The Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend is approaching November 29, 2024, and Shopify merchants are already getting ready. Last year, Shopify announced that the platform’s users reached $9.3 billion in sales during the Black Friday weekend – 24% more than in 2022.
With such potential, it’s never too early to start preparing your strategy. That’s why I researched and hand-picked the best 15 tips on how to prepare for Black Friday & Cyber Monday on Shopify. Read to discover how to ensure the shopping holiday’s success and maximize sales.
Optimize your website's images, SEO, and speed for Black Friday
Try TinyIMG free15 must-do tasks to prepare your Shopify store for Black Friday
1. Analyze last year’s Black Friday results
If this isn’t your first time doing Black Friday, start by analyzing last year’s data. The best way to do this is to leverage Shopify’s native tools.
In your Shopify Admin, you can head to Analytics > Reports and view the “Sales by product” report. Change the date to your last year’s Black Friday sales period to identify your top performing products.
You can leverage this data to know which products bring the most value and sales to your store and focus your top Black Friday sales on that. Alternatively, you may use the Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend to prepare the biggest discounts on your lowest-selling products and clean out inventory.
Alternatively, you can examine the “Sales by discount” report. You can use the provided data to analyze what Black Friday offers worked best and are worth implementing again.
Aside from Shopify’s tools, don’t forget to analyze which sales channels, email marketing, organic traffic, or other, brought the most traffic and conversions. That’s how you’ll know what to focus on most this year.
2. Prepare unique Black Friday discounts
A successful Black Friday strategy involves offering sales that are higher than discounts you normally offer. The main point of Black Friday is that it’s a once-a-year period where people wait for unusual and “too-good-to-pass-up” sales.
Here are a few BFCM offer types that companies often leverage:
- Limited offers for different products during Black Friday can ensure more sales since it creates a sense of urgency. You can create daily or even hourly deals to get continuous traffic surges. Here’s an example of Steve Madden’s glittery banner with daily deal announcements:
- Category-based discounts help clear out inventory and tailor offers for specific customers. Such Black Friday sales are usually used by stores that sell a wide range of products. For instance, you can see how Target implements category offers below.
- Bundle offers can be used to offer specific bundles cheaper, like a holiday gift set, matcha kit, or anything else related to your business. Alternatively, bundles can be sold as the “buy more, save more” rule.
3. Prepare deals for loyal customers
Black Friday is a great way to show loyal customers your appreciation. For example, you can use a Shopify loyalty app to set up point-based rewards. This can motivate users to spend more so they can get even bigger discounts.
You can also leverage your mailing list to offer early bird discounts, such as pre-black-friday access with a special promo code or providing free shipping.
Let’s take a look at an example of how the Ray-Ban eyewear store communicated its early discount through email marketing:
The company has a subscription program called The Ones, and as a thank you for its repeated customers, offered access to their Black Friday deals 48 hours earlier.
Loyalty discounts don’t just increase company sales. They can also provide benefits to your business by further strengthening customer relationships or even encouraging word-of-mouth marketing.
4. Start sales before Black Friday
Black Friday is very close to Thanksgiving, and the National Retail Federation found that over 55% of consumers take advantage of the early holiday sales. That’s why it’s important to start spreading the news and giving sneak peeks into your BFCM sales on your email or social media channels early on.
You can even start marketing Black Friday sales a week before the actual holiday. This way, consumers don’t feel that single-day pressure to buy something and can shop when convenient.
Based on my research using the Wayback Machine, top US brands ran Black Friday deals for longer periods. For example, companies like Target, Costco, and Sephora started marketing Black Friday deals a week before the holiday in 2023.
Such a strategy is also beneficial for businesses because the traffic surges during Black Friday won’t be as severe, and there will be more time to market specific offerings.
5. Build anticipation
Before Black Friday, you can start marketing the event on your website or using your email or social media channels.
One of the ways to do it is to leverage countdown timers to build anticipation. It helps keep your customers engaged and informs them that your store is also participating in the holiday sales.
Here’s an example of the GAME (game.co.uk) store’s early Black Friday email:
I liked that the company used a large bold font and a big countdown timer that makes it hard to ignore what’s written. They also provided early Black Friday deals, ensuring customers can start shopping early and not just wait for the actual day.
Another way to promote the event early is to create a dedicated Black Friday landing page or simply give sneak peeks on your homepage. You can offer exclusive BFCM perks for members, early access to some deals, or simple encouragement to stay tuned by giving their email address.
6. Create email marketing campaigns prior BFCM
Leveraging your email marketing channel can help you get ready for Black Friday early. Here are a few strategies you can implement:
- Grow your mailing list. Start to collect your customers’ emails way before the BFCM weekend. You can include a checkmark option during the checkout process for consumers to agree to receiving the latest deals. Alternatively, you can add email collection fields on your website’s pages, emphasizing exclusive offers.
- Hint Black Friday deals. If you make one-of-a-kind deals that interest your audience, dropping hints in your emails can ensure higher engagement as your customers stay on the lookout.
- Automate abandoned cart emails. It may happen that a customer will leave the cart without purchasing. Sending automatic reminder emails can reduce abandonment. According to Moosend, 21% of abandoned cart emails receive click-throughs.
Here’s an example of how an abandoned cart email could look like:
Don’t forget to personalize the emails you send. According to a SmarterHQ report, 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messages. So make sure your emails include the customer's name or maybe even products relative to their interests.
7. Run Black Friday ads
Most online retailers offer Black Friday deals every year, so it’s no longer enough to just put a banner on a product page and wait for results. Based on the sales channels you’re going to leverage, you should prepare engaging ads to run during Black Friday.
Here are a few strategies to help you create the most effective BFCM ads:
- Create Black Friday ads for your top-selling products
- Use urgency and emphasize exclusivity in your ad content
- Use social media to promote your ads and get exposure
- Leverage A/B testing to see what ads perform better
- Create Cyber Monday ads to market during the weekend
8. Retarget past website visitors
Retargeting campaigns can help spread awareness about your brand and its products, and with time, even increase conversion rates. The easiest method to retarget site visitors is to set up a retargeting pixel, like the Meta Pixel or Google Ads retargeting.
The way it works is you place the pixel (JavaScript code) on your website, and it adds a browser cookie to each visitor’s browser. They start seeing your site’s ads on other platforms, even after leaving your website.
For instance, let’s say a specific user comes to your site, views the Loop Dream earplug product page that you’re selling but doesn’t buy it, and closes the page. The user then starts seeing ads for that particular product on their Facebook feed, encouraging them to return to your website.
9. Customize your Shopify theme for Black Friday
During the BFCM weekend, companies usually alter their homepage for the event so that users who come to the site have quick access to Black Friday deals. You have to make it engaging, and that can mean using bold colors, large fonts, or effective messaging.
Here are some of the general practices for your BFCM homepage design:
- Use a countdown timer to create urgency
- Mention free shipping where applicable
- Introduce sales banners designed for conversions
- Have bold and well-visible CTAs
If design isn’t your strong point, you can leverage tools like the PageFly page builder. It offers some BFCM-themed templates to help you get started.
Alternatively, you can use PageFly’s convenient drag-and-drop editor to add conversion-optimized elements, such as countdown timers.
10. Optimize your product pages
While preparations for Black Friday usually involve homepage design updates, you shouldn’t overlook your product pages either. Here are some of the best tips to optimize your product pages:
- Compress images. Non-optimized images can take up a large portion of your page weight, resulting in slower load times. Leverage tools like TinyIMG to automatically compress images without quality loss so they don’t negatively affect your site performance.
- Freshen up product descriptions. Take a look at your top-performing products and optimize product descriptions for higher conversion.
- Provide useful information. Make sure you use free shipping, return policy, or other useful icons so users have quick access to the most important information. You can even add a product page FAQ with questions related to Black Friday.
- Add BFCM banners. Use banners to emphasize the Black Friday sale to grab attention and create a sense of urgency.
For example, let’s take a look at the Secret Lab product page:
The company amped up its product page with an impressive BFCM discount and a Black Friday urgency widget that stands out.
Automatically compress images on product pages without quality loss
Try TinyIMG free11. Assess your site for mobile-friendliness
Mobile experience is just as important as desktop, if not more. According to a study by Salesforce, 79% of eCommerce traffic during the 2023 Cyber Week came from mobile devices. Here are a few main steps you should take to ensure your site is ready for smartphone users:
- Use a sticky navigation bar
- Ensure images are responsive
- Optimize performance on mobile
- Avoid pop-ups
- Keep the checkout process minimal and provide convenient payment methods, like Apple Pay or Google Pay
- Make buttons large so it would be easier to press
- Make sure the font is big enough to be easy to read
Shopify themes are usually responsive and well-made for all devices. However, if you’re using a third-party theme, go through the main steps on how to optimize your Shopify mobile store.
12. Accelerate the checkout process
Evaluate your store’s checkout process on desktop and mobile devices to ensure minimal pain points. A study by Baymard found that some of the main reasons for cart abandonment were required account creation (26%), long checkout process (22%), and not enough payment methods (13%).
All of these issues can be easily solved with a few optimizations:
- Add a guest checkout option. Guest checkout eliminates the need for first-time users to register if they don’t want to, speeding up the purchase.
- Ask for obligatory details only. Make sure users don’t have to fill in extensive forms. This can be adding a “Full name” field instead of asking for first and last names separately. You may also set the billing and shipping addresses as identical, so users can change it only if necessary.
- Add more payment methods. You can add quick payment options, such as Apple Pay or Google Pay. As a Shopify merchant, you can also leverage the Shop Pay functionality. It accelerates checkout by giving an easy one-click checkout with a review and pay window.
13. Optimize your return policy
Purchasing products online doesn’t let consumers try them or visualize how they work, which is why optimizing your return policy for Black Friday is a must. According to research by Invesp, 62% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if they can return a product, and 58% want a “no questions asked” policy.
Make sure you create a return policy page in clear and simple language and provide easy access to it, such as in your website’s footer.
You may also automate the return process by leveraging a Shopify returns app like Return Prime or AfterShip Returns.
Not only will it provide confidence for your customers, it can even help turn returns into revenue. For example, you can offer to refund money into a gift card, not just a bank transfer or original payment method.
14. Make sure your store can handle traffic surges
During the Black Friday weekend, your website may get much more traffic than usual. And if your website can’t handle it, customers are likely to leave due to slow website loading or crashing. Here are a few tips to help you optimize your site for high traffic:
- Review your store’s structure and organization to prevent congestion. You can do this by simplifying navigation, using a responsive design, keeping the most important content at the top of the page, and limiting pop-ups.
- Run your website through PageSpeed Insights to test your performance score and follow the provided suggestions to improve it so that users don’t leave your site due to poor experience. According to Think with Google, when the page load time goes from 1 to 3 seconds, the bounce rate probability increases to 32%.
- Leverage a third-party tool to optimize your site’s speed. For example, a Shopify app like TinyIMG can help automatically compress images, enable asset preloading and lazy loading in a single click, and even fix broken links.
- Check your website’s plugins and remove apps that you no longer use or are unnecessary so they don’t affect your website’s speed.
15. Ensure fast and human customer support
Optimizing your customer support efficiency is a crucial part of your overall Black Friday strategy. Since deals are limited, customers will need fast answers.
Research by Tidio found that 41% of consumers prefer live chat compared to other support options. That’s why I’d recommend introducing the live chat option, even if it’s just for the holiday period.
You can even go a step further and ensure your customer service team is empathetic and can solve issues promptly by providing training.
Moreover, you can leverage a live chat bot so your team doesn’t get more requests than they can handle during the BFCM period. There are plenty of Shopify live chat apps you can pick from that will automate repeated responses, such as work hours or refund policy questions.
16. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t
After the BFCM weekend is over, it’s time to look at the results. Check what sold best and which discounts or marketing efforts paid off the most. If it’s not your first Black Friday, you can compare it to last year’s data and results.
You can use this period to gather customer feedback about their shopping journey on your site. It can help identify pain points or if anything else went wrong, like website crashes or a long checkout process. This can be a great way to learn what you can improve for next year’s Black Friday.
How to prepare for Black Friday on Shopify?
Preparing for Black Friday isn’t a the-night-before task and requires careful planning and preparation weeks if not months before. Even such strategies as analyzing previous BFCM data and dropping deal hints before the shopping holiday can make a massive difference in your results.
However, the most important step is to prepare killer discounts that are hard to skip and ensure you market them efficiently. Leverage your top-performing sales channels, optimize your website to prevent friction and enhance user experience, and carve your Black Friday ads early.
Frequently asked questions
During Black Friday, you can get Shopify with 25% off all its yearly plans on top of the first 3 days free and 1 month for $1. I checked Shopify’s pricing pages during the Black Friday weekends over the last few years using the Wayback Machine website, and it appears that they always offer discounts only for their yearly plans.
In 2023, Shopify stores broke the sales record during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend at $9.3 billion. That’s a 24% increase from the same holiday weekend in 2022.
According to a 2023 research by Queue-it, the most popular items to buy during Black Friday were electronics (53%), apparel & accessories (16%), and health and beauty (12%).
You should set the Black Friday sales period at least from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. While every store has a different strategy, many Black Friday sales start running a week before and last another week after Cyber Monday.
