Checklist to prepare your eCommerce for Black Friday 2022

Black Friday is the most anticipated day for many buyers and is the holiday with the highest sales volume of the year. Learn with us how to plan 10 to optimize the performance of your eCommerce on this special day.

For eCommerce, Black Friday sales can be higher than the whole year combined. This extraordinary sales peak requires special planning focused on maximizing the efficiency of all sales, collection and inventory processes.

The pandemic and biosecurity measures have triggered online sales statistics during Black Friday. Likewise, online purchases have increased by 30% annually since 2020.

Many shoppers have replaced the traditional queues at retail entrances with online purchases from the comfort and safety of their devices. For sectors such as fashion, sales during Black Friday have increased by 38% in the last two years.

Unlike previous years, Black Friday purchases are not limited to that particular day. More than half of shoppers confess that they choose to make their purchases before Black Friday. In fact, 12% of shoppers start their purchases even towards the end of summer.

These changes in consumption patterns have not gone unnoticed by eCommerce and have changed their inventory and sales strategies. Some online stores start preparing their Black Friday inventories during the first quarter of the year. Other sellers start their marketing strategies at the end of the second half of the year.

Some eCommerce statistics for Black Friday 2022

The top 5 sectors with the highest sales during Black Friday are:
Fashion 51%
Footwear and Accessories 41%
Toys 31%
Telecommunications 31%
Electronics/Appliances 28%
The conversion rates of eCommerce and marketplaces increase by 3.8% from the end of the summer until CyberMonday.
45% of consumers make their Black Friday purchases before November 1. 25% do so before October 1 and 12% during the summer.

These statistics influence the changes in strategies by online sellers. Today, more than ever, planning takes centre stage to optimize sales, inventory and logistics during this crucial date for eCommerce.

Let's look at some of the most important strategies to maximize the efficiency of your eCommerce in the face of new consumption patterns. We will help you make the checklist of the most successful strategies for Black Friday 2022

1. Check your technical stack

Can you imagine that your eCommerce website throws an error just on Black Friday? Sales that are not synchronized with inventories or that the payment gateway cannot charge credit cards?

Although it may sound like one of those nightmares that wake us up sweating at night, it is more common than we think. Many eCommerce have serious technological failures due to increased traffic and sales volume.

Other businesses install new platforms, applications and digital solutions to optimize the user experience. However, in this sense, it is advisable to do as many tests in advance.

On the other hand, the best time to make technology platform changes is during the first quarter of the year. Traditionally and for many sectors, this is usually the quietest time of the year. Therefore, it is the ideal one to do all the tests of operation, correction of errors and optimization of the technological stack.

2. Improve the loading speed of your website

The loading speed of eCommerce websites is one of the factors that most affect SEO throughout the year. However, shoppers often need quicker and more effective responses during the Black Friday shopping spree. According to WooCommerce every second that your eCommerce takes to load, your sales are reduced by 7%.

There are many reasons why a website may have a lower loading speed, the most common are:

Not optimized images. Many images in HD or with animations such as GIFs can take up more RAM and reduce the loading speed. Choose .JPEG formats over .PNG or .GIF formats.
Issues with JavaScript/jQuery. Many eCommerce plugins and APIs use Java as their programming language. Do audits and optimization of your plugins and tools before Black Friday.
Excess Flash content. Many websites, in their quest to create better graphic elements, go beyond Flash content. These contents slow down the loading of websites and create significant delays. Evaluate replacing Flash content with HTML5 alternatives.
Excess of HTTP requests. Reduce your CSS and Javascript files to speed up the speed of your website.
Lack of caching techniques
Excess of Ads, banners, Pop-ups and dropdowns
Codes not debugged
Lack of CDN services
Inadequate hosting
Inefficient gZIP compressors

All these technical elements affect the loading speed and eventually affect the sales volume. Some sellers choose to minimize the technical and graphic elements for Black Friday. Even so, we must always maintain the balance between the visual attraction and the technical values of our eCommerce.

3. Optimise your sales for mobile

Today, 60% of online purchases are initiated from a smartphone, 5% from a tablet or smartwatch and 35% from a computer. Incredibly, these statistics were the exact opposite just a couple of years ago.

In 2019, 59% of purchases were made from a desktop or laptop. Only 36% of purchases were made from a mobile.

This data is essential for the development of eCommerce in 2022. Online sales websites must be designed to be used from a mobile device. In this sense, applications, APIs, plugins and web designs must be 100% responsive to optimize sales.

According to the forecasts of eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, the distribution of online purchases in 2022 will be dominated by mobile phones. For the platform, this year 66% of purchase orders in 2022 will come from a smartphone (Android and IOS). Only 34% will come from a computer.

4. Boost the SEO of your website

Caring for and working on the organic positioning of your business, whether you have your eCommerce page or sell within a marketplace, has an extremely important impact on sales.

Getting to be in the first positions of the search engines organically, although it is not an easy task, is an investment that is more economical and profitable in the long term than the investment in advertising. Although we have to say, both are necessary to publicize your business.

During the high season of online sales, which begins with the pre-campaign for Black Friday, advertising costs skyrocket. If you have done a good SEO job in the previous months, you can be among the top positions without investing more money. Therefore, we recommend that you work on optimizing it as much as possible. Tools like Semrush can help you do this job.

6. Exploit your social networks

ECommerce businesses are optimizing their social networks as a platform to expand their buyer base for these dates. The segmentation power of social networks allows eCommerce to maximize its pre-purchase and advance purchase campaigns.

With additional discount messages, temporary codes, personalized messages and “VIP Promotions”, sales can multiply even months before Black Friday. Additionally, the networks make it possible to “flatten” the purchase curve much more and optimize their services before, during and after Black Friday.

Creating and caring for a community of users on social networks will have a direct impact on your sales when it comes to announcing special discounts, without even having to pay for these ads. Simply using your organic channels.

7. Set aside a budget for ads

Black Friday is a special date that needs a different planning and marketing process. Ads campaigns through email marketing and social networks must be combined with paid campaigns in all digital media.

Google Ads and the different marketing systems of the eCommerce platforms offer special campaigns for this season. In this sense, planning is once again the key to the success of our business.

As we have seen, a little more than half of the shoppers are willing to buy in advance of Black Friday. Many eCommerce stores start offering new releases and special offers months in advance.

The rage of Black Friday increases as the big day approaches. However, more and more buyers prefer to anticipate purchases to take advantage of discounts and not run the risk of running out of products.

8. Make an inventory forecast and do not run out of stock

Running out of stock before Black Friday is one of the worst nightmares of all online sellers. Lack of inventory planning and forecasting can be one of the worst mistakes in eCommerce.

To avoid this, our best allies are statistics and strategic, measurable and effective planning. Analyzing the best-selling products and studying purchasing trends are two of the most assertive purchasing optimization tools that exist today.

Some of the strategies that allow us to reduce the risks of running out of stock before Black Friday are:

✓Plan purchases from the last quarter of the previous year.

✓ Make pre-purchases and purchases programmed, anticipated and with delivery schedules.

✓ Include financial analysis, possible leverage and inventory financing as a cash flow formula for increased purchases.

✓ Analyze storage capacity and study dropshipping, fulfilment and inventory management outsourcing formulas.

✓ Deepen the relationship with suppliers, diversify the source of products and create MDD (distributor brand) lines.

✓ Create lines of substitute and complementary products that can be alternatives in case of punctual inventory failures.

✓ Negotiate lines of credit, assigned inventories and payments for sale.

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