Maximizing Your Sales This Black Friday & Cyber Monday

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday set to soon kick off the 2021 holiday season, now’s the time for global sellers to get their stores ready for the busiest shopping period of the year. Analysts are predicting this year’s sales will eclipse last year’s record $20 billion in the US, making the Thanksgiving weekend a potentially lucrative one for cross-border merchants. But how should you go about maximizing your sales this year?

While tried and true strategies like social media promotions, adapting your store for mobile and product page optimization are all critical for your Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales (as well as your year-round sales), holiday shopping habits are changing and it’s important to keep up with the latest trends. Here, we’ll dive into what makes this year unique and how you can go about maximizing your sales.

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It’s Time to Get Personal Using Omnichannel Marketing

One side effect of the explosion in eCommerce over the last few years is that shoppers are being bombarded with advertisements and other marketing materials more so than ever before. This has made potential customers more selective as to where they shop, meaning, for this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to work extra hard for your store to stand out from the competition.

Today, 73% of shoppers go through multiple channels, e.g., websites, social media pages and mobile apps, before making a purchase, while 67% say that a poor user experience while shopping causes them to abandon a store. Taking an omnichannel marketing approach, in which you streamline and personalize your marketing materials across formats and platforms, can help provide a seamless shopping experience while ensuring your business doesn’t get lost in the crowd.

Doing so requires you to integrate your messaging across your website, social media channels and marketplace stores to personalize a shopper’s user experience. Examples of omnichannel marketing include sending an SMS or email to customers offering discounts on products they are shopping for or retargeting a customer on social media with a product they considered purchasing.

Convenience is Key

In addition to providing a unified user experience across different marketing channels, you want to ensure that the shopping experience at your store is as convenient as possible. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday business competition at an all time high, any hiccup, such as your site timing out or low inventory, can cause shoppers to quickly take their business elsewhere.

There are a couple of things that you’ll need to implement in your store to ensure the customer experience is as convenient as possible:

• Free shipping – At this point, it shouldn’t be a secret that shoppers not only prefer free shipping, but they also expect it. 75% of consumers expect free deliveries, even on orders under $50. If you’re unable to provide free shipping on orders that small, not to worry. Research has shown that sales thresholds for free shipping, e.g., “free shipping over $75” can result in a 90% increase in orders.
• Simple returns – Having an efficient return policy is significantly more important in the holiday season than during the rest of the year. Assume that many of your sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be used as Christmas gifts. As evidenced by the 55% of Americans who plan on returning or exchanging their holiday gifts, expect to see lots of returns in late December or early January. Providing your shoppers with simple returns can boost customer satisfaction and increase retention.

Earn Your Customers’ Trust

Earning your customers’ trust by featuring accurate reviews, real product photos and descriptions and fulfilling orders as advertised should be a year-round priority. On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when shoppers will be inundated with offers and deals, this is doubly true.

While 90% of shoppers globally read reviews before making a purchase, that’s only part of the story; your customers also need to be convinced that the reviews they read are accurate. There are a few things you can do to help build trust in your store, including:

• Don’t filter out negative reviews – Shoppers are more likely to trust a store’s reviews if they contain a mix of both positive and negative customer experiences.
• Make sure you reply – Replying to reviews, both positive and negative, goes a long way towards showing your customers that you’re invested in their shopping experience and that you can be trusted as a reliable seller.
• Monitor where your reviews are posted – While customer experiences posted on your business’s website, social media pages and marketplace store are important, they are far from the only places where shoppers read reviews. For example, 59% of shoppers look at product reviews on Google before making a purchase, so make sure to monitor where customers are posting reviews and reply accordingly.

Get Ready for a Record-Breaking Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2021

With a forecasted $17 billion in Thanksgiving + Black Friday spending and a further $12 billion in Cyber Monday sales, 2021 is set to once again break records while solidifying the long Thanksgiving weekend as the premier online shopping event of the year.

For eCommerce merchants, taking advantage of the different sales opportunities this year means fine-tuning your store to meet the changing needs of your customers. To see how Payoneer can help facilitate your cross-border sales and maximize your store’s potential, simply click below.

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