In a crowded ecommerce landscape, during the busiest shopping weekend of the year, you need to give customers a compelling reason to shop with you instead of your competitors. Every step of the shopping journey counts. Follow this Black Friday checklist to ensure no tactic or detail is forgotten in the end-of-year hustle.
1. First stop: last year’s reports
Dig into your site reporting from previous years to identify trends in Black Friday shopper behavior. No two ecommerce stores are the same, and your strategy should be tailored to your audience and their buying patterns. Review last year’s popular searches and assess whether you need to set up any synonyms, redirects, or dedicated landing pages this year. Plus, now is the time to ensure the “zero results” of the past don’t happen again.
2. Turn insights into landing page gold
Now that you have valuable data on how your shoppers like to browse at this time of year, curate your categories accordingly. Top Deals, Gifts for Her, Stocking Fillers Under $50… Make it as easy as possible for customers to find what they’re looking for, whether they’re checking off their holiday shopping list or tracking down your best bargains.
3. Add sparkle with banners and badges
Shoppers are fickle, especially at this time of year. If they can’t identify your top deals quickly, they’ll bounce to a competitor with more eye-catching offers. Ensure relevant promotions and messaging are displayed prominently using visual cues across the homepage, autocomplete dropdown, category pages, and more. Keep banners consistent across other touchpoints too – from email to social and display ads.
4. Let your star products shine with boost rules
Nobody has time to manually update product arrangement as inventory fluctuates and demand peaks – especially during Black Friday & Cyber Monday weekend. Eliminate the heavy lifting with dynamic rules that highlight products that are in stock, on sale, and selling fast so shoppers can instantly spot the hottest results. It’s all about optimizing that product display order.
