How To Prepare For Black Friday: Tricks From Big eCommerce Players

Black Friday is coming soon, which means it’s time for your business to think about stocks, advertising campaigns, and strengthening the selling tools.

This year the first Friday after Thanksgiving falls on November 29. From that day, the holiday shopping season will not only test eCommerce businesses’ competitiveness, but also give them the opportunity to stand out to their clients. With a carefully designed strategy, you can earn almost one month’s worth of revenue, increase sales, promote your brand and expand your customer base.

In this article, you will learn how to prepare for Black Friday based on the experience of major eCommerce players.

Trends to Consider For Black Friday Promo

Holiday shopping season is covering more and more iconic days, from Black Friday to Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday sales. Let’s take a look at the statistics following these days.

Mobile Shopping

Throughout the holidays, online shopping is preferred by 43% of users, among which 51.1% are mobile users and 48.9% are desktop ones. 

Product Category Focus

One of the most popular categories of goods is clothing and electronics. At the same time, many buyers leave the purchase of large household appliances just on Black Friday, expecting a significant discount.

The main expenditure is on non-food products: accessories, cosmetics, health goods, household items and other categories, most often not included in the list of essential things for daily use. Which is also defined by Black Friday focus as an opportunity to choose gifts for holidays for yourself and your closest ones. Black Friday deals give more reasons to approach the purchase less consciously and spend a little more money just on the whim.

Audience Shifting

Another notable statistic is that Gen Z is currently one of the most active groups of buyers during Black Friday sales. While in 2022 the percentage was equally shared between Gen Z and Millennials at 79%, by 2023 the number of Millennials buyers decreased to 75% and Gen Z increased to 83%.

Attitude Towards Black Friday

However, about 57% of online shoppers believe that Black Friday is mostly a scam. People do prefer good offers, but they don’t support Black Friday tradition in general. This, in turn, has shaped another trend, which we will talk about later. 

In the meantime, let’s conclude that Black Friday is indeed the biggest major event during the holiday season. During this time the eCommerce industry has developed certain patterns of work with marketing campaigns, as well as tools to boost sales.

Black Friday Checklist: How Not to Leave Your Business in the Red

What does preparation for Black Friday look like for an eCommerce store? For a physical store, this could be presented by brightly colored advertising banners. But in a digital showcase you need to think about how to “wrap” the promo for eCommerce customers. 

But even before that, it is important to prepare well. So we at CS-Cart have gathered our clients’ experience and examples from big industry players, compiling a Black Friday checklist for you.

✔️ Analyze Statistics of the Past Years

It all starts with planning, and given Black Friday format you need to plan your discount offers. 

Try to collect as much data as possible about your past years’ sales—what did users pay the most attention to? What products do they add to their favorites but hesitate to buy?

Collect information about user behavior in your location and niche: what product categories are in demand? What is the average order value?

If you’re operating an omnichannel business, collect aggregated analytics across all types and areas of your business. Depending on the type of a product, the data can vary greatly.

You can analyze such statistics in Google Trends. Besides, not limited to the internal data of your business, but also examine the demand for the products of your niche. Enter a keyword query related to a certain product and see how popular it was.

✔️ Evaluate the Discounts You Can Offer

Of course, you need to look at your business opportunities sensibly. Evaluate your product range—what products or services are you willing to discount? How generous can this offer be?

Meanwhile, competitors are not sitting idle either, especially during Black Friday sales. Think about what additional enticing offers you can give to your customers. It could be:

• Free shipping
• A gift for purchases over a certain amount
• An additional discount for a higher check amount
• Promo codes for discounts after Black Friday

✔️ Prepare Your Resources

No matter how enticing the advertisements may be, customers make their buying decision the moment they visit your online store or marketplace. So the obvious things to do in the preparation stage are:

• To inform your customers about Black Friday: the start and end date, maximum discounts, additional promotions and offers
• To conduct load testing that will show how your resource copes with the increased number of unique visitors. At the time of Black Friday sale it is most to be expected
• To set prepared visuals for Black Friday

Home page style that highlights Black Friday deals through a bright design for this event:

Header page banner that redirects the user from all the pages on your site or marketplace to a section with discounts dedicated to Black Friday:

Promotional page, more often a separate landing page with a countdown timer to the start of Black Friday, which will then redirect users to your main resource:

Email marketing campaigns or a newsletter sign-up form can help your business expand your customer base just in time for Black Friday

Place a newsletter sign-up form on your resource—offer this to customers along with an exclusive Black Friday deal for those who sign up, thus leaving the “hook” for a reason to subscribe to your regular email newsletter.

Work with SMM advertising and design vise, play with your product visuals, change your slogan or get on the wave of a current trend

Retargeting banners will direct users who have already interacted with your brand once. Displaying relevant ads with the most profitable offers in a contextual media network is one of the most powerful tools. The main thing is not to forget to implement data collection for retargeting on your site to see how it works for you.

✔️ Consider Force Majeure

Things can go wrong at the most crucial moment. Fortunately, we can learn from the most common mistakes.

• Problem: Employees were unprepared for the increased workload during Black Friday.
• Solution: Hold a general team meeting before the date. Make it clear that they’re sure to face a lot of work during Black Friday. At this time, everything is of high importance: the maintenance of marketing campaigns, the correct operation of your resource, the timely response of technical support in case of problems, and so on.

• Problem: A force majeure has occurred, but no one understands whose responsibility it was.
• Solution: Provide solutions for unforeseen circumstances in advance, as well as assign responsibility, so as not to waste time on lengthy coordination during the time of Black Friday.

• Problem: Operators don’t have time to process requests.
• Solution: In this case, set up a chat-bot or automatic processing of requests where no employee assistance is needed. As a last resort and depending on the size of your business, allow for the possibility that you may need additional employees.

• Problem: Key products are ranking low or not selling at all. 
• Solution: It may be worth changing keyword queries in the product text or using “plan B”—pre-thought types of offers with different product categories.

• Problem: There is no clear understanding. Are we ready or not? 
• Solution: Checklists come to the rescue! Finally, make sure that there is enough product in stock, your eCommerce resource is working smoothly and has been load tested, employees are aware of their responsibilities and increased workload.

✔️ Think About Aftermath

The critical loads of your resources are behind, users have ordered the needed products, everything worked just fine! But it’s too early to celebrate success, now it’s time to:

• Make sure to disable the advertising campaign without automatic stopping
• Remove Black Friday ads and bring back the previous prices
• Replace the entire Black Friday design with a regular one

And most importantly: analyze your data, for example, using Google Analytics. Make a detailed report, draw conclusions on the results of the day. This information will be extremely useful to you next year.

Successful Approaches of Big Players You Shouldn’t Feel Ashamed to Repeat

During the Black Friday deals, thousands of eCommerce websites compete for the consumer’s attention. Big players come up with new ideas and aspire to try unique approaches to Black Friday promotions almost every year. Let’s take a look at some examples of creative decisions you can adopt for your business.

Amazon’s Live Black Friday Deals

What it’s about: The store launches a live broadcast, demonstrating the product’s advantages and usefulness. Highlighted products can be ordered directly on the banner below the broadcast.

Well, why not engage with consumers in a live streaming format? It’s not the first year Amazon has held live broadcasts timed with Black Friday sales.

In a cozy atmosphere, a representatives of the company demonstrate goods with exclusive discounts. They talk about the convenience and show how well they can look in the environment of your home. They also communicate with chat and can answer some questions. 

Lingerie brand MeUndies included a similar format, but held an entire party on Facebook Live, which was a great solution during the lockdown period. That event included a DJ and dance contests, and the more people came to the party, the bigger the discount on products became.

Swatch’s Example of Exclusive Offers Instead of Discounts

What it’s about: Some brands, due to the company’s values, prefer to avoid the topic of discounts, emphasizing exclusive offers. The limited nature of such promotions sometimes attracts the attention of customers more than favorable offers.

The holiday season isn’t always about discounts and plenty of goods on the checkout page. Sometimes people want to buy things for themselves that they wouldn’t have allowed at any other time. That’s why the approach to Black Friday promotions can change too.

For example, the aesthetics and values of luxury brands do not allow them to work with discounts. But they often come up with unexpected solutions in the form of exclusive products timed to coincide with the date.

With that in mind, Swatch released a collection of watches with limited edition designs special for Black Friday.

Barnes&Noble bookstore provides discounts, but all book lovers wait for their Black Friday deals for something else entirely. During this period, the store sells exclusive titles signed by the authors themselves. 

Sephora’s Work With a Loyal Audience

What it’s about: Black Friday is not only about attracting new customers, but also rewarding existing customer experience.

Thus, cosmetics brand Sephora launched the Beauty Insider program back in 2007, and in 2016 released the third level of access Rewards Bazaar—an exclusive inner store for members of the loyalty program. Customers were able to redeem shopping bonuses for limited edition cosmetics.

Rewards Bazaar shows exclusive discounts and offers every Tuesday and Thursday, and on Black Friday their number increases several times, as well as the list of limited edition cosmetics available for purchase.

Moreover, loyal customers can take free makeup lessons from beauty consultants and become part of an online brand’s community. 

This approach to clients gives a sense of belonging and keeps customers engaged, while being easy enough to deploy in your eCommerce resources as well.

Walmart’s Use of Social Media

What it’s about: Use social media as a powerful marketing tool to complement your Black Friday advertising campaign.

In the current times, popularity on social media means a lot as the the audience’s focus has shifted to getting quick information in one place. No wonder brands are rolling out their marketing campaigns on TikTok or other apps.

Walmart is remembered for this approach, launching a marketing campaign called Unwrap the Deals in 2020. Using special filter users could get an exclusive discount and sometimes even a product as a gift. Then go to the Walmart website and immediately place an order on their deal. 

The success of the campaign was tremendous, raising the engagement rate by 18.4% and the hashtag was viewed more than 5.5 billion times. 

Target is Here to Create a Holiday Mood

What it’s about: Instead of pushing your discounts, frame them as an act of assisting. Understanding your audience helps promote your Black Friday offers just as much as flashy discount reminders.

We have talked so much about Black Friday discounts that there is a risk of forgetting—Black Friday is still the season when online shopping should feel especially festive. That’s why themed solutions can successfully and concisely complement your advertising campaign.

Retail company Target, which has both physical store locations as well as an eCommerce website and a marketplace, launched a gift guide idea. A simple but thoughtful solution: users could choose a gift suitable for a child of a certain age right away on the website.

This way, the brand helps parents or other family members not to waste time in searches among thousands of offers, but to find the right toy or gift within an organized section. A great way for a company to demonstrate best deals concurrently with caring for the customer and their time.

National Geographic Offers Extended Black Friday Offers

What it’s about: Sometimes people don’t have time to buy the needed items on Black Friday. Why not build an advertising campaign with long-lasting discounts even after the end of the sale date?

Though Black Friday is supposed to launch the best deals right at the moment, you shouldn’t urge your buyers too hard. Which means another way of showing care is not to run out of offers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Why not think about latecomer customers?

For example, National Geographic, an American pay television network, uses this marketing strategy, providing a discount on their print products, as well as special editions on DVD, travel gear, merch and so on.

Some brands add a last-chance timer, signaling most clearly when Black Friday discounts are coming to an end. Others use this method in conjunction with an exclusive offer for loyal customers who have signed up for the newsletter or who are part of the brand’s community of VIP customers.

Anti-Trends by IKEA and Patagonia

What it’s about: If using anti-trends aligns with your company’s values, you can make a great Black Friday ad campaign out of it. As well as a bold statement to a potentially new audience.

We mentioned above that the Black Friday tradition is not appreciated by all shoppers. Largely due to the unconscious consumption as well as environmental damage. After all, it is the holiday season that encourages consumers to unreasonably use plastic packaging and throw away a huge amount of old things.

A kind of Black Friday anti-trend was supported by the company IKEA with the hashtag #buybackfriday, encouraging users to sell them unwanted furniture. In return, the brand paid 50% of the original cost as a coupon, turning such trade-in into an entire Black Friday marketing strategy.

Accessories and footwear brand Allbird broke the whole idea of Black Friday by raising its prices by £1. Why? Using these kinds of eco-friendly marketing strategies, the company called for “break traditions, not the planet”, paying attention to drastic climate change problems. The company donated all proceeds to Fridays For Future, a movement against global warming.

Clothing brand Patagonia is widely known for their refusal to follow Black Friday marketing campaigns. The company started down the path of eco-friendliness back in 2011 by putting a jacket on sale with the caption “Don’t buy this jacket”. Such unconventional and daring creativity generated proceeds that were donated to non-profit organizations that deal with ecological problems.

On their website, the brand says they are doing business to save the planet. And urges customers to slow down on unconscious consumption by buying second-hand things, renting and repairing what they already have. And if people do choose goods, it should be of high quality and be able to last for a long time. The company adheres to this approach to this day, which becomes more relevant every year.

How The Verge Attracted Attention with a Surprise

What it’s about: Like the anti-trends, an unconventional approach to a marketing campaign also makes a statement during Black Friday. Sometimes one unusual action is enough to attract attention.

Holiday shoppers love surprises! Mystery boxes concept is nothing new, but it is still widely used and loved by audiences. The Verge, a website whose theme is computer hardware, took it all the way up and did a Black Bag giveaway in honor of Black Friday. This fancy backpack was filled with hardware, gadgets, and other tech goods worth hundreds of dollars. Needless to say, there were plenty of people eager to get their hands on the coveted backpack.

Especially considering that anyone who signed up for the company’s account could win the coveted mystery backpack.

How to Make the Most of Black Friday?

Of course, no one would be flattered by a single discount offer anymore. Black Friday can be a great opportunity to show the best side of your business: demonstrate your character, values and creative solutions, whether you go against trends or know how to work well with them. Especially if you use a prolonged advertising strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

If you’re just trying your hand at marketing campaigns, play up the latest trends or world-famous favorites: memes, creatives, mascots.

Most importantly, don’t forget that misleading is strictly forbidden! Black Friday can be a tricky reason to think about such tactics. For example, most users are sure that brands on the eve of the date artificially raise prices to then also artificially reduce them. If you are caught doing something like this, the brand’s reputation can no longer be saved.

Brighten up your offer with free shipping, quality service and additional offers. And don’t forget to analyze statistics!

We at CS-Cart will gladly share life hacks and case studies of our clients who have already gotten the most out of Black Friday sales using CS-Cart. Write to us and we will answer all your questions!

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