Black Friday to Cyber Monday — the days following the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States — are the biggest e-commerce events in the US. The five days between the holiday on Thursday and the following Monday are typically called Cyber Week and are considered the start of the holiday shopping season.
In fact, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are becoming the biggest shopping days for many online retailers. In 2023, sales during Cyber Week totalled US$38 billion, a 7.8 percent increase over the previous year.
The e-commerce impact of Cyber Week goes beyond the US. Globally, online sales increased last year by 8% for Black Friday and 5% for Cyber Monday, leading to US$298 billion in sales. This means for e-commerce merchants all over the world, Cyber Week is a crucial period that can lead to significant shopping activity and profit.
You'll want to start preparing for Cyber Week now, even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still months away. It's good to be fully prepared as soon as August by ordering stock early so you won't run out of products to sell during the busy shopping season.
Aside from ordering stocks early, here are some tips to prepare well for Cyber Week.
Support your marketing plan with data and analytics
It's good to start planning your Black Friday to Cyber Monday promotions and ads early so you can maximise sales. By focusing on top-selling products, you can capitalise on product categories that have proven popular during the season based on your past sales data. You can then create deals and marketing assets for these items in advance.
Additionally, consider using paid search to drive traffic and sales. That's because paid search was the biggest sales driver during Cyber Week in 2023, accounting for a significant 27% of online sales.
You can also anticipate the impact of email marketing in your Black Friday strategy — email marketing drove 15% of online sales during Cyber Week in 2023. A compelling email marketing strategy may include offering personalised offers based on customers' preferences. Data-based planning and informed decisions will set you up for a successful shopping season.
Optimize the shopfront and checkout process
You'll also want to discuss traffic overload solutions with your hosting provider to handle the projected influx of customers during Black Friday to Cyber Monday. That way, you can prevent potential downtime or slow performance — and keep the customer experience on your site smooth. Remember to test your website performance on mobile, too, as 59% of Cyber Week 2023 sales were made on mobile devices.
Test and optimise the checkout process across all selling platforms so you can identify processes you can speed up. For instance, implementing autofill checkout forms can reduce payment friction and speed up the purchasing process.
Additionally, the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events are ideal opportunities to explore different e-commerce channels, such as TikTok, to attract new buyers. If you plan to sell on a new channel, start trying it out at least two months before the Cyber Week shopping season so you can learn their features, payment options, and fulfilment methods.
Offer buyers flexible and preferred payment methods
To prepare for the biggest e-commerce shopping days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, consider offering flexible and preferred payment methods to lower cart abandonment and increase sales.
Research has shown that one of the leading causes of shopping cart abandonment is when a buyer's preferred payment method is not available upon checkout. Another reason? The lack of flexible payment methods, such as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). This method has become so popular that purchases made via BNPL hit an all-time high during Cyber Week 2023, driving US$16.6 billion in online sales — a 14% year on year increase.
Cater to global customers with wallets, superapps and more
The global reach of Black Friday and Cyber Monday e-commerce sales also means considering the payment preferences of customers outside North America, such as Latin America and Asia Pacific. With low credit card penetration and a preference for mobile and digital payments in these markets, it is crucial to enable payments from super apps and e-wallets.
If these alternative payment methods are not already part of your checkout process, you still have time to catch up. Instead of adding different payment methods one by one, you can speed up the process by working with a payments service provider like Antom to integrate all your customers' preferred payment methods into your e-commerce platform — just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Getting an early start at setting up and testing these methods will help you stabilise operations and fix any issues while sales are relatively normal — and not during the busiest shopping season. Glitchy checkout processes could lead to frustration, cart abandonment, and lost sales, so early preparation is key.
Setting up for success with the right partner
These are some tips that merchants can do to start preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday to boost sales and make the most out of the holiday shopping season. While there are several other ways to prepare, you can focus on offering alternative and flexible payment methods as the key to reduce shopping cart abandonment. By partnering with a trusted payments provider, you can reduce the complexity in this area and concentrate their efforts on increasing sales with deals and promotions.
Antom is a trusted payments provider that covers a wide range of payments solutions that are preferred in many different markets. A single integration with Antom gives merchants access to 1.5 billion customers around the world, including e-wallet and super app users.
Set yourself up for success this upcoming holiday shopping season.
