Black Friday: How To Make Sure Your Website is Prepared and Optimised for Increased Sales During Peak Trading Periods.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the most, if not the most profitable sale events for retailers across the country. Each year in November, sales in the retail industry go through the roof and according to Adobe Analytics, this year’s sales are set to grow by up to 20% - despite the ongoing global pandemic. For most retailers, Black Friday and Cyber Monday also mark the beginning of the Christmas sales period, so getting prepared and having your selling platforms optimised for the influx of traffic is crucial.

Most businesses these days utilise a variety of platforms for e-commerce, such as social media, online marketplaces and most importantly, their websites. All of these platforms are your storefront, the windows of which your customers - both new and existing - see your products and have the opportunity to make a purchase, but how do you effectively prime your business’ website maximise sales and revenue throughout peak trading times such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Platform

Ensuring that your company’s website is built on a platform that’s fit for purpose is a must when you’re trying to maximise your online sales. For example, if you know that your website visitors are about to triple during a busy retail period, your website needs to be able to handle the influx of online activity whilst keeping track of your accounts and revenue. Using a platform such as Shopify will not only ensure that your shop front looks enticing and on-brand, the integrations available with a variety of apps such as Quickbooks, Xero and a wide range of social media platforms will make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to tracking performance and visitor activity. You can also manage things like dropshipping, abandoned cart rates and much more.

User Experience (UX)

User experience is everything in this day and age, especially when shoppers are actively on the hunt for a bargain during the likes of Black Friday. It takes around [0.05 seconds] for a website visitor to form an opinion about your site and to decide whether to stay or leave - so it’s imperative that the look, feel and overall journey that your website takes its visitors on is engaging and easy to follow. Make sure that your homepage is clearly laid out and that your landing pages are easy to navigate. The last thing visitors want when hunting for a bargain is to have trouble finding what they’re looking for.

Mobile Optimisation

79% of people who own a smartphone have made a purchase with it in the last 6 months and a third of all UK shopping is done via mobile devices, so if your website isn’t optimised for mobile devices, you’re missing out on a LOT of potential custom. Things you need to consider when making your site mobile-friendly is ensuring that the site is responsive on a variety of screen sizes and devices, redesigning your pop-ups for mobile, improving your site’s loading speeds and making sure that your content - especially images - will resize and display correctly where necessary. There are free tools available to check how mobile-friendly your site is, such as Google’s mobile friendly test.

Apps and Integrations

It’s all well and good having a website that ‘works’ and ‘looks nice’ - but the possibilities are pretty much endless when it comes to integrating apps and software to further enhance your buyer’s retail experience, as well as helping you keep track of conversions, accounts, receipts, returns, automated emails and much more too. There are also capabilities within platforms such as Shopify that allow you to create custom pop-ups and banners on your website to further promote sale items, discounts and offers such as free shipping and bundles.

Nailing Your Audience

This is absolutely essential for a number of reasons. Firstly, creating a successful customer journey map is almost impossible if you’re unsure or unclear on who it is that you’re looking to sell to. Secondly, your marketing activity needs to be executed via the right channels with the outcome being attracting the right people - so having clear buyer personas will make driving traffic to your website a whole lot easier. Once defined, conducting market research for your chosen target market(s) will also assist in the planning of your sale offers and your ability to predict their buying behaviour, allowing you to tailor your messaging and your strategy accordingly.

So there you have it! Hopefully this blog has highlighted the importance of preparing your e-commerce website effectively for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other busy retail periods. If you would like any more information, or if you’re looking for support on how to design, build or optimise your website - get in touch today! Our friendly team of retail experience specialists would be happy to help, you can drop us an email at hello@summitcreative.co.uk.