Needless to say, November is a long-awaited time for many users. And it’s not only because of Thanksgiving day… And not just because of this marvelous feeling when the weather becomes colder and you already see Christmas designs everywhere. Well, November is the time of Black Friday and Happy Monday. It’s the season of breathtaking discounts. All the shops are preparing sales for you! That is why everyone is waiting for Black Friday. Actually, it doesn’t matter if you are rich and doesn’t matter what you are doing for life. When sales are coming, each of us has something to buy.
So what should you do to get a successful shopping? As the name of the post says, today, I have some Black Friday and Cyber Monday tips for you. You are going to know how to buy everything you need without overrunning the budget. What is more, I also prepared recommendations for sellers, so let’s get started!
Black Friday And Cyber Monday Tips For Shoppers
Right now, your main task is to make most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday days. Check out my alternative guide to know how you can get all the needed items. Here are my 10 easy but working tips for shoppers.
#1 Creating your Black Friday shopping list
This step looks quite logical. To get all the goods, you should organize the Black Friday shopping list. Still, today, not all the shoppers take time to do it. Just think about all the products you want to get and start creating your schedule. Then divide these goods into categories. For example:
- office,
- home,
- college,
- personal,
- cloths, and more.
Besides, you should think of your last Black Friday shopping experience. Did you buy everything you were going to buy? Are there any worthy offers you missed? Focus on this point because the previous experience can help you to analyze your Black Friday strategy.
#2 Setting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday budget
When your shopping list is completed, it’s time to work on your Black Friday and Cyber Monday budget. Make sure you set the budget for every category. Keep in mind that this simple step will help you prevent last-minute decisions making.
#3 Planning your days
Basically, you have the whole week on Black Friday shopping. On the other hand, there is Cyber Monday that was made for digital products. With it, all the premium items (including these great Shopify themes) will have 50% off! Whatever you are going to buy, you should check the prices. In 2018, shoppers prefer to do it online. That’s a nice way to figure out where the lowest prices are. Before all else, check the Black Friday and Cyber Monday list and prioritize the products. Start shopping with the most important goods and then move to other stuff.
#4 Researching
Here’s another thing you should remember about Black Friday days. To do a winning shopping and find the best deals you should start with a research. Study all the products you are about to buy and compare items with each other. Don’t miss reading comments and reviews! For example, viewing this Shopify mobile theme, you can see the regular price, the Black Friday price, and even the prices of the plugins and elements these themes include.
#5 Using social media
On the other hand, you should ask the opinion of experienced shoppers. I think that social media is the very place to do it. Find the pages of your favorite brands or shops and don’t forget to subscribe. With it, you will get all the updates and fresh news about the upcoming sales automatically.
#6 Try Google Alerts
Google Alerts will be your real must-have on Black Friday. This free tool makes the shopping process even simpler, To find your product, you should:
- create the keywords,
- list them,
- separate by comma,
- and create your own alert.
As soon as your item is mentioned in a post, the as-it-happens notification will let you know.
#7 Searching for customer programs
What else can help you to live through Black Friday shopping? You should look for customer programs that are also called loyalty programs. This step would be extremely useful if you have a really long Black Friday shopping list. So, in case you are going to get all the products (or a lot of products) from a single shop, ask for loyalty programs. Being a part of such program, you get bigger discounts, special promo codes, and cashbacks. In case you have some premium shops, don’t miss this step!
#8 Checking hidden costs
Needless to say, you should always pay a special attention to the prices. When it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, there are so many downsides! Looks like not all the sellers are reliable equally and some of them use sales to get more money from you. That’s why, when buying an item, you should view out such points as:
- fees,
- taxes,
- and delivery costs.
In fact, the real price can be different. It may be just the usual price or a little-lowered one. To be sure in your choice, I recommend you to use some comparison services like Google Shopper. It will help you to compare the prices and find the most lucrative offer.
#9 Try bundles
These days, a bundle is a wonderful chance to save money. In case you are looking for multiple products for one niche, I recommend you to try bundles. In a word, a bundle is a set, which contains various items related to the same purpose. Bundles are really popular during Black Friday and Cyber Monday week. There are so many colorful bundles with digital products you can find. Still, before buying a bundle, make sure you checked the regular prices of the items it includes.
#10 Protecting yourself
Finally, it’s time to mention the most important thing: you do need to protect yourself on Black Friday! Although it’s a happy time for shoppers, Black Friday is a busy season for internet scam too!
That’s why I want you to protect your budget from fraud. What should you do?
- To begin with, don’t even think of downloading new BF and CM mobile apps! Do not click at the unknown ones as well. They may hurt your budget and get access to personal information.
- Next, keep in mind that you have to use your credit card. Not the debit one! This simple step will create an additional protection for your money on Black Friday shopping. Besides, don’t forget to check the activity of the card!
- Talking about the resources, try to use the trusted ones only. For example, I always read this blog to find the best Cyber Monday deals.
- Furthermore, remember that opening unfamiliar links can also be a mistake. The letters with scam still contain fishing programs. Thus, avoid following suspicious URLs.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Tips For Sellers
As promised, I also have some tips for shop owners. Black Friday is definitely a hot season! Are you ready for sales and discounts? Let’s see what you should know!
#1 Learning from your last-year mistakes
In case this is your first hot season, just move to the next step. However, if you have some Black Friday or Cyber Monday selling history, it’s time to use this experience. I want you to think about all the mistakes you made last year and analyze them. Capitalizing the experience will help to improve your work in 2018. Just ask yourself:
- Did I make a worthy promo last year?
- Was it successful?
- Did I get shoppers’ attention?
- What were the best offer and its feedback?
- Why my campaigns weren’t successful enough?
- How can I fix it?
To make a long story short, all of these will help you to create a new working tactic. List all the things you learned about your sales and the Black Friday season at all. It’s time to work on your promo!
#2 Learning from others mistakes
There’s no need to say that any business niche covers a lot of shops. I mean you surely have many competitors and it doesn’t matter if you like them or not. To improve your sales, I recommend you to take a closer look at the popular shops. Focus on the sellers whose products get the highest activity during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. What are they doing to attract the audience? I don’t say that you should follow them step by step. Just borrow some tips or tricks for your shop.
#3 Working on your strategy
Here is the most exciting point: working on your own strategy. To put it briefly, lowering the products’ prices is the main thing you should do on Black Friday. Well, it may look so but you have much more things to do! In fact, lowering items’ prices won’t work without a classy promo. For these simple reasons, any sale needs a wisely created strategy. How to stand out from the crowd of your competitors on Black Friday and Cyber Monday season? Here are some tips.
- To begin with, search for a couple of trendy techniques. All in all, they were made to build up an anticipation. With it, you both get the attention of a prospect and inform them about the upcoming sales! You can do it with the help of the next elements:
- timers,
- call-to-action buttons,
- special newsletters,
- banners,
- social media promos,
- YouTube promos, etc.
2. Among the things you can use to improve your Black Friday sale, there are the last-minute deals. Such methods do catch the attention of a shopper.
3. What’s more, remember that you need to showcase the sale and its items across multiple channels. Make people think that discounts are really impressing!
4. In addition, use preliminary offers and other activities. That’s how you will keep people engaged. Try such things as:
- deals,
- contests,
- and different games.
#4 Working on your main offer
When it comes to a Black Friday sale, there’s always a main offer. I mean there are some top products that were popular in 2018. Without a doubt, your prospects are waiting for them to have discounts. That’s why you have to pay a special attention to such promos. Besides, you don’t want to disappoint a shopper! I recommend you to create bundles with your top items.
Also, here are the things that can help you with a cool promotion:
- promo codes,
- launch coupons,
- and special deals for loyal customers.
#5 Smaller sale
In case you don’t have a huge BF selling experience, start this season with a smaller sale. With it, you will heat up the interest of customers. As an alternative, you can start Black Friday with a great sale. In this case, make sure that you already created a fresh Black Friday catalog. There should be all the promos, discounts, offers, and deals included. Send the catalog to your shop’s audience via email.
#6 Launch your website
Honestly speaking, it’s hard to imagine a working shop that still doesn’t have its eCommerce analog. I hope you already have a modern online shop to sell your goods on Black Friday. In case you don’t, start building your website ASAP!
#7 Testing
Make sure you checked all the technical aspects. Your eCommerce site can be slowed during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. That’s why I want you to check these points:
- the navigation of the shop,
- search engines optimization,
- user experience testing,
- loading speed,
- responsive design.
#8 Mobile-friendly design
When talking about responsive design, I hoped you do have it. All in all, mobile-friendly design is a real must-have in 2018. Today, more than a half of shoppers prefer buying products online. For these simple reasons, here is what you need:
- all the sections should be scrollable from mobiles,
- all the elements should be flexible to fit the screen,
- high load speed,
- and all the one-click buying options should also be available from a phone.
The good news is that in case you use a responsive startup Shopify theme, you get mobile-friendly design in the package.
#9 Creating a visual presentation
Should I remind you that any promo requires some eye-catching visual elements? Using them, you should provide the main details of the sale like:
- main items,
- prices,
- timing,
- promo codes,
- discounts,
- special offers, etc.
#10 Keeping the audience engaged
When you are done with all these preparations, it’s time to inform your shoppers about the sale! To do it, you should:
- use social media to receive some organic traffic,
- contact bloggers and other influencers to review your goods,
- build your shop on such platforms as Facebook,
- divide your audience into such groups as recent clients, new shoppers, VIP visitors, etc., create the unique offers based on the needs of the group and just send the emails.
Where you can find the best web design deals?
Talking about online resources, I want to mention TemplateMonster. It’s a huge marketplace that provides a 50% discount on Black Friday! The sale starts November, 19 and ends November, 29. And the discount comes for any product!
