Black Friday 2023 strategies: creating the fastest checkout in the west
According to some data for 2022, global online sales during Black Friday amounted to $65.3 billion, while Cyber Monday saw $46.2 billion in sales. In total, online sales throughout Cyber Week reached $281 billion worldwide, marking a 2% year-on-year growth.
But to benefit from one of the year's highlights, you must be prepared: one of the most effective strategies to increase conversions and maximize results during Black Friday is offering your customers a perfectly optimized and user-friendly checkout. That is, in a few easy, safe, and quick steps.
Read on to discover our tips on improving an ecommerce checkout process and making sales skyrocket on Black Friday 2023.
What does a well-optimized checkout mean?
Before jumping into tips for getting the most out of an ecommerce checkout on Black Friday, let's specify the features a well-optimized checkout must have.
- Allow for quick and easy purchases and payments - Simplicity in the purchasing process goes hand in hand with building a perfect customer experience. A checkout that requires a few easy and intuitive steps improves the user journey and reduces cart abandonment. As we will see in the following sections, the process's speed is facilitated by the use of up-to-date integrations and plugins.
- Offer a wide choice of payment methods - Credit cards, digital wallets, BNPL solutions: the variety of available payment methods is one of the flagships of an efficient checkout. Moreover, this is very important, mainly if you sell in countries with different payment options. Offering the most popular local payment methods, as well as international ones, will enable you to meet the needs of users in your local markets with the right solution.
- Guide the user step by step - However intuitive a checkout may appear, the user who is led step by step through the purchasing process will gain more confidence in the site and will not jump out of it. A few visuals and text are enough to explain to the customers what they are doing, what awaits them at the next step, and how long before they finalize their purchase. Also, consider offering phone or chat support to resolve any doubts.
- Create a design in line with your brand's style - Especially if embedded into your site, your checkout page should be in the same style as the other webshop pages. Once again, opt for simplicity and avoid overloading your checkout with unnecessary elements that could distract or confuse the user while purchasing.
How to speed up your ecommerce checkout for Black Friday 2023
Here are the most effective strategies that, in our experience as a payment provider, will enable you to better prepare your ecommerce checkout for Black Friday 2023 and maximize your results.
Integrate the checkout process into your site
A must for anyone wishing to improve their ecommerce checkout and make it faster than light? Direct integration of the payment process. Instead of sending the user to an external payment page, a direct integration lets the customer enter their data on your website. Embedded payments shorten the purchasing process and increase customer confidence in your webshop.
An embedded checkout also has further advantages: it displays the right payment methods for the individual user and hides the less relevant ones. In addition, it speeds up recurring purchases, as data are securely saved by tokenization.
Take advantage of the many benefits of digital wallets
As per Statista's data, mobile e-commerce sales in 2023 have surged to $2.2 trillion, constituting 60 percent of the global e-commerce market. The proportion of mobile e-commerce within the overall e-commerce landscape has shown consistent growth, rising from 56 percent in 2018 to an anticipated 62 percent in 2027. The increase in mobile e-commerce sales has been even more remarkable, mirroring the robust expansion of the entire sector on a global scale. In 2027, Statista's analysts forecast that mobile e-commerce sales will reach a staggering $3.4 trillion, marking a sharp contrast to the $982 billion generated in this segment as recently as 2018.
According to numbers and forecasts, optimizing an ecommerce site for mobile is no longer just an option. And what is the best strategy to “take care” of mobile users? Offer them the right payment methods that allow easy and immediate payment from their favourite device. Because of their mobile-friendly approach, digital wallets are a must-have. Besides, digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Click To Pay, and Google Pay enjoy the benefits of the Express Checkout integration. It enables a faster and frictionless payment process, displayed with a specific button on the product or checkout page. What shortens the payment process for Express Checkout is that the data previously and securely stored in the wallet (such as payment details, shipping, and billing addresses) auto-fills in a snap. The result is increased conversions and payment acceptance rate due to secure storage.
Keep your ecommerce integration up-to-date
Updating your ecommerce integration to the latest version is crucial, especially in preparation for Black Friday. With the increase in online shopping, fraud attempts and threats to a website's security also increase. However, keeping your integration up-to-date helps protect your business from any risks (even the most recent ones). Not to mention that updates allow you to take advantage of the most innovative and latest features and, as a result, improve the performance of your webshop. In this regard, we advise you to rely on a payment partner that develops, updates, and improves its integrations for the leading ecommerce platforms. This way, you will not be the one who has to worry about updating your online shop but will have someone always ready to suggest the updates to make and to support you in the implementation.
Streamline credit card payments
In online credit card payments, the authentication and authorization process occur according to the standard 3DS protocol. The 3DS protocol provides an additional layer of security for online transactions by requiring Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).
In MultiSafepay, we consider the management of the authentication process for credit card payments as critical points for optimizing the checkout and customer experience. Our status as acquirer & processor allows for more control over the authentication process, providing a more efficient and faster payment flow. For you merchant this means less chance of failed payments, leading to higher conversion.
Allow purchases in 'guest' mode
One of the main reasons why users abandon their shopping carts is the need to create a new account before a purchase. If, at a peak time like Black Friday 2023, you want to avoid losing many of your customers, you could offer them the opportunity to shop on your site in guest mode. This way, they can make their purchases without having to register. For them, of course, this will mean saving valuable time and, for you, expanding your customer base. Moreover, remember that the Express Checkout feature is particularly well suited to the 'guest' users buying on your site for the first time. By clicking the integration button, they can pay immediately, as if they had already created a profile. Once they have completed their purchase, you can always ask them to register, perhaps incentivizing them with a dedicated offer.
Get ready for Black Friday 2023 with MultiSafepay
Is your site ready for the hottest sales season of the year? To find out how to improve your ecommerce checkout for Black Friday 2023 and optimize every step of the buying process, look at the tips and solutions we have gathered for you.
