3-Minute BFCM Guide

Hey there 👋

The most important weekend for eCom is right around the corner — BFCM.

Last year Shopify merchants made $9.3B in sales during Black Friday & Cyber Monday, with an AOV of $108.12 💰️ 

It’s the biggest opportunity in e-commerce year-round, and in today’s post, we’ll share the best strategies to optimize your store before BFCM, during it & how to keep the hype long after the weekend 👀 

Let’s get started 🔥

1. Pre-BFCM Planning 🤓 

Before you make $$$ during BFCM, you need a solid game plan. Here’s a checklist of what you should do beforehand:

1️⃣ Stats Can’t Be Ignored — specifically product demand during last year’s BFCM, marketing channels that were most profitable & any data on customer behavior, take note of what worked well & invest into it.

2️⃣ Shipping & Delivery Strats — shoppers expect very fast and cheap (if not free) shipping during BFCM. Negotiate with your carriers & consider offering expedited shipping to your customers, plus slower but free shipping options.

3️⃣ Inventory Forecasting — use analytics to identify products you want to promote for BFCM. You can do this using Shopify Reports, ABC Analysis, or with good old inventory management software.

4️⃣ Priming Your Fans — warm up your audience before BFCM, so that they are primed & purchase-ready as soon as the clock hits.

Here’s how Samsung primed their customers:

And if you noticed, their Black Friday Sneak Peek at the bottom promises Free Shipping & Free Returns, which removes any risk and gives customers no reason not to upgrade their phone or cop a VR headset 👀 

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2. Optimizing BFCM Marketing & CR% 💹 

Now that you know what to do way before BFCM, here’s what to do about the event itself:

1️⃣ An Irresistible Offer — something a ton of brands do is offer an expensive & sought-after product at an insanely low price.

If shoppers already bought a $100 item for 80% off, they’d think buying a few more items would be an absolute steal in comparison to the original price, so upselling & cross-selling is ideal — we’ve covered this deeply in our CRO Guide.

2️⃣ Targeted Messages — if you haven’t already, you should segment your email list, SMS marketing & ads by new and loyal customers, with each having a personalized offer and specific urgency triggers.

3️⃣ Don’t Sleep On BNPL — buy now, pay later can significantly increase AOV & reduce cart abandonment, you need to have BNPL as a payment option during checkout (and make it stand out).

4️⃣ Mobile-First — 57% of BFCM eCom traffic came from mobile phones in 2023, making it the most important device to optimize your site for.

Make sure it doesn’t lag, has no broken pages, and browsing for & buying items is as frictionless as possible — just like Kohl’s, it should be as easy as two taps (offer to save info, too):

5️⃣ Remove Buyer Risk — if possible, offer free shipping, and free & easy returns. A no-questions-asked return policy will boost CR% massively.

3. Post-BFCM Retention & Scaling 📊 

BFCM isn’t JUST a weekend-long sales surge, the effects can be long-lasting, as long as you approach things correctly:

1️⃣ Post-Purchase Upsells — automate follow-up emails with complementary product suggestions or discounted deals after BFCM to increase AOV even more.

2️⃣ Retention Strategy — you can turn BFCM buyers into long-term customers with loyalty programs, and leave good impressions with things as simple as thank-you messages, we covered retention in-depth in our eCom Sales Funnel Guide if you’re curious.

3️⃣ Data For The Year — post-BFCM is the best period to analyze data & see what worked, whether it’s campaign performance, shipping outcomes, or CAC, all of this will help you have an even more profitable BFCM next year.

And that’s it! We covered everything you need to know to succeed at every stage of this year’s BFCM — and we wish you good business 😄 

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Daniil from ECORN