Prep your Store for Black Friday + Cyber Monday

Let the countdown begin! We can assure you that your customers are already checking how many days remain until BFCM (Black Friday and Cyber Monday). 

These events are all about offering the best deals. That’s why our team has created this guide to help you prepare both your marketing strategy and POD store to join the most profitable, exciting weekend of the year 😎
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BFCM 2021: What you need to know

For many Americans, Thanksgiving weekend is the designated time for Christmas shopping. It is no surprise that customers are now more entitled to shop online rather than in physical stores. 

As the most festive time of the year approaches, ecommerce retailers begin to plan their strategies. If you still haven’t started, here are a few interesting statistics to consider:
 

What last year represented 

Analyzing 2020’s numbers can give us a bigger picture of how 2021 is going to be. With an unexpected turnout, last year became the peak point for the future of ecommerce sales. 

In its annual BFCM report, Shopify informed that store owners collectively made a 76% increase in sales from 2019 to 2020, making it the most profitable shopping weekend in history. And how does the most successful Black Friday + Cyber Monday performance look? Check out these numbers: 

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If this isn’t your first cyber weekend, we suggest taking a look at your sales reports from last year and look for opportunities to improve your numbers, for example:

• What path are your buyers taking on your store? 
• Where did they come from?
• Can you reduce your checkout time by optimizing your site?
• Which promotions boosted your sales the most?
• What were your best-selling products?

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Answering these questions will help you understand your buyers’ behavior to set your sales goals and map out the perfect strategy for the season. ‍

💡 Fuel Tip: Use Google Analytics to review and track your ecommerce performance over time. 

This year’s king of online deals

According to BlackFriday.com, Cyber Monday is the most demanded sales event of 2021, followed by Black Friday and Thanksgiving week. It’s a great ecommerce opportunity, especially for print-on-demand stores, since 50% of buyers are looking for apparel deals this year.

Remember that this season, timing is the key! Decide when you will start sharing your promotions and the time frame of each of these, so you create expectancy among your customers and get them excited about holiday shopping. 

Take advantage of all your channels

As mentioned before, knowing where your customers are coming from is one of the most fundamental insights to design an online marketing strategy. As stated on Shopify’s report, these are the top traffic sources for online stores during the season:
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Contrary to revenue numbers, these stats are constant from previous years. Email positions as the most profitable channel, suggesting that your current customer database will be the primary source for sales conversion. 

The second one is search, and this means that buyers are clicking on their search engine results and are driving to your store. That’s why it’s necessary to optimize your website with relevant keywords for your business, so your buyers can easily find you. ‍

💡 Fuel Tip: Start improving your store’s SEO with our ultimate guide for beginners.

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Holiday season marketing checklist

To make the most out of this sales season, take your time to build a strong sales strategy to aim it:

Get your customers’ attention

• Plan your promotions: Carry out research on what your competitors will be offering and try to beat them without harming your profit margins. Remember that free shipping, limited-time offers, and gifts are great incentives for online shoppers, so select the ones that are more appealing to your customers.
• Generate expectancy: Setting a countdown timer on your website is a great way to raise excitement about your deals. Your customers will be waiting for that clock to hit zero and start shopping!
  

Drive them to your store

• Run effective ads on social media: Facebook has different objectives for running ad campaigns, so choose the one that suits your sales goals. For example, you can pick an awareness goal to reach as many people as possible and let them know what you're offering, or a conversion goal to encourage them to do a specific action on your store. 
  

💡 Fuel Tip: Remember that 70% of visitors who have contact with retargeting ads are more likely to buy on your website. Make sure you include Retargeting Ads on your strategy to catch previous visitors’ attention and convert them.

Boost your conversion rate

• Streamline your checkout flow: The fastest, the better. Think about all the steps your buyers have to go through when purchasing and optimize your checkout to make it as user-friendly as possible. 
  

• Recover abandoned carts: There are many hacks you can start doing today to prevent incomplete checkouts. Read them all in our shopping cart abandonment guide, so no cart is left behind during BFCM!
  

To make this process easier, save this checklist, and you can keep it around, when you start planning. This way, you won’t forget a thing:

Winning print-on-demand products

No one else knows your buyers better than you, but if you need product suggestions for the season, we’re sure they’ll love these: 

Apparel 

Remember we said that 50% of customers are looking for apparel promotions this Cyber Monday? Well… It’s the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the different products Fuel has on its catalog. Consider adding beanies, sweatshirts, long sleeves, and t-shirts to your store. You can’t go wrong with clothes! 

Home Decor

The most exciting part of the holidays is decorating. From inspirational quotes to funny illustrations, help your customers give a warm seasonal vibe to their homes by including posters in your store’s catalog. 

Drinkware

From pumpkin spice latte to eggnog season, mugs and tumblers will be a hit this autumn-wintery time. Choose from our variety of classic 20oz tumblers and 11oz ceramic mugs, or you can give your store a fun twist with magic mugs. 

That is the weekend when people buy not only for them, but for all those names on their Christmas presents’ list. Make sure you add different styles, colors, and designs that they can choose If you need more information about what’s trending on POD, you can check out our Fall Marketing Ideas for Small Business blog to get more inspiration. 

Now that you’re familiar with this year’s shopping weekend predictions, it’s time to put your hands to work and design a successful marketing strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Don’t forget to keep your checklist handy, and you got this!