How to get your small business ready for the Black Friday sales

 Black Friday sales are just around the corner and now is the time to get your small business prepared for one of the year’s most anticipated shopping events. While traditionally Boxing Day has been Australia’s ‘discount day’, in recent years the late November long weekend sales event encompassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a $6 billion event, explains Suzanne Mitchell, Australia Market Lead for GoDaddy.

With so many retailers offering discounts and deals, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd and ensure your small business benefits from joining in with the international sales event. So, if you want your Black Friday sales to fire rather than fizzle, here are five top tips to get your small business ready:

Before sales season give your website a once-over

Just like you’d tidy a bricks and mortar shopfront to put your best foot forward, ensure your online store is in ship shape before the sales. It’s a good time to check if your website is still faithfully representing your brand and if all of your contact details and policies like shipping are up to date. It can pay to see if any of your product photos need a refresh, especially if you are planning to put them on sale.

Prepare your online store to perform

It’s also important to check under the bonnet and make sure your website performance and security is up to scratch. A website that lags, or even worse, crashes, is not going to encourage customers to hang around and make a purchase. It’s also important to make sure you have the right hosting product to cater for any excess traffic if there’s a rush on your site.

When it comes to protecting the security of your online store and customer details, it’s worth having comprehensive website security along with an SSL Certificate. This is an independent digital certification that creates an encrypted link between your customer’s web browser and your web server – like a digital tunnel – to safely share payment information and personal details.

Dial up the right sales deal

Now that you’ve decided to join the Black Friday sales, the next step is to determine what sort of deals you are going to offer your customers and plan to tell them all about it. Often major companies advertise their specific deals well in advance of the sales’ event to maximise their marketing, so ensuring you factor in enough time for promotion is important. If you have an email marketing list, you can dial up the anticipation with teasers about your Black Friday offering before a big reveal and reminders on the day.

Social media is another great marketing tool for you to countdown to the deal reveal and promote your offering in the lead up to the big day. Make sure you use engaging pictures and have a clear call to action. If you have a professional Instagram account, you can create an event to mark the sale start and your customers can opt-in to get a reminder. Make sure you plug in your social media to your website so you can manage it all in one place for ease and efficiency.

Convert window shoppers to buyers

Making it easy for customers to purchase from your website can help convert online sales. Consider integrating popular payment platforms like PayPal and Apple Pay to make checking out easier and quicker. Also ensure your shipping prices and policies are clear to avoid any last minute surprises for customers. Many e-commerce stores also set up automatic abandoned cart emails which give customers a prompt via email to remind them they have added items to their cart but not checked out.

Plan for beyond Black Friday

Sure, it’s great if your Black Friday sales help to convert customers, but what’s even better is if they inspire repeat purchases. One way to help capture new customers is to ask them to sign up to your email marketing list at the checkout. Many companies also automate follow-up emails to customers in the days after their purchase asking them to leave a review or offering them a discount on their next purchase.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales becoming an increasingly popular consumer shopping event, it’s the right time to consider how your small business can benefit. It’s not too late to ensure you have the right strategies in place to get your website, marketing and customer tools performing at their peak before 24 November.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday dates for 2023:

Black Friday: Novemeber 24, 2023

Cyber Monday November 27, 2023

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