The biggest retail weekend of the year is quickly approaching and you need to be ready.  Shoppers are looking for great deals and businesses like yours are aiming to quickly move lots of inventory while still providing excellent service.  Can you do it?  You betcha—but you have to start now. 

Your BFCM strategy should be executed over several weeks, so when your (actual or virtual) doors open on Black Friday, your customers are eagerly waiting to buy from you.  Here are 8 things you can do now to prepare.

1. Set your goals

2. Ensure accurate inventory

3. Plan your promotions

4. Prepare the back end of your Shopify site

5. Work your email marketing

6. Energize and train your sales team

7. Check your shipping supplies

8. Communicate your return and exchange policy

1. SET YOUR GOALS

What are you shooting for in revenue, margin, number of pieces sold, average order value, and online conversion rate? These are just a few examples, but you need to define what success looks like! Make SMART goals and use Reports on your Shopify site to decide which goals you should set.

2. ENSURE ACCURATE INVENTORY

After months of returns, exchanges, restocks, and customer holds, how sure can you be about the accuracy of your inventory? You can’t sell what you don’t have, which makes for a less than ideal customer experience when you accidentally sell something that is out-of-stock. 

For businesses that sell made-to-order, talk to your vendors and communicate the products you will need along with the volume and dates you expect to have your supplies delivered. Adjust your order processing and shipping times as needed, and communicate those time frames clearly and often with your customers.

3. PLAN YOUR PROMOTIONS

This is the only weekend of the year to offer big promotions without hurting your brand. Those 10, 15, and even 20% discounts may not cut it in the world of first-time offers and influencer discount codes. What will excite your customers, keep you profitable, and help you achieve the sales goals you set out from tip #1?

4. prepare the back end of your shopify site

That means build your BFCM collections, schedule your code and automatic discounts, make sure your products are available on all the appropriate sales channels, go through your checkout process, enable gift cards, etc. Just anticipate any friction points and test, test, test to smooth out the kinks.

5. work your email marketing

Send out emails in automated workflows for new and existing customers. Let your email marketing platform do the heavy lifting! 

Get new customers to sign up for emails. Offer them something to sweeten the deal like a small discount, free shipping, gift with purchase… whatever makes business sense to you. 

For existing customers, send them an email that will remind them to shop with you.  Highlight new arrivals, upcoming events, share some news about your company, or send a “thank you” email that follows up and asks how they are enjoying their most recent purchase.  Make sure you’re at the top of their mind.

Finally, give all email subscribers customers a sneak peek of your BFCM deals. Build the hype, create a sense of urgency, and thank them for shopping small!

6. ENERGIZE AND TRAIN YOUR TEAM

BFCM is a lot of fun and a lot of pressure for your team too! Share your business goals with your crew, incentivize them with a fun reward, and do a quick refresh of what customer service for your brand looks like. Prepare them by rehearsing some challenging or awkward scenarios (online and in-store) you’ve encountered before and arm them with knowledge and practice.

7. CHECK YOUR SHIPPING SUPPLIES

When you make those online sales, you’ll want to fulfill and ship orders ASAP. Pre-assemble some shipping boxes, check your printer’s toner and paper supply to print packing slips and labels without a hitch. If you do local pickup, or same day delivery, have a healthy stock of packaging materials. You may not beat Amazon same-day delivery, but you can avoid delays by simply being prepared.

8. COMMUNICATE YOUR EXCHANGE AND RETURN POLICY

Do it early, and often! Buying online can be a crapshoot even if you have an effective product page. Your customer should feel like she’s getting a great deal without taking on any risk she wasn’t aware of. Your BFCM return and exchange policies should be communicated on the announcement banner, product page, and/or cart. Use ALL CAPS, Bolded type, or accent colored text to draw their attention to your return policy especially if your BFCM policy is different from the norm.

There you have it, friends!  Prepare your store, enjoy your BFCM, and crush it!  I can’t wait to support small businesses like yours.

Need a Shopify partner? Contact me, and let’s talk about how we can work together.