Ready for Black Friday? How to get your online shop prepared.
Jacqueline Dähn
Creative Director & Co-Founder @ Digit-One
Black Friday is an annual shopping phenomenon that traditionally takes place in the US after Thanksgiving and marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. On that day, retailers offer massive discounts and special deals to draw customers into their shops. In recent years Black Friday has spread internationally too, attracting millions of shoppers looking for bargains and discounts. Below we've summarised what you as a merchant can do to prepare for Black Friday as well as possible.
Black Friday – THE e-commerce event of the year
On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, retail kicks off one of the biggest discounting periods of the year, which often extends into a whole Black Week. Done right, successful shops frequently take several times their monthly revenue in these few days. It's not just the starting gun for the Christmas season — it's also an opportunity to grow your sales.
But that many additional sales also means an enormous strain on every weak point in your online shop, from logistics all the way through to support. In this post we give you a few simple tips on how to get yourself and your Shopify store optimally prepared for Black Friday.
1. Targeted Black Friday marketing
Use your storefront as an advertising channel
You should place promotional banners in your own shop well before Black Friday — ideally including a countdown, to encourage your users to put a note in their calendar. For the promotion you can place a banner above your navigation, or use suitable content modules.
Ideally you'd run your ads around 2–3 weeks before Black Friday. Run them too close to Thanksgiving and you risk your customers postponing a planned purchase until the event. Run them early enough, however, and you encourage your users to complete their usual purchase and come back again in 2–3 weeks.
Time for the right email marketing campaign
Your users have subscribed to your newsletter, of course, and you should absolutely use it to send out Black Friday offers. In terms of content, we'd recommend not only promoting the discounts and bargains but also surprising your loyal customers with a special voucher code. That builds goodwill and generates plenty of page views.
Promoting your email marketing can also help you retain customers more sustainably. You could, for instance, offer a discount in your shop for new subscribers over Black Friday. That doesn't just lift revenue — it also grows your customer list long after Black Friday is over.
2. Setting up discounts for Black Week offers properly
Strategy 1: small discounts on bestsellers
Your top products usually account for up to 80% of revenue. For these, small discounts are often enough to motivate customers to buy. These offers should also be promoted directly on a landing page or the homepage.
Strategy 2: clear slow movers and free up warehouse space
Slow movers that account for less than 5% of your total revenue can be cleared more easily on Black Friday, freeing up valuable warehouse space again. Here you should go for steeper discounts — if need be, right down to the edge of zero margin.
If you'd like to start planning your discounts right away, you can fall back on a Google Sheet from Shopify itself. Just make a copy and get going. You might also consider whether, given the number of products you're discounting during Black Week, it makes sense to use a suitable Shopify app. That way you don't have to adjust every price by hand, and once Black Week is over the discounts disappear again automatically. We're happy to help you decide.
3. Stock up in good time
If you can draw on sales figures from previous years, get a picture early on of those numbers and how things have developed over the year since the last Black Friday, and make sure you have enough stock on hand. That applies just as much if this is your first Black Friday — in which case you'll have to work out yourself which products could still sell later on.
If you handle fulfilment for your shop yourself, you should also make sure you have enough packaging material. Otherwise you may be the one staring at empty shelves in the end.
4. Synchronised stock levels
If you can draw on sales figures from previous years, get a picture early on of those numbers and how things have developed over the year since the last Black Friday, and make sure you have enough stock on hand. That applies just as much if this is your first Black Friday — in which case you'll have to work out yourself which products could still sell later on.
If you handle fulfilment for your shop yourself, you should also make sure you have enough packaging material. Otherwise you may be the one staring at empty shelves in the end.
5. Customer support during Black Week
Higher sales usually come with more support enquiries. Whether new customers have got lost in the shop, discount codes aren't working properly or a parcel arrived damaged — what matters is that you respond quickly and politely during this period too, even under greater stress.
Want to respond especially quickly during Black Week, or offer exceptional service? Then we can recommend Shopify Chat, which lets you communicate with customers and advise them in real time.
Nothing stands in the way of your Black Friday
You certainly won't run out of things to do before Black Week. But when it comes to growing your sales and customer numbers, Black Friday is the day of days. Prepare well and nothing stands in the way of the sales rolling in. You'll get support directly from Shopify, from the many apps that help you along, and of course from us. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to hear from you!
Otherwise — we wish you every success!