The transition into the holiday season always seems to sneak right up, no matter how prepared you think you are! With Black Friday just around the corner, brands should be finalizing their marketing strategies and getting ready for one of the busiest shopping days of the year. This goes for online sellers, too, of course. 

Gone are the days of Black Friday being a primarily in-store event. In 2019, 40% of shoppers made online purchases on Black Friday, and with COVID-19 cases increasing across the United States, you can expect to see more people shopping online from the safety of their homes.

In today’s blog post, we’ll review four ways to prepare your eCommerce website for Black Friday 2020. 

Take stock of your inventory.  

Having enough inventory on hand in preparation for the big day is just the first step. More importantly, eCommerce sellers must have adequate processes in place to prevent over-selling, which can result in a total customer service catastrophe during this critical time of year. This means checking to make sure that your eCommerce platform is communicating with your warehouse so that all items displaying on the website as in-stock are actually…in stock. The best eCommerce solutions, such as ZitrShop, update in real-time when an item is sold out to avoid over-selling.  

Make a good first impression.

Black Friday is one of the most competitive shopping days of the year, so you really need to pull out all the stops to make a good first impression with marketing and design. A shopper should be able to land on your website and immediately identify any Black Friday promotions. Hero banners, pop-ups and promotion count-downs are a few of the design elements you might consider including to highlight those deals and inspire urgency. Make sure your CTA buttons are prominently displayed with effective copy that compels shoppers to make a purchase.

Prepare for an increase in site traffic.

As we’ve discussed previously here on this blog, site performance impacts user behavior, and a slow website will result in lost sales. This is a problem any time of the year, but especially during the holiday season and on days like Black Friday when website traffic increases. Now is the time to determine if your servers have the capacity to handle the amount of traffic you anticipate. If the answer is no, your hosting provider could have some short-term solutions, but you may need to start looking into an eCommerce platform like ZiftrShop that prioritizes site speed and performance.

Rally your support team.

The holiday rush calls for all hands on deck when it comes to providing customer support. This includes your customer service team, of course, but also engineers and marketers to fix bugs and maintain a smooth user experience. Start preparing a fair on-call schedule if needed, and consider offering incentives to your employees to show them that you appreciate all the extra hard work they put in during the holiday season.  

It’s not uncommon for eCommerce sellers to become more aware of platform limitations during the holidays. Many enter the New Year ready for a new solution that better positions them for events like Black Friday. If you find that your current eCommerce platform is holding you back, contact ZiftrShop for a free one-hour consultation.