7 Actionable Tips to Prepare your eCommerce Store for BFCM 2021

Is your eCommerce store all primed up for the upcoming BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) Sale?

2021 is approaching the end and black Friday is down the road. Black Friday means huge deals and remarkable gains. Therefore, it is of great concern to devise a Black Friday checklist in advance to equip your store for the forthcoming BFCM deals.

If you want to grab huge sales this Black Friday Cyber Monday, start off by checking all the key points from the below must-haves we have prepared to help your eCommerce store with upsell opportunities.

1. Start Planning Long Before November Comes Up

Black Friday is not a one-day rush that takes place only on Friday. It is for a long haul that starts way before the actual Friday and can extend even after the event. So, Without precise planning, black Friday can get frenetic and unmanageable.

Plan out a workflow that contains all the essentials like:

• Sales intent for the weekend.
• What discounts you will give & how much.
• Whether you will be providing different tier deals for special customers
• What are the effective campaigns to promote and define your intended users?
• What will be the duration of the sales promotion?

Answer these questions prior and it will help you at a later date. The much smarter thing is to analyze last year’s BFCM strategy, pointing out what worked last year and fine-tuning strategies that didn’t work. Figure out which products made good sales and which didn’t, from where did you receive the highest traffic, and which customer group’s response was better. Then you will have a precise baseline of the 2021 BFCM plan.

As you are planning in advance, you can also cover up strategies that you missed out on last year. Once the outline is decided, you can put down roots in the technical part.

2. Be Ready with a Power-packed Website

Further moving, it is essential that your website is built to manage the huge traffic during the Black Friday – Cyber Monday sale. Obviously, you do not want your potential customers to leave because of the website crashing down.

That is just a prescription of your traffic leaving your site before even buying from your store. Once again, you can see last year’s traffic from Google Analytics and figure out whether you need to increase the throughput or make other alterations to manage the huge traffic that will rise on the Black Friday sale.

Also, make sure that the website is responsive for mobile users as the majority of the shoppers will be mobile users. Make sure that everything is understandable, visually pleasing, and operational regardless of the display size that the shoppers will use.

Therefore, check your website’s mobile-friendliness and bandwidth before proceeding to the next phase.

3. Create a Landing Page that Reduces Overwhelm for Shoppers

If you want to highlight several products from your store in front of the customers, create a landing page that will feature all of your desired products all in one.

By doing this, people will not get devastated by the full-priced products and will attract them to buy that product at a discounted price.

Try to cover up all your dealings in this one landing page and link this landing page in all your promotional channels so buyers can have a sight of all at a single glance.

4. Have Tighter Controls Over Your Inventory Management

In addition to preparing the website for a huge inflow of traffic, it is imperative to equally take care of the inventory, order fulfillment, and customer service as all of it will also have a broader flow of traffic.

If you are not having management on your inventory, start managing it today because if the BFCM comes nearby, it will be almost impossible to handle the inventory altogether along with the traffic inflow. So, ensure to combat this section immediately.

You do not want your customers to leave your site and abandon products just because of the delayed shipping estimate. Ensure to provide them with the product delivery as soon as possible. For that, you need to have a well-stocked inventory for the products you will be promoting for BFCM.

5. Figure out the Blockages in Your Order Fulfillment Process

Get to learn how much time your team takes to fulfill an order. Figure out and answer yourself some questions that:

• What will you do if the order volume doubles itself?
• Do your current strength has the ability to manage it or are they as indigent as the case maybe?
• Are you facing blockages in order fulfillment?
• What are the ways to expedite the whole process?

You definitely do not want the massive traffic of orders to not return back because of inconvenience in the order fulfillment. This online results in the customers putting it all off with your brand. You clearly don’t want this to happen.

The objective is obviously to grab BFCM sales to the largest possible number. At the same time, you also do want this impetus to remain persistent after the end of the long weekend.

You can send various custom messages to your customers via SMS notification. For that, integrate the SMS Notification Pro Module for Magento 2. You can send at various events performed by the customers. Verify your smoothness in the order fulfillment at the earliest.

6. Ensure You Have Adequate Customer Support Team Members Equipped

Next, get your customer support team members in an adequate quantity. Ask them if they are ready to handle the traffic coming up on the weekend. Whether they are ready to take up and respond to more calls and messages.

If you require more manpower, it’s required to add them even if it is just for a shorter span for the holiday gallop.

Also, keep the live chat box of your site up to date and working as the new customers may want a solution to their queries they are stuck on.

The faster you answer their queries, the quicker you will be able to close the purchase. So, get a live chat agent who is equipped to answer the customer’s queries swiftly.

7. Keep Up To Date on Social Media.

Having a social media appearance is imperative to strengthen brand recognition, enhance website traffic, and help boost your products. Customers are definitely going to browse through their social media feeds to find out black Friday Cyber Monday deals. Prosper on your community based on social media so that you have a larger audience to see your discount offer once the BFCM deal splashes around.

Create extraordinarily visually appealing content on social media. And do not just waste it. Provide further customer support to the customers on social media. Let them know and DM you in case they have any queries.

Key Points to Prepare for Black Friday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021 will be here in the twinkling of an eye and preparing for it thoroughly will assist you in marketing your eCommerce store and boost sales.

BFCM does generate possibilities of enormous gains but it can also pose a lot of risks and challenges. So, we hope you can take points and implement them for the upcoming Black Friday Cyber Monday sales from the gathered tips above.