The winter holidays are quickly approaching. If you’re in the retail industry, 2023 is building up to be a year of opportunity and change, whether you’re planning for the holiday selling season as a whole or for specific days like BFCM. People are increasingly accustomed to buying a greater variety of things, thus despite several obstacles this year, more people are shopping online than ever before. Meanwhile, customers are happy to have a reason to visit physical businesses once more. Start preparing today for the biggest shopping event of the year. Despite the unexpected weather, BFCM is a great opportunity for your organization to end the year well. This article focuses on Shopify, which will be referenced in discussions on BFCM sales and marketing.
What Is BFCM?
Black Friday, Cyber Monday (BFCM) is a massive internet shopping weekend that begins after everyone’s Thanksgiving dinner has finished. In brief, the definition of this event, as well as the BFCM meaning, is to have a focused purchasing opportunity with big offers on display.
In the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, and Cyber Monday is always the following Monday. The timing of this event is perfect, as it encourages people to start thinking about what they may get their loved ones for Christmas and other events in the fourth quarter of the year.
Customers know to expect the best prices of the year from their favorite brands during this time period. This is a fantastic opportunity for you as an online store owner to step up to the plate and impress your visitors’ expectations.
With the appropriate plan and flawless strategic implementation, BFCM may be utilized to expand your clientele, boost your conversion rate, and shorten the time it takes to get your items to market.
How to Prepare for BFCM?
There are a lot of things you can do as the owner of an online retail establishment to be ready for this sales event and ensure that everything runs well.
After all, you need to maximize your chances of obtaining a sizable portion of the BFCM market share. There was a 23% rise in global sales made by Shopify merchants in 2021, to a total of $6.3 billion. A fraction of that amount could be the single most profitable week of the year for your business.
So, what steps may be taken to get ready for the event and smooth things over in advance?
The first step is to make your website mobile and desktop friendly. This includes addressing any lingering issues and making any necessary adjustments to increase site speed. You don’t want customers to lose interest mid-transaction or never add an item to their cart because of page load issues or incorrect redirections.
Make sure everything is operating smoothly before the big weekend by testing it thoroughly. Don’t know what to try out? Get a systematic list of things to prioritize before BFCM by downloading our Conversion Rate Optimization Checklist.
Consider your app selection next. Is there anything you might implement to enhance the functionality of your store’s backend or the shopping experience for your customers? Would upgrading or switching out some of your software help you run a smoother, more efficient business? Make sure you are maximizing the utility of your extensions by performing a detailed, app-by-app examination.
In addition, make sure you have effective upselling and cross-selling apps for BFCM, when buyers are eager to buy when the appropriate deal comes along. Rebuy lets you give targeted purchase recommendations to customers, which can boost your AOV.
BFCM Sales Planning
Checking that you have sufficient supplies on hand is a crucial step in getting ready for BFCM. Don’t waste time and effort putting in a lot of effort just to find out you’re out of stock. Here are the top ways how you ought to plan your BFCM.
#1. Think About a Longer Sales Cycle
Online purchases will, unsurprisingly, rule the roost during the largest shopping weekend of the year. However, there will be discounts and special offers in the weeks and months leading up to BFCM, as well as in-store specials when available.
Since there won’t be as many “doorbuster” offers this year, expect online sales to begin earlier and continue well through the BFCM weekend. A survey conducted by Justuno in 2021 found that 65% of American consumers would complete their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, November 2021 sales were up 10% from the previous year, despite a 31% decline in BFCM sales.
With customers deliberating over whether to shop online or in-store for items, it is more important than ever to get the word out about your sales as soon as possible, even beyond BFCM if at all possible from a practical standpoint.
#2. Get Your Shop Ready for Rush Hours by Conducting Traffic Tests
Effectiveness is prioritized throughout the Black Friday shopping guide. This is especially true for your website, as loading times have a direct impact on the user experience and, ultimately, the success of your business. Conversion rates have been shown to drop when websites take too long to load, whereas even a 0.1-second improvement in site speeds can boost conversions by 10.1%.
However, website crashes are a common side effect of sudden spikes in visitor numbers. Shopify store owners, however, should rest easy; extensive preparation has gone into making sure our infrastructure can support the influx of customers and orders expected on Black Friday.
Shopify provides a server load testing feature in their online store speed report. They also conduct Google Lighthouse tests on your homepage, most popular collections, and individual product pages, then average the results for an overall speed rating. You’ll also be able to see how your store’s speed stacks up against others like it.
In addition, the Shopify sales primer has all you need to know to successfully organize BFCM promotions, field more inquiries from customers, and fulfill more orders.
#3. Focus More on the Most Successful Marketing Avenues
This is the year to take advantage of multichannel selling, as more and more companies move online. If you’re currently selling through various channels, now is the time to zero in on the ones that are bringing in the most money for your company.
You can reach customers on Instagram, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and more with the help of Shopify’s sales channels. Shopify makes it simple to sync your products across all your channels once you get started.
#4. Expand Your Horizons Internationally
Does it sound like a tall order? Sure, that was the situation six months ago, but now, with Shopify Markets, you don’t need a huge budget or a team of people to sell your products online.
Shopify Markets makes it easy to sell to clients all over the world by letting you easily set up stores in local currencies, languages, domains, and payment methods. This helps you build credibility and increase sales with shoppers in foreign countries.
Furthermore, you can find, build, and manage international markets directly from your Shopify admin, allowing you to grow and optimize your BFCM marketing tactics on a global scale. In order to make the most educated business decisions, it is helpful to be able to view and adjust all store settings in one location while also keeping an eye on global performance. Shopify’s data works in the background to provide you control over your global selling strategy with customizable settings and recommendations.
#5. Create Backup Plans
In order to be ready for everything, you must regularly confront yourself with difficult questions and make contingency plans. Have you made adequate preparations for when things inevitably go wrong? What do you do if the shipping firm you contract with gets too busy to handle your shipments? And what happens if your stock doesn’t come when it’s scheduled to? How rapidly can you make changes to your product strategy?
We don’t mean to cause unnecessary alarm, but it’s best to be ready for the worst. The epidemic caused shipment delays, which have been reported, and shipping companies have already announced that they will be experiencing delays.
Always be prepared for the worst-case scenarios that could affect your company by thinking forward. Planning ahead is much more manageable than fixing issues during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.
#6. Decide on Stock Levels Early
If you rely on suppliers to source or manufacture the products you plan to market during BFCM, selecting and ordering those products as early as feasible is essential. Since the pandemic began, suppliers have been working at or near capacity, so give them plenty of time to have your products ready.
There are a variety of methods for estimating sales and determining which products you should restock for BFCM. Start with Shopify Reports if you’re using Shopify. To find out what items normally do well during the BFCM season, you can use the Sales by product report and filter it by the dates from the previous year’s BFCM.
The top and worst-selling products can be isolated with the aid of ABC analysis. Items that receive an A grade are the ones that bring in 80% of your revenue, whereas items that receive a C grade are considered obsolete and only bring in 5%. By highlighting high-quality products in your Black Friday marketing campaign and offering modest discounts, you may boost sales during BFCM while also clearing out old inventory and making more room on store shelves.
To assist you get inventory correct this year, you should look into forecasting tools and other inventory management software in addition to Shopify’s own inventory management features. Also, obtaining capital with Shopify Capital is a quick and efficient method to prepare for high sales seasons.
Is BFCM Celebrated Globally?
Even though BFCM is only an American sales event, online retailers from all over the world benefit greatly by taking part. In reality, as of BFCM in 2021, sales had topped $6.30 billion worldwide.
There are similar sales events in other countries that occur around the same time as BFCM, and here is a quick rundown of some of them:
- White Day was created by the Middle Eastern e-commerce platform souq.com, which reported 2016 sales of $1.2 million during its sale weekend.
- Sales on China’s Singles Day briefly quadrupled those of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2017. Over the sale weekend, customers in Australia spent an estimated $150 million.
- Ramadan is a religious holiday for Muslims, but it is also a major shopping holiday in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
- El Buen Fin is a shopping holiday in Mexico during which many stores provide special discounts and deals.
- During the 2016 Diwali Festival in India, consumers spent a total of $146 billion.
BFCM Marketing
Online merchants have increasing difficulty as time goes on. As more and more people turn to shopping online, the level of competition is bound to increase.
This increases competition for advertising space, which in turn raises the cost of such placements. Then there’s the fact that Apple released iOS updates that changed the game for marketers everywhere.
Entering BFCM unprepared is like attempting to drive a five-speed manual transmission car while wearing a blindfold. Your safety is not guaranteed.
On the other hand, you can achieve your best profit of the year if you plan your campaign well in advance, make interesting advertisements, and optimize everything before the peak season.
BFCM Marketing Ideas
Be sure to put in place a series of thoughtful, marketing ideas during BFCM to let your clientele know about the many discounts you’ll be offering. No one will understand the magnitude of your contributions unless they hear from you. Here are the top 6 BFCM marketing ideas you can consider as a business owner.
#1. Assemble a Value Pack of Your Goods
Increasing the average order value in your shop is essential to maintaining a healthy profit margin for your brand, and product bundling is one of the most effective ways to do it.
Depending on your industry, you can expand on this concept by offering a mystery bundle containing a selection of your most popular products at a steep discount to customers who are ready to buy everything at once. This also aids in dealing with stock that isn’t doing as well as expected.
To increase interest in the deal, you might make some of the included items a “mystery” and reveal them one by one over the course of the sale’s duration. Displaying the products one at a time increases traffic and income by attracting a new audience every day of the sale.
#2. Promote Your Website’s Landing Pages
One simple BFCM marketing idea is to direct people to your online business over the holiday season. In this approach, potential customers who are interested in your product or service will be encouraged to join your mailing list.
You may also test out holiday-specific landing pages by connecting your sales emails to them. Landing pages are great sales channels for encouraging customers to sign up for your newsletter, premium content, or other offers.
Landing page layouts and content can be tailored to specific occasions. Customers visiting your landing page did so because of BFCM, not because you prompted them to. This means you can trade your services without sacrificing your integrity or principles.
#3. Use Social Media Platforms to Boost Site Visits
The holiday season is a great opportunity to put your social media marketing efforts to the test. You want people to notice your products as they are scrolling through their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds.
Keeping your current consumer base up-to-date is essential, so uploading organic content about the latest trends, new products, and limited-time offers might assist. Also, Facebook ads are powerful enough to broaden your reach or target an extremely specific demographic.
#4. Propose Hourly Rates
For establishments with a lot of foot traffic, the ideal strategy is to offer discounts at specific times of the day. Customers will be more loyal to your site if you give discounts and incentives to return.
Furthermore, the success of your BFCM marketing campaign will depend on how imaginatively you implement this idea. Keep in mind, though, that your mystery deals should be even more generous than usual; for instance, if you notice that your online business sees the least traffic between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., you could offer a 30% discount during that time.
Remember that the most important aspect of this BFCM marketing effort will be maintaining communication with your clients and getting their participation. As a result, you must ensure that your clients are regularly updated on the status of your online business. Promoting hourly specials on social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google AdWords, etc.) is a great way to keep customers coming back for more.
#5. Make-up Present Concepts
Most attendees will be on the lookout for unique gifts to give as Christmas is only a month after BFCM. So, if you want your customers (and the people who buy gifts for your customers) to find you, put together a gift guide. Clearly, there is a huge need for gift-giving and gift suggestions.
If your blog entries or collections are easy to find on search engines, you could make a lot of money during the holiday shopping season.
It’s crucial to optimize blog entries or collections of gift ideas for search engines in addition to publishing them. In addition, to entice additional visitors to your website, you can also email subscribers and feature gift guides.
#6. Extend Your Sale
It’s been said that allowing customers more time to shop is one of the most effective ways for businesses to increase their revenue. When it comes to business, why is sales time so crucial?
Many businesses see BFCM as their best opportunity of the year to boost sales. Consequently, many companies, especially online retailers, use this time to sell off their remaining stock.
In order to get people to spend more money, it makes sense to keep sales going the day following BFCM. On Fridays in particular, people are more likely to spend money or gift cards they received as a gift on something they really want.
It’s important to have a well-thought-out discount strategy in place whenever you decide to extend the shopping season over Saturday and Sunday. Gifting is appropriate on Saturdays, while price reductions are more appropriate on Sundays.
Shopify BFCM
Everyone who has ever worked in the e-commerce industry has heard about Shopify. If you want to open a commercial online store, Shopify is a fantastic choice. If we’re talking about Shopify’s BFCM sales, then last year’s numbers show that Shopify store owners made more than $6.3 billion in total sales during those two days. Sales are up nearly 23% compared to 2020.
While COVID-19 had a negative impact on local businesses, it actually led to a higher demand for goods sold online than in previous years. Now even the smallest shopkeepers have discovered that selling their wares online is more lucrative than traditional retail.
Promote your business and boost holiday sales with the help of a Shopify BFCM landing page.
Black Friday is the best day to promote any kind of tangible product to the general public. This tutorial will help you set up your first Shopify BFCM Sale landing page if you’ve never done a Black Friday sale before. Also, read 10 Best Shopify Alternatives In 2023.
Black Friday Landing Page Must-Haves
The Shopify BFCM sales are one of the largest online shopping events of the year, making it an ideal time to advertise your wares and bring in new consumers.
Here are some guidelines to follow when designing a landing page for your Shopify BFCM sales:
- Catchy Title. Your landing page’s headline should be concise, attention-grabbing, and most importantly, appropriate for the people you’re trying to attract.
- Interesting Content. Excellent replicas create an atmosphere of scarcity, encouraging customers to make quick decisions. Improve the persuasiveness of your Shopify BFCM sale by adding brief, attention-grabbing material.
- Beautiful Images. Your landing page’s primary image should be relevant to the title and BFCM marketing. If you are offering a variety of products, then showcase one of them in the graphic for this promotion. Also, make sure it’s something that people will be interested in buying.
- Verifiable Testimonials / Reliable Reviews. Happy users will gladly tell others about their experience with the product online. This is more effective than just telling someone since it fosters trust and boosts the conversion rate.
- Critical Countdown Clocks. Put a countdown timer (one that generates a sense of urgency and scarcity) on your Black Friday sale page.
- Massive Discounts. Keep up with more alluring BFCM deals and sales as the rest of the industry goes crazy. Offer free delivery throughout the holiday season and stack it with other deals if you can.
- Features and Advantages. The benefits to customers are clearly displayed. Emphasize the good points to encourage people to buy your product.
- Urgent Plea for Action. Get your call to action out there in a big way! Make sure your call to action (CTA) is visible to visitors immediately upon landing on your page.
Use these guidelines to improve your Shopify landing page for BFCM sales.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you have a lot of options for implementing changes at your shop. Strategies for your system might be tailored to the specific products you sell.
It’s important to put more money into internet marketing to back up your online retailer as modern technology becomes more widely available.
BFCM FAQs
Is Black Friday Only for Clothes?
No, Black Fridays are not only for clothes. Black Friday is a fantastic opportunity to stock up on footwear, and accessories.
What Do You Call the Saturday After Black Friday?
The American Express credit card business is the brains behind the primary promoter of the Small Business Saturday marketing initiative. It encourages Christmas shopping on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest shopping days in the US.
What Is BFCM Weekend?
Since BFCM happens on different ends of the weekend after Thanksgiving in the US, the two days have been merged. For many businesses, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are their busiest and most profitable days of the year.
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