With the success of Chinese Singles’ Day leaving retailers on a profit high, retailers are now turning their attention to Black Friday (28 November) and Cyber Monday (1 December) in the hope of once more cashing in. Analysts expect this year’s Black Friday will set new records for online sales, particularly because it falls on payday, for many people. These events play host to some of the most lucrative online shopping days around the world, resulting in a huge number of people rushing to their laptops, tablets and mobiles to snap up a raft of heavily reduced goods.

Last year’s Cyber Monday saw retailers managing up to 120 million visits to their websites; this year it is predicted that consumers will spend £281m, on average £4.39 per person. Joe Doveton, head of conversion at Oban Digital gives retailers some last minute tips and hints on how to get ready for the what he feels is more like ‘Cyber Week’, which signifies that start of the mad Christmas shopping period:

• Heavily trail your involvement with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Some online retailers are starting their offers this week and will continue until Manic Monday, the second Monday in December.

• Use offline and online advertising and PPC campaigns and ramp up your email address collection prior to the events.

• What sold well last year? Ensure you stock plenty of the products that were particularly popular.

• Ensure you gather data - this is a great opportunity to gather insight for future Cyber Monday events. Set up a click visualisation tool like Crazy Egg, Clicktale or Decibel Insight to get a really good understanding into how users interact with sale pages.

• Make it easy for your customers to bag a bargain. Many sites have a huge red “Cyber Monday sale” banner plastered over their homepage. What a waste of real estate! Push your best offers instead.

• Make savings clear upfront! If you are discounting for Black Friday and Cyber Monday make sure the discounted price is explicit.

• Data capture where you can. Lots of people browse online at work. Get their email addresses and re-market to them when they are at home with their credit card in hand.

 

By Joe Doveton, Head of Conversion at Oban International

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