Is your webshop prepared for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022?
01-11-2022

Black Friday (Friday, November 25th) is not just any day for webshops. Besides Cyber Monday (Monday, November 28th), it is the largest sales day in the US. These days are also very popular in the Netherlands, as witnessed by the millions of Dutch people who stayed up until midnight during the previous edition to be the first to make their move. In total, there was a 23% increase in spending during this period in 2021 compared to 2020.
In addition to being some of the most lucrative, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are also some of the most challenging days of the year for online stores. Especially with high inflation (an average increase in product prices of 14.5%) and disruption of supply chains, many sellers will have to step up their Black Friday and Cyber Monday efforts to meet the needs of online buyers. In this blog you can read how you can prepare for these shopping days in turbulent times.
To kick in an open door right away: good preparation is also half the battle when preparing your webshop for mega events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Make sure that your discount plan is ready on time, all your promotions are set up on time (at least a few weeks in advance) and that landing pages are ready to go live.
Also check whether all parts of your webshop work flawlessly and optimally. This means, among other things, that you have to make sure that:
Finally: reserve time internally to complete the entire buyer journey as a customer. This must be a flawless journey that the customer takes to purchase a product or purchase a service. If you work with different segments or personas in a personalized way, test this for each target group.
Some sellers offer discounts on almost their entire range on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Instead, you can also launch more targeted discounts. For example, consider a discount on:
Attract visitors? Then good landing pages are of great value. A good example is special product pages that only show deals for Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Provide an attractive design and make ordering as easy as possible.
Black Friday is also a good time to rethink your product pages. Do they have a description that is highly conversion-oriented? Is there enough stock? And are the promotional prices set correctly? Also an important action point: stimulate cross-selling opportunities or promote alternative products. This creates additional opportunities to increase turnover.
Bundling products means that you offer multiple products or services at a reduced price in one package. It is a good and fast way to solve supply chain problems or get rid of unsaleable inventory.
You can even take this strategy to the next level by offering personalized product bundles that allow customers to (partly) put together a package themselves. You use the sales history or search behavior for segmenting customers and putting together personalized bundles. Personalized emails and special pages in your webshop are good ways to focus attention on product bundles.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are also great times to stock up on your most popular items and schedule special offers that take less-selling items off the shelves. You can expect an influx of new customers on Black Friday.
Therefore, make sure you have clear and complete product pages that contain all the important specifications of a product. Think of dimensions, weight, materials and any technical specifications. In addition, provide each product with high-quality images and videos. Product reviews are also very valuable. The visitor determines whether your product or service is reliable and of good quality. Google also uses this as a ranking factor in the search results.
Social media are your best friends on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. By offering high-quality content on social media, you can connect with potential new customers and give your brand and brand awareness a big boost. While useful content is important, it is also important to create a sense of urgency. Try to make it clear to people why they need your product(s) and should seize their chance right now!
Potential buyers are already orienting themselves on products they are considering buying in the weeks before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is therefore very interesting to invest in retargeting campaigns that are aimed at webshop visitors from the past 30 days.
Statistics from this year show that the average number of abandoned carts is between 59.2% and 79.8%. So this is way too much potential income to pass up. Using auto-generated, personalized abandoned cart emails is a proven strategy for increasing conversion.
For example, offer the customer an extra reward for paying for an abandoned shopping cart. Some visitors change their mind about certain products. You can offer them alternatives based on their order history. For example, consider a comparable product in a slightly different style or from a different brand. Or offer supporting accessories within the category they shopped in.
The shopping days that have come over from America are now well established here. However, Singles' Day is not yet well known in the Netherlands. This day originated in China and falls on 11-11 every year. The four ones stand for single life. This day has grown into the largest off and online shopping day in the world. In 2017, China's largest online trading company, Alibaba, brought in $25 million in just one day. Singles' Day has far surpassed Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The expectation for 2022 is that Singles' Day in the Netherlands will become increasingly well known and will offer interesting new sales opportunities.