How Should You Prepare Your Shopify Store for Black Friday?

For Shopify merchants, Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 will likely be the biggest sales periods of the year, and making sure you’re prepared is key.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) can be chaotic and overwhelming for ecommerce brands, but they don’t have to be. Skip the stress and let us help you prepare. With proper planning and foresight, you can get ahead of the competition and stay on top of your customers’ needs.?

But with so much to do, where should you start? Below are over 100 tips to tick off your list to prepare your online brand for Black Friday.

What is BFCM?

BFCM is an initialism that combines the names of two of the year’s biggest shopping days: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.?

Here are our top tips in September and follow these steps to help you maximise profits before, during, and after BFCM. Need help executing this plan or left it too late? Get in touch and our e-commerce success team can still help you!

When is Black Friday 2024?

In order to be prepared, you need to know the dates!

Black Friday 2024 is Friday 29th November, followed by Cyber Monday on 2nd December.

Black Friday falls on the day following Thanksgiving in the United States, which is always the fourth Thursday in November. In recent years, Black Friday sales have expanded to become a global phenomenon, and many retailers now offer deals throughout the entire Thanksgiving weekend. In some cases, Black Friday sales even start earlier in the month, making it essential for retailers to plan their strategies in advance.

How should you prepare for Black Friday?

Preparing for Black Friday can be a whirlwind, but with a well-organised plan, you can make the most of this major shopping event. First and foremost, prepare your marketing strategy and decide on the discounts and special offers you'll provide to customers, setting clear goals for your sales targets.

Once you’ve decided on a broad plan for how you’re going to manage your BFCM sales period, our extended checklist below will guide you through specifics. Having robust customer support in place is essential for handling inquiries and issues on the big day. Test your website and discounts, and have a backup plan in case of unforeseen challenges.

Take a look at our list of potential Black Friday marketing strategies and in conjunction with our comprehensive checklist, you'll be well-prepared to make the most of Black Friday.?

Happy selling!

Shopify Black Friday Marketing Strategies

A successful Black Friday marketing strategy involves a combination of anticipation-building, engaging content, and enticing promotions. The key is finding the right deals and right marketing channels for your customers. Below are three different types of marketing campaigns for Black Friday:

1 - Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers Campaign

This campaign leverages the urgency of Black Friday by promoting short-duration, high-value discounts. It creates a sense of excitement and encourages immediate action among shoppers. Key elements of this campaign include:

• Flash sales with steep discounts for a few hours or a single day.
• Countdown timers on your website and in marketing emails to emphasise the limited time.
• Engaging and high-contrast visuals to grab attention.
• Promote specific products or product categories.
• Share the campaign on social media with high-frequency updates.

2 - Gift Guides and Bundle Campaign

This type of campaign focuses on helping customers find the perfect gifts for their loved ones. It simplifies the shopping process and increases the average order value by bundling related products together. Key elements of this campaign include:

• Create well-curated gift guides for different recipients or themes (e.g., "Gifts for Tech Lovers" or "Stocking Stuffers").
• Offer bundled deals where customers can buy complementary products at a discounted price.
• Highlight the convenience and value of the bundles.
• Use great images and videos that showcase the bundled items.
• Include a "Shop the Look" feature on your website for easy purchasing.

3 - Loyalty and Referral Campaign

This campaign type rewards and retains loyal customers while leveraging the power of word-of-mouth marketing through referrals. Key elements of this campaign include:

• Offer exclusive early access or special discounts to your existing customers as a loyalty reward.
• Create a referral program where current customers can refer friends and family for additional discounts.
• Encourage customers to share their experiences and purchases on social media, tagging your brand.
• Implement a point-based loyalty system to incentivise repeat purchases.
• Promote the campaign through email marketing, social media, and on your Shopify store.

More Marketing Strategies for Black Friday

Those campaigns are ‘bread and butter’ sales campaigns; easy to implement quickly and proven to work. Below are some more ideas for creative ways of offering discounts and sales to enhance your Black Friday marketing strategy:

Early Access for Subscribers:

Offer exclusive early access to your Black Friday deals for subscribers. This creates a sense of exclusivity and encourages more people to join your mailing list.

Mystery Deals:

Create excitement by offering mystery deals in which customers receive a surprise discount or free gift upon checkout. This element of surprise and gamification can drive engagement and boost sales.

Bundle and Save:

Bundle related products together and offer a discounted price when purchased as a set. This strategy increases the average order value and provides added value to customers.

Flash Giveaways:

Host flash giveaways on social media platforms, encouraging users to share your Black Friday promotions for a chance to win exclusive prizes or additional discounts.

Limited Edition Products:

Introduce limited edition or exclusive products specifically for Black Friday. Limited availability creates a sense of urgency and can drive impulse purchases.

Charitable Initiatives:

Tie your Black Friday promotions with a charitable cause. For every purchase made during the Black Friday sale, donate a percentage to a charity. Customers often appreciate businesses that give back to the community.

Free Shipping Threshold:

Offer free shipping for orders above a certain threshold. This incentivises customers to add more items to their cart to qualify for free shipping, increasing your average order value.

Interactive Content:

Create interactive content such as quizzes, polls, or contests related to your Black Friday deals. Interactive content not only engages your audience but also helps in gathering valuable customer insights.

Thank You Discounts:

Show appreciation to your existing customers by sending them exclusive thank-you discounts before Black Friday. This gesture can foster loyalty and repeat business.

Local Business Partnerships:

Partner with local businesses for cross-promotions. This collaboration can expand your reach to a new audience and create a sense of community support.

Virtual Shopping Events:

Host virtual shopping events via live streams on social media platforms. Showcase your products, answer customer questions in real-time, and offer exclusive discounts to viewers.

Post-Purchase Offers:

Implement post-purchase offers where customers receive a discount code or a special offer immediately after making a purchase. Encourage them to come back for more Black Friday shopping.

Remember to tailor these ideas according to your target audience and the products or services you offer. Creativity and personalisation can go a long way in making your Black Friday marketing campaign stand out from the competition.

Black Friday Checklist for Shopify

Here’s a breakdown of activity to consider in the months leading up to BFCM.

Black Friday Prep - September

September is the perfect time to cover your bases and start strong with your BFCM planning. The plan below is prepared for larger Shopify Plus stores, but it can be applied to any large ecommerce business!

Initial analysis to identify areas for improvement

• Identify weak points in your current ecommerce setup - check on your key stats in Google Analytics
• Install heat mapping & session recording software to view customer interactions so you know where there are any issues and identify fixes.
• Compare your Google Analytics with Shopify’s backend to spot any data leaks
• Test & optimise your site speed?

Plan your sales strategy

• Decide which products to feature
• How much inventory is needed
• Plan your discounting strategy, checking profitability
• Decide when to start and end your sales
• Determine what pages you need - landing pages, product pages, blog pages, collection pages
• Segment your customers into groups and determine strategies for each
• Set goals for orders, revenue, and conversion rates
• Contingency planning: what to do if your products sell out, what happens if orders or returns exceed expectations, what happens if your shipping provider is over capacity or loses orders?

Optimise based on data

• Analyse browser and page performance data?
• QA test across multiple browsers and devices to identify any bugs or usability issues
• A/B test key pages
• Test mobile, tablet, and desktop performance
• Focus on pages with highest page value
• High bounce rate and low conversion rate browsers
• Find the least intrusive and most effective pop-up design
• Explore extra apps needed such as upsells, cross-sells, promotional banners

Have a ‘dry run’ trial sale to ensure readiness

• Run a sale to test the key parts of your BFCM strategy
• Use Hotjar and Google Analytics to measure results
• A/B test different pages, products, and ads
• Collect email addresses for Black Friday marketing

Black Friday Prep - October

Planning and prep is out of the way, now we can focus on marketing and automation in October.

Plan your BFCM marketing strategy

• Choose optimal marketing channels
• Plan timings and audience for your marketing flow

• Start teaser campaigns to build anticipation
• Plan your email marketing strategy and use the power of segmented emails
• Continue building your newsletter list

Prepare creative assets

• Make sure you have product and lifestyle photography for all of your products
• Arrange photo and video shoots if necessary
• Create graphics and copy for posts?
• Plan, draft and schedule all social posts with a tool like Hootsuite

Implement site changes

• Create landing pages according to offers like discounts, product price, best sellers, and BFCM offers to help boost your campaign performance. Our Shopify developers can offer you assistance with creating and deploying site changes like these!
• New imagery or any new copy needed
• Any discount codes or sales messaging to be clearly displayed

Setup automation

• Create and prepare any automated email flows
• Make sure your abandoned cart, browser abandonment, and back-in-stock flows are working?
• Make sure your shopping feed is working and all items are approved
• Shopify Plus merchants can use Launchpad to automate and schedule sales, promotions, and content changes

Black Friday Prep - November

The big day approaches. November is all about implementation, agile course correction, and of course - making mountains of sales.

Begin lead-up campaigns

• Launch your Black Friday campaign messaging on social media just before and during the event
• Announce offers via email campaigns right before and during the event
• Use a countdown and messaging to encourage immediate action
• Make sure you recover abandoned carts
• Turn the traffic you bought earlier into conversions by using remarketing and email campaigns
• Make sure you don’t spend too much budget on broad or irrelevant keywords on Google. Since there will be high volume and high competition that day, it is important to check Google Search terms and optimise your campaigns accordingly
• Check your paid and organic social media posts regularly to answer customer questions
• Touch base with your brand’s values around BFCM, such as letting your audience know you care for the environment, and steps you’re taking for sustainability at this high-consumption time of year

Verify all automation is ready

• Send a test email for any automated email flows you will be activating
• Test any discount codes ahead of time to ensure these are configured correctly
• Verify your site and customer experience
• Do a final QA test of your website

After Black Friday is over

Once the sales period is over and you've hopefully had a successful sale, the post-analysis element is just as important as the prep and the deployment. We'd recommend that you analyse performance and sales, what went well and what didn't, what have you learnt etc - and make sure you record the key points for the next year, as you won't remember finer details in a year's time.

Shopify Black Friday FAQs

How many sales does Shopify handle on Black Friday?

In 2023, Shopify announced that Shopify merchants reached a record $9.3 billion in sales over Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend - a 24% increase from 2022.

How long do Black Friday sales last on Shopify?

This depends on the individual retailer: some brands have early sales, some run their sales from Friday through to Monday, some go on beyond the end of the weekend. It’s also common for several separate sales to be run by retailers during the period, so they can push different product lines or collections through the weekend.

How do retailers change the price for Black Friday sales and discounts on Shopify?

You set sale prices in your Shopify admin. Whether sale prices display on your storefront, and where on your storefront sale prices are displayed, depends on your theme.

For example, your theme might add a badge with a message or percentage off to product listing and collection pages. Sale price styling on your storefront can often be customized through your theme settings. Refer to your theme's documentation or contact your theme's developer for support to learn what customization settings are available.

For example, you sell t-shirts with seasonal designs for $30. At the beginning of a new season, you put the previous season's designs on sale for $10.

In your Shopify admin, you change the Price value to $10, and then set the Compare-at price value to $30. On your storefront, your theme displays both prices alongside a badge with a sale message.

How do I send out a Black Friday discount from my Shopify store?

There are several ways you can get the word out about your Black Friday sales:

Email

Segment your email list to send early access codes to specific customers, such as loyal customers, subscribers, or VIPs. You can also personalize your messaging for different audience segments, such as deal hunters, last-minute shoppers, and window shoppers. Some Black Friday email subject lines include "Black Friday: Unbeatable Deals!" or "Sneak Peak: Exclusive Look at Black Friday Deals".

Pop-ups

Use pop-ups to offer Black Friday deals to shoppers who are about to leave your site.

Shopify Inbox

Use this free app to chat with shoppers in real-time, share discount codes, and create automated messages.

What are some must-have Shopify apps for Black Friday?

TikTok Shopify app: Users trust influencer recommendations and peer reviews to help them make purchases. If your brand isn’t using TikTok for business, it’s time to start. You can even take advantage of TikTok Shopping features by downloading the TikTok app for Shopify.?

Shoppable Instagram and UGC: This app puts your organic Instagram posts to work, generating a clickable, shoppable clone of your feed on your Shopify store website. You can even pull your customers’ posts (user-generated content) into one place and power them with purchase links, too.

Shopify Inbox: this lets you engage in real conversations with buyers, send product recommendations and discount codes, and bring the purchase experience inside chat. The app is built inside Shopify and is free to use with a Shopify plan.

Aftership features a self-serve returns centre that lets your customers create and monitor their own returns, including printing shipping labels generated automatically by the app—one of many automations that help make returns a more hand-off experience for store owners.

And finally, Octane is a one-stop marketing solution that lets you create quizzes, collect data, and offer personalised experiences and recommendations to customers. This app is fully customizable, compatible with your tech stack, and backed by powerful AI.