The biggest event in the retail calendar is around the corner. Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals open British wallets year after year. Do you expect record profits? These are the rewards for the eshops that have prepared themselves. How to join them?
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Black Friday in the UK
- The British spent £5,988,444,539 on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2020.
- 39% of British adults took part in the Black Friday in 2020. This number has dropped from 42% in 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Gen-Z has the biggest fraction of the British population taking part in this shopping fever: 54% of Gen-Z use Black Friday sales, 48% of millennials, 35% of Gen-X, and only 15% of baby boomers buy on Black Friday deals (source).
- 65% of people prefer online shopping to in-store Black Friday deals.
- An average British person buys 4 products on Black Friday.
Black Friday deals reach the sky
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days in the UK and all over the world. Even though sales are important, it is also about discounts that can reach up to 80% or more. According to data from Black Friday 2017, Americans (68% on average), Canadians (66%) and Ukrainians (66%) had the highest discounts.
The world average discount is 55%.
When do customers shop most often?
During Black Friday, customer activity is balanced throughout the day, from 8 am to 11 pm. The most significant drop occurs in the early morning. Slight fluctuations are recorded by eshops at lunch and dinner time. Most people shop between 5 pm and 8 pm.
Shopping activity in the UK by hour during Black Friday deals.
How to Make More Sales?
Based on our experience with many eshops, we know that some do better on Black Friday than others. We analysed the data and various metrics. We found out why some eshops are more successful.
Build expectations ahead of time
Plant the seeds before harvest. In the case of Black Friday, this is a double truth. You need to prepare customers for the extra sales ahead of time. Get the word out about sales promotions as early as October. You can use social media, offline channels or email. Make sure your email doesn’t end up in spam.
Prepare a plan with your team to gradually build up expectations. Escalate just before Black FridayWhat is Black Friday and when was it created? Find out why it is the biggest e-commerce event right after Christmas now. More and uncover the most attractive offers.
Black Friday needs its own subpage
A separate promotional goods page has several advantages. First of all, it’s easy to target advertising.
In addition, you can:
- Accurately measure the performance of the promotion
- Analyse user behaviour
Use the collected data for Christmas sales and next year’s Black Friday.
Don’t forget Facebook Pixel
The key to a successful dedicated website is a properly deployed Facebook PixelThe Facebook Pixel is a measurement code which, when placed on a website, sends analytical data to the Facebook ad manager. You can use it to track tr… More. It gives you visibility into your remarketing results from Facebook.
In our experience, traffic from this social network is cheap, well targeted and often converts better than cold traffic (people who haven’t visited your eshop yet).
Remarketing generates traffic
Although remarketing doesn’t generate sales, it does bring potential customers to your website. To get them to buy, you need a fine-tuned product and ordering page. The buying process needs to be clear and simple.
Convenient shopping entices you to add more products to your cart.
Don’t cheat your customers
Many people fall for fake promotions every year. Similar experiences make customers cautious. Think about the fact that they will check your offer and its bargain. They usually check prices via Amazon, Google, Idealo, PriceSpy, PriceRunner and other similar websites.
What should a Black Friday sale look like?
- A trustworthy promotion is first, foremost a bargain. Make sure that the sale assortment has really great prices. Ideally, they are the lowest on the market for the duration of Black Friday.
Set a date when the exceptional promotions will irrevocably end. After that, they must disappear from the offer.
Daily sales in the UK show their peak on Black Friday.
Optimise promotions for mobile devices
Half the world shops on mobile. Google Analytics will give you the ratio of visits from mobile devices to desktop. In particular, it compares completed transactions. Easily see if your ecommerce store is optimised for smartphones.
Black Friday conversion rates by device: 6.9% desktop, 4.8% tablet, 2.9% smartphone.
To get the most out of Black Friday, we recommend creating a special page for mobile users. Optimise it and drive relevant traffic to it from mobile devices only.
More and more people are shopping on their mobile. Is your eshop ready?
Prepare and promote relevant content
Use texts to build anticipation during the sales period. We talked about them in the first point. Social media campaigns are a great way to help with gift selection.
Many people use Black Friday deals just to buy Christmas presents. They are usually indecisive and looking for additional information. Give it to them, nicely packaged in an interesting video, infographic or text, and their order will be yours.
Beware of buyer’s remorse
Do you get overwhelmed with regret when you spend too much money? Have you felt like returning an item for some unfathomable reason? Your feelings are normal. Buyer’s remorse, a well-known phenomenon in sales psychology, has caught up with you.
This is a form of regret for having spent money, mostly on impulse. Your customers feel the same way. At that moment, they tend to abuse the money-back guarantee in an attempt to get their money back.
In the ecommerce world, buyer’s remorse generates unwarranted “claims” and unwanted refunds.
How to minimize the impact of remorse?
- Give customers bonuses and freebies that add value to the order.
- Deliver goods as quickly as possible.
- Ensure express handling of complaints.
- If possible, include high order value clients in a VIP club with additional perks and benefits.
We recommend the customer care book on this topic: Happiness Delivered (Tony Hsieh).
Encourage buyers to respond immediately
With limited-time promotions, quick customer action is paramount. Make it clear to them that if they miss the discount, the bargains are gone forever.
Use scarcity and social proof techniques:
- Scarcity communicates that you are only offering discounts for a short and limited period. A stock countdown on the product page also helps urgency.
- The social proof technique is also used by the big price comparison sites. Show potential customers how many other people are interested in the product.
Save sales from an abandoned cart
How much sales will you get if you reduce your cart abandonment rate by 1%?
Customers who don’t complete their order need to be reminded at any cost. That’s what remarketingRemarketing is the repeated display of targeted ads to potential customers based on their previous interactions with the site. Learn more now. More campaigns are for. Customers often appreciate the reminder and complete the order.
In addition to remarketing, professional cart abandonment email campaigns also work.
Bet on data
For remarketing and personalised emails, you need the right analytics setup, including the Enhanced Ecommerce module. It provides additional data about user behaviour during the shopping process.
Prepare for high traffic
Check the reliability of your hosting or invest in a more stable and robust solution. Increasing traffic is already felt when awareness of discounts spreads and usually lasts for several days after Black Friday.
Black Saturday can also be strong in campaign traffic, following extremely popular Cyber Monday.
High traffic isn’t just about technology. You may need temporary workers to pack and ship merchandise. Think in advance about where you can get them.
Expect an onslaught of customers during Black Friday.
Back up Black Friday with numbers
Don’t be like most eshop retailers who do pricing and campaigns blindly. You need to back up your Black Friday business plan with real numbers.
Metrics like estimated number of orders, average margin or estimated average order value are essential. Subtract the cost of Black Friday from your projected profits.
Are you in the black when you subtract non-marketing costs from the generated gross margin? It is proof that you did a great job.
Break records with Dexfinity
To make sure your online store doesn’t get lost in the flood of competition, do Black Friday professionally. If you don’t know where to get data or how to create enticing content, take advantage of a free one-hour consultation.
You might end up like one of our partners: A couple of weeks after the new campaign setup, he phoned to tell us to stop it. He couldn’t keep up with packing and shipping the goods.
Thanks to the Dexfinity editorial staff for creating this article
Author: Silvio Michal
Editor: Adriána Černáčková
Feedback: Martin Bartl
Translator: Mária Streďanská
Published by: Róbert Hošták
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