November 21, 2023

5 essential last minute BFCM tips for your store

When Black Friday is just days away, is there anything you can do to make a difference? The answer is yes! While there’s still days and hours before the big day, there is time to do things that will have a positive impact on your store’s performance.  


The kind of tasks you can do may not reflect the kind of large sweeping changes and planning you’ve done in the weeks and months before. However what you can do now is still important and will focus more on how you engage with your customers and provide them with a great experience. 

#1 - Review your sitewide notification banners and page-scroll pop-ups


Over Black Friday weekend, there will be a lot of new customers as well as existing ones. It’s worth making the most of their attention while you have it, and any extra ways you can grab it. Sitewide notification banners are common for ecommerce stores, and are a great way to communicate extra information you want customers to know no matter where they are on your store. This could be a reminder of your Black Friday offer, or a link to direct them to BFCM deals if it isn’t a site-wide promotion. 



Take a look at what you currently have as your sitewide notification, and decide what you can change this to that will have the most impact for BFCM.


The same goes for page-scroll pop-ups. It’s becoming a lot less common to see pop-ups as soon as a page loads, due to these being bad for both SEO and user experience. However pop-ups that appear further down the page or on page exit can still be useful. These can give customers valuable information about your Black Friday offers such as a countdown of how long timed deals will last to create a sense of urgency.


#2 - Test site-speed on your most important pages 

Your store might not be the only one on your customers’ radar this Black Friday weekend. Chances are they’ll be looking to snap up bargains from a few different sites, and they won’t want to hang around for a slow loading site. That’s why it’s so important to keep tabs on the page load speed of your most important landing pages in the days before BFCM. 


Testing for speed now will give you an opportunity to implement some quick fixes. The kind of fixes you can make include reducing image file size, utilizing browser caching, and removing unnecessary plugins or apps from your site. Things like minifying code also help, but may take a little more time or require some additional support. 


Improving site speed is a proven winner with customers - an ecommerce store that loads in 1 second or less converts 2.5x more customers than one which loads in 5 seconds. 

#3 - Use your buying or gift guides to post on social media

Creating buzz about your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals is essential if you want customers to take notice. With so many brands participating in the event, you want to use every advantage you have. If you’ve created any buying guides for Black Friday, these can be repurposed for social media to give potential customers ideas as well as tease the kind of deals you’ll have on offer. After all, nearly two thirds of shoppers plan to spend money on themselves over Black Friday weekend.



Similarly, if you’ve published any gift guides with the holidays in mind, it’s helpful to repurpose these for social media also. Many customers will be looking to find a good deal on a gift they’re planning to buy for the holidays, but they may not know exactly what they’re looking for. Give your followers gift ideas and let them know which products are included in your Black Friday event. This of course depends on the offer you have planned. If instead of money off or a discount you plan to offer gift cards on a minimum spend, you can instead frame it as “gift ideas for them, and a gift for you this Black Friday!”.  

#4 - Build excitement with your existing customers with email

Black Friday weekend is a great acquisition opportunity - 72% of customers say they’re likely to try a new brand over BFCM. However if you break that down, of that 72%, 46% say they’ll buy from both new and tried-and-tested brands and a further 28% of those surveyed said they’ll stick to brands they know. So, you have just as much opportunity with your existing customers as you do those shiny new ones. 


And the best channel for communicating with those customers? Email! This is a direct line of communication, with a better chance of engagement and conversion than other channels like social media. You can customize emails to exactly what your customers are most likely to be interested in, and build some excitement around your Black Friday offers. 

In the days leading up to Black Friday weekend, you can give them early access to your promotions, customize recommendations of what will be on offer, and more. This will help existing customers to keep your brand in mind when they start their BFCM shopping. 


#5 - Review your BFCM retention strategy

All those sales over BFCM are great, but if you want them to go further then you need to have a solid retention strategy. That applies to both your new and existing customers - you want to keep growing that base of loyal repeat customers. In the days before Black Friday weekend, you have time to really consider what that retention strategy looks like and how you can add to it. 


Some aspects you may want to consider:


  • Email Marketing - What does your post-order automated workflow look like for Black Friday weekend? Do you have one for new customers, and another for existing customers? Consider ways you can enhance this workflow by adding in extra information about dispatch times, product guides, and community info.

  • Incentives - Incentives don’t always have to be discounts - think about what you may offer customers to come back and order again. You can offer free shipping, buy-one-get-one, exclusive new year sales access, gift cards, and more. You can segment your audience by new vs existing, high value vs low value, loyalty status etc. to really make the most of incentives.
  • Customer Support - Around this time of the year, customer support is especially important to your customers. How can you ensure they’re getting the best level of support? It could be adding in better self-service support such as new tracking tools, adding a Black Friday FAQ to your site, etc.
  • Loyalty Programs - If you have a loyalty program, make sure customers hear about it. It could be what swings their continued custom in your favor. For example with new customers, let them know the benefits of your program and perhaps even give them a starting bonus for shopping over BFCM. For existing customers, you could boost their benefits as a thank you.

  • Returns and Exchanges - These are an inevitable part of holiday season shopping, and it’s in your best interest to make sure it’s easy for customers to return an order. Make sure the process is clearly communicated, easy to initiate, and simple to keep a track of. Provide flexibility in the options available when an order is returned, for example if they order on Black Friday then your usual 30 day return window is extended through to the end of January.

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Black Friday is a big opportunity for merchants, and this year looks to be the biggest ever. Doing these last minute checks and tasks will ensure that your store is ready for success, not just over the weekend itself but in the weeks and months after.