What is Black Friday?
• What should you prepare for Black Friday?
• FAQs on how to prepare for Black Friday

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What is Black Friday?

Before getting to the detailed Black Friday checklist, let’s take a quick look at what is Black Friday.

Black Friday refers to the day right after Thanksgiving. It is unofficially considered as the opening of the holiday shopping season. This year, Black Friday will kick off on Friday, November 25.

Black Friday is a golden opportunity to maximize your store’s profit. During this particular time of the year, online revenue often witnesses a booming sales record. In 2021, as reported by Shopify, online shoppers spent $6.3 billion during Black Friday, making it the second-largest online spending day in U.S. history. It sharply jumped 23% compared with the same period in 2020, leading to an average cart price increased to $100.

Besides purchasing from large retailers like Costco, Walmart, Apple, etc, customers also showed special interest towards small and independent businesses on various eCommerce platforms like Big Cartel, Squarespace, or PrestaShop. Last year, on Shopify only, e-merchants received over 47 million customers across the globe during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a 10% increase from 2020.

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Black Friday checklist: What should you prepare for Black Friday?

Now that we have caught a glimpse of what is Black Friday and why your store should act on it, let’s examine all the tips to consider to prepare for Black Friday.

#1. Do a thorough planning

Black Friday is not a 24-hour-sprint that happens only on November 26. It’s a long run that can start from early October and even last after the event. Therefore, without meticulous planning right up your sleeve, Black Friday might be hectic and out of control.

One important factor that must be considered is your website speed load. Black Friday attracts hundreds of bargain hunters visiting your store. Without a proper eCommerce platform, you might lose lots of sales due to slowness or crash.

As mentioned above, Black Friday might start way earlier than November 24. As a matter of fact, last year, many retailers decided to approach Black Friday in numerous phases starting a month or two earlier than the actual date. For instance, Target dropped their first Black Friday ads in mid-October, while Walmart announced their deals in three stages throughout November.

Besides starting to prepare for Black Friday early, you should take numerous factors into consideration while planning. How many customers are you expecting on Black Friday? Can your website handle such large traffic? Are your products and shipment ready? What marketing strategies will you implement? Have you set up your BFCM ads yet?

Please spend some time contemplating all the elements that might affect your store during BFCM weekend. Then, plan ahead to see which action you should take to prepare for Black Friday.

#2. Grow your Black Friday email marketing list

During BFCM, email marketing proved to be the top marketing strategy when it comes to conversion. Marketing through email appeals to customers better than marketing through search, direct, and social, leading to a conversion rate of 4.1% for email marketing. Therefore, if you want to attract large traffic and earn more during this event, it’s high time you started growing your Black Friday email marketing list.

There are many tactics you can deploy to build a Black Friday email marketing list. A typical example is that merchants can collect their customers’ emails by leveraging their social media strength. You can organize Black Friday campaigns on your social channels such as a give-away event or run a small contest. Then, proceed to ask participants to leave their emails to opt in.

On another note, you can use a newsletter popup that appears on the screen when a user accesses your storefront. This pop-up can be a small “welcome offer” containing discounts or freebies when customers enter their emails and make a purchase. By doing this, you can encourage customers to buy something from your store and at the same time, collect incentives for future marketing strategies.

Now that you have a ready-to-go Black Friday email marketing list, don’t forget to pay attention to your content. Here are all the handy tips that we’ve gathered to help you execute high-converting holiday email marketing campaigns.

#3. Plan your Black Friday deals

Please keep in mind that Black Friday is all about sales and discounts. Hence, planning all your deals in advance will be an important step to prepare for Black Friday.

There’s a saying that “Go big or go home”, and it cannot be more true in this situation. On this day, customers come to your store with an expectation to find a Black Friday deal that is different. Thereby, make sure you go with something unique, spectacular, and out of the ordinary.

Your Black Friday deals can come in different shapes and sizes. The most common way is to offer direct discounts on products’ prices. For example, customers can get a 30% off for all items in your store. Or they can save up to $50 for several products. This tactic is widely applied by many famous retailers like Amazon, Costco, or Target.

Offering gift cards is another strategy you can employ while planning your Black Friday deal. When buying items in your store during Black Friday, customers will receive a discount gift card for their next purchase.

This tactic was adopted by tech company Apple Inc at the BFCM event last year. They provided gift cards of up to $150 to use later, applied for selected products that customers checked out during the given time period.

Besides, if you want to keep the full price of your products, try offering bundle sales or freebies. This strategy not only appeals to your customers but also increases your store’s average order value.

Last year, during Black Friday, Nintendo put their famous Nintendo Switch on the shelf at a regular price of $299.99. However, upon purchasing this product, customers got a 3-month-free Nintendo Switch Online Membership and a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version already installed. This bundle saves nearly $70, which is a lucrative deal that attracts more customers.

#4. Create a seamless customer experience

Prepare your site for massive upcoming traffic

Black Friday is the opening of the busiest selling season. It is followed by Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and Boxing Day. During this particular time of the year, your store will receive a high volume of customers. Therefore, without a high-performing website, your store might be unavailable during these events. Thus, it might cause a huge loss to your revenue.

In case you are operating on a platform that is unable to handle such large traffic, it’s time to migrate to a more Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, or WooCommerce store.

If you’re looking for a solution to switch to another eCommerce platform, please consider using LitExtension, the #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert. With LitExtension, your store can run normally without any interruption during the migration process, which means no sales lost. With over 120 carts supported, all your data will be transferred quickly, seamlessly, and securely.

Understanding the store owner’s hectic schedule to prepare for Black Friday, LitExtension also offers an All-In-One Migration package. Upon purchasing this service, you’ll get a 24/7 support agent right at your fingertips. They will help you carry out your migration and keep you up to date with any changes to your site.

Create an eye-catching and engaging storefront

After ensuring the stability and high performance of your website, don’t forget to put some effort into designing an eye-catching storefront. Having a clean, elegant, and easy-to-navigate interface is more likely to attract customers to your store.

Luckily, all eCommerce platforms grant users access to a magnificent collection of well-made templates, both free and paid ones, to save more time and avoid common eCommerce design mistakes. Either you are operating on hosted solutions like Big Cartel, Squarespace, Shopify, or running your business on open-source platforms like Magento, PrestaShop, finding a suitable website template for your store is just a piece of cake.

Do not limit payment and shipping options

After the selling season kicks off, the shipment might be delayed due to a huge number of orders coming from every store. As a result, to avoid the hustle and bustle of shipping during Black Friday 2021, you can consider using an automated shipping process.

On another note, it is better to expand your payment options. The more payment gateways available, the more likely customers make a purchase from your store. Therefore, when choosing an eCommerce platform to kickstart your business, let’s opt for a solution with various payment options, namely Shopify or Magento.

#5. Expand your sales channels

Black Friday will bring along a huge wave of customers and thus boost your sales to a new level. So, why just settle with one platform only? You can utilize multi-channel sales and earn more money during this selling season.

Don’t worry about integrating your current platform with other selling channels. LitCommerce is right at your fingertips. This solution allows you to easily list your products to other marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, and Facebook. Besides, you can also integrate your store with other shopping carts to maximize profit.

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Prepare for Black Friday – FAQs

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Key takeaways to prepare for Black Friday

As one of the biggest sales events of the year, Black Friday opens up tons of opportunities to generate huge profits. On the other hand, it also entails lots of risks and challenges. Therefore, with all the tips we have gathered above, we hope that you can well prepare for Black Friday and be ready for a booming selling season afterward.

In case you have questions or inquiries, don’t hesitate to reach out to LitExtension. Our 24/7 dedicated customer support is always ready to assist you.

Last but not least, please join our Facebook Community and check out LitExtension blogs to get more tips and news to grow your business.