Black Friday Tips: 6 Ways to Make Sales

29 Nov, 2019

Video transcript: Did you know that on Black Friday 2017, consumers spent over five billion dollars in online purchases? It was the largest online Black Friday in history. And in this video, I’m going to give you some Black Friday tips for how get a piece of that Black Friday […]

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Hey everyone, it’s Jessica from Oberlo. It’s time to jump on the Black Friday bandwagon. I’m going to share with you our top six Black Friday Tips for making sales. They’ll help you get your store in great shape for the upcoming holidays.

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What is Black Friday?

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Before we get into the list, let’s find out what Black Friday is and why it’s important for your online business. Black Friday is kind of like the Super Bowl for the retail industry. It’s the biggest sales weekend of the year, and it takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year that’s Friday, November 29th, 2019. It’s the biggest retail day in the United States, and often regarded as the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season. This is because of the special offers that stores run on and around Black Friday. Shoppers love to snap up those bargain deals. They scope out the best offers and discounts in the search for gifts for their loved ones and themselves.

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Traditionally, Black Friday is a retail bonanza for brick and mortar stores, but over recent years, the consumer frenzy has moved online too. So much so, that in 2016 ecommerce sales on Black Friday finally surpassed in-store purchases. You know what that means? Black Friday has become an ecommerce game, and if you want to play, now is the time to get off the bench. We published this video today so that you can get your online store in order in time for the madness. There’s no time like the present to get one step ahead of your competitors. Now it’s time for our Black Friday tips, six proven ways to make sales on Black Friday – and pay close attention, because along the way, I’ll mention some specific tools that will help you make those sales.

Alright. Let’s start the countdown.

Six Crucial Black Friday Tips

6. Deal of the hour

Black Friday shoppers are looking for one thing above all, deals, special offers, discounts, whatever you call them, if you want to make sales on Black Friday, you have to give consumers what they want, which is the feeling that they’re getting a great bargain. And deal-hungry shoppers react well to the novel special offers that make Black Friday the spectacle that it is. Once you know what deals you want to have in place, why not try and entice old customers back to your store with a friendly email. Let them know about your great deals and all the savings they can make. You can make this email even more persuasive by informing these customers that they are part of an exclusive group who are that receiving that email before anyone else. If you reward their loyalty, they are more likely to stay loyal to your store.

Here’s one idea for a great deal you can offer your customers on Black Friday, a deal of the hour, when you introduce a new special offer every hour, visitors to your store will be more likely to come back. They’ll want to see what else you’ll offer. You can cut prices, promote buy one get one free on certain products, or offer a free gift for orders of a certain amount. In any case, your customers will revisit your store to see what new perk you’re offering. Make sure your customers know about your hourly deals as soon as they enter your store. Place an eye-catching banner on your homepage to communicate this. Announce these deals regularly on social media too. These are things that you can start ticking off your to-do list today. You can begin crafting copy and scheduling posts for social media, and you can plan your store design now, so that it’s easier to introduce graphics for your special offers later on.

Pushing a new deal every hour on the hour can be a lot of hard work. I don’t want you to lose sleep this Black Friday. So I’ve included a link to an app called Bulk Discounts in the description below. Bulk Discounts schedules deals and prices for you. It also does a ton of other good stuff for Black Friday. So go check it out. Oh, and here’s one more pro tip; Don’t lose money on Black Friday. Protect your margins. For example, if the deal you’re offering is free shipping, make sure the cost of shipping is included in your product price. That way you won’t lose out.

5. Add new products

This is probably one of the most simple Black Friday tips for dropshippers to implement, that’s because dropshippers can add new products to their store in a matter of minutes. But here’s why this tip matters to shoppers, customers are always excited by new arrivals and collections. You can tap into that excitement by adding new products to your store. Try adding new items just before Black Friday kicks off, this way, your online store will have a fresh new look with fresh new products once Black Friday rolls around. You can also email all of your old customers to inform them of your new products and deals.

Here’s a great way to use new products to boost sales on Black Friday. Add products to your store that are only available during Black Friday. Include a graphic that reads Black Friday exclusive. This tells your customers that the product is only available for Black Friday. Creating urgency like this is a proven way of enticing customers to buy. You can also use the Bulk Discounts app to add a countdown timer to your product page. A countdown timer literally reminds your customers that the clock is ticking on your amazing deals, and that they’ll come to an end on midnight on Black Friday. If you want to add new products to your store for Black Friday now is the time to test them out yourself. Order products from suppliers to track shipping times and perform quality control. Does the product look like it does in the supplier photos, does it work? You should only add a product to your store if you’re happy with it, once you’ve gone on the customer journey yourself.

4. Free shipping

Guys, number four is one of the big Black Friday tips: If you’re not offering free shipping already, then you have to start offering free shipping on Black Friday. Here’s why: 88 percentage of consumers say they are more likely to shop at a store online if they are promised free shipping. Now, you will incur additional costs if you offer free shipping. Protect your margins by raising your product prices, so that they cover the cost of that shipping. Send an email to your previous customers announcing your customer-friendly shipping policy. Include a note about free shipping on your homepage, on product listings, and on the checkout pages of your store. Free shipping is the incentive consumers want to see most when it comes to shopping online. Increase your chances of a sale by giving your customers what they want.

3. Free gifts

This Black Friday, try offering your customers a free gift with a minimum purchase, a free gift is a fun reward for shoppers. The best items to offer as free gifts are inexpensive. These gifts shouldn’t be too expensive for you to source. Search Oberlo for products that cost around or under $2, and you’ll be onto a winner.

An overheard shot of a gift wrapped in yellow paper with a blue bow

Make sure it’s relevant to your niche. Free gifts should be relevant to your niche and brand. Your customers won’t be enticed to buy if you offer free gifts that have nothing to do with what you’re selling, so if your store sells products for cooking, don’t offer a fashion item like cuff links as a free gift. Offer something related, like decorative kitchen wall art, for example.

Finally, make sure the free gift is eligible for free or inexpensive shipping. Extra black friday tip: Factor in the cost of this free gift when you’re setting your product prices, so that you can maintain your margins. There’s a Shopify app called Free Gifts that automates this whole process for you. There’s a link to it in the description below. The Free Gift app lets you set purchase minimums for your free gift order, and you can select which products you want to offer a free gift with at check out.

2. Extend Your Sale

Black Friday doesn’t have to begin on Black Friday. Many stores start promoting their deals in the days leading up to Black Friday. And sorry to break it to you, but the weekend doesn’t mean the frenzy stops. Have you ever heard of Cyber Monday? It’s just like Black Friday except it’s on the Monday after. And it was created for e-commerce businesses like yours. That means you can promote all of your special offers all weekend, right through to Cyber Monday. Many people are likely to visit your store over Black Friday weekend, but not all of them are guaranteed to make a purchase. Some might bounce straight away. Some might take a look at a particular product before changing their minds. And some might add products to the cart but not finish the transaction.

A tip for Black Friday campaigns is to make sure you send targeted emails to visitors who abandoned their carts. Perhaps you can remind them that you have kindly held their shopping cart for them, and they have until the end of Cyber Monday to buy the contents of the cart at their discounted price. This is where the Facebook pixel comes in. If you install a Facebook pixel now, you’ll be able to re-target ads way beyond Black Friday. For example, you can create a Facebook ad offering a deal to people who abandon their carts. Watch this video right here to see how else the Facebook pixel can help you make sales. In the same video, we also show you how to install the Facebook pixel in under two minutes.

1. Run a Giveaway

A giveaway is a proven method of getting more visitors to your store. Choose an item that you don’t already sell and is more expensive than the products you offer in your store. So if you’re marketing sunglasses to young women, you could try giving away something like a make-up brush kit, which those young women would also be likely to buy. Alternatively, you could offer a high-value gift certificate for your store. Use an app called Sumo to set up and run your giveaway. Sumo allows customers to enter the giveaway by, for example, giving you their email address. That means that even if the customer doesn’t buy from your store over Black Friday, you can email them later with special deals. One Oberlo merchant used Sumo to run a giveaway for his store. The result? He made nearly $9000 in one month. To learn about how he did it, check out the link in the description or click right here.

Black Friday Tips for Marketing

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Ready to start making sales? We have four Black Friday tips for your preparation. These tips come from Oberlo marketing experts and successful dropshippers. We’re sharing them with you because we are rooting for you this Black Friday. Ready?

Set goals before you begin. This will help you stay focused during the hectic Black Friday period. Maybe you want to make 100 sales or increase your number of email leads. Pick methods to help you achieve these goals and stick with them.
Set your budget. Spending big on ads may yield big revenue, but there’s no guarantee. Calculate your ad budget ahead of time and make sure you can afford to lose that money if your ROI isn’t what you expected.
Know your products’ shipping times. Black Friday customers are often looking for holiday gifts for friends and family or products to use during the holidays. Order test products and make sure you’re offering products that will get to your customer’s doorsteps in time for the holidays.
Set up a Facebook pixel and start tracking customers as soon as possible. The more visitors you start tracking now, the better Facebook can re-target them during Black Friday.

What have you got in store for Black Friday, 2019? Which of our Black Friday tips will you use? If you try them out, come back and let me know how things went. I’d love to hear from you, thanks for watching. And until next time, learn often, market better and sell more.