Black Friday and cyber Monday are approaching and customers are getting ready to do some serious shopping. But are you ready for a sudden spike in sales? Here are ten things we recommend every eBay store should do to get ready for Black Friday:
November and December will be busy. Time will be scarce. Prepare your marketing materials in advance so that you can focus on customer service and fulfilling orders during the busy holiday shopping period.
1. Write item descriptions, blog posts and advert copy. If you use social media scheduling, write social posts in advance.
2. Prepare store graphics. Graphics promoting your sale will encourage customers to explore your store. The longer they are in your store, the more likely they are to buy there. Ebay stores with our signature package can simply drag and drop their seasonal sale graphics into place, but it is still best to have the graphic prepared in advance.
3. It is much easier to sell to existing customers than to new customers. Design a mail out campaign to target people who have bought from you in the past. Some of the key emails to include are:
- Anticipation email, teasing with some discounts that will be available
- Announcement of the sale
- Reminder of when sale ends
4. Sell off old stock. Any stock you have not managed to sell previously, that is just sat around taking up space and costing you money is a prime candidate for discounting.
5. One way that retailers achieve huge sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is by offering a huge discount on one particular item. This one item with a jaw dropping discount is used to lure customers in. Once they are in your store, they will often buy other items before leaving.
6. Create bundles. Bundles are a great way to easily sell multiple items, and make great gifts. They are also a good way to create the illusion of a saving. For example, you may have a lower margin on bubble bath, and so not want to discount much, but by putting a few together with a wash cloth that cost you pennies and presenting it in an attractive way, you can make a smaller discount appear much bigger.
7. Set up a Black Friday Sale category. Sounds basic, but it helps customers to easily see any special deals you have.
8. Check that your cross promotion bars are filled with relevant items. Cross selling is the key to increased profits, and in a sale your chances of cross selling are even higher than usual.
9. Decide your sales return policy. If you are going to implement a special returns policy for sale items, make sure you have this decided and written in listings and in the small print of any promotional emails.
10. Offer free shipping. If you don’t already offer free shipping, offer it on sale items. It is a well proven fact in sales psychology, that free shipping massively increases sales. During a sale, when people are looking for a bargain, this is more important than ever.
