No matter what kind of products you sell, Cyber Monday offers you many opportunities to put your business in front of volunteer customers. Every e-commerce site should be prepared for the assault of customers looking for a post-Black Friday sale. The numbers do not lie: in 2016, Cyber Monday experienced the largest number of one-day sales in the history of e-commerce, with $ 3.45 billion. This number has increased 12.1% over the previous year, and analysts expect a further increase in 2017.
With so much potential, it is important for e-commerce owners to get their sites ready. The more prepared you are, the less you will feel overwhelmed. These Cyber Monday best practices will help ensure that your holiday season is going well for you and your customers.
Organize Your Sales
Before you start beautifying your site and marketing your Cyber Monday sales, you need to organize your stock and make thoughtful decisions about what should be on sale and at a reduced price. A misstep here could easily do more harm than good. Be careful not to overprice your products. Your pricing strategy should take into account the margins that generate a profit rather than trying to be the cheapest product on the web.
You will also need to check your inventory and make sure you have enough stock to run the orders. it is better to have too much product than not enough. You may need to speak to your supplier before, and if you are shipping your product yourself, you will also need to stock up on shipping supplies. Some companies will temporarily hire additional staff to cope with the increase in sales.
Inform clients early
Spreading the word about your Cyber Monday offers is imperative. This involves a copy on the page that details your sales, PPC ads, social media outreach, and extensive email marketing. Early planning of your ads allows you to take the time needed to create and budget your campaign correctly, as some keywords become more expensive during competitive seasons.
Do not forget the social platforms, either. Advertising on Facebook is particularly effective and highly targeted. In fact, a study found that Facebook's clickthrough rates were up to 66% on Black Friday, which gave you ample opportunity to reach your market. And depending on your niche, you should consider advertising on other platforms like Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. E-mail marketing campaigns also account for about a quarter of the traffic on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sites, so be sure not to exclude them from your overall weekend strategy.
Be creative
Your ecommerce site should reflect vacation sales, and design plays a big role in achieving this possible. Fortunately, this does not have to be a major overhaul. Some eye catching graphics and visuals should do the trick. Change your main header image to show visitors immediately that there is a sale going on. Your most important business information should be posted on the home page. You can choose to buy a temporary holiday theme for your site to fully embody the spirit of the holidays. You can also hire an independent graphic designer or graphic design agency for banners and other images.
Prepare your site
Many aspects of your site must be in order to prepare for Cyber Monday. To prepare for the worst case, you need to have backups in place. This means that you need to have a developer or support team in charge to quickly deal with any issues that may arise.
For example, DDoS attacks are popular at major retail events, so security is crucial here. In addition, your site must be ready to handle an increase in traffic. This may seem like a simple check on your to-do list, but even superstores have had major problems in this area.
In 2014, Best Buy experienced three hours off during Black Friday and lost thousands of dollars in the process. Your site should be able to handle a peak of traffic. Depending on your hosting plan, you may need to contact your provider to discuss the impact of increasing traffic on your status. To get preliminary information about your website's capacity, use sites like Load Impact to test the server's load capacity.
Finally, your website should be responsive and mobile friendly. According to an IBM report, mobile traffic surpassed office traffic for the first time in 2014, in anticipation of Black Friday. And just over 26% of Cyber Monday sales came from a mobile device. To make sure you do not miss any of these sales, you must test your readiness ability in advance.