Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The growth of 'Singles Day' and Cyber Monday, and Cyber Week, have extended this period, leading straight into the Christmas sales. For merchants, this is a big opportunity for increased sales and revenue. But it also requires some preparation to ensure that services are on point and your customers are satisfied despite the increased online traffic.
Over the last few weeks, we shared 10 key focus areas merchants need to think about to optimize their checkout for Black Friday 2021 and beyond. The following checklist sums up these key aspects and guides merchants to make the most of the biggest shopping period of the year.
#1: Incorporate omnichannel strategies
Today, customers use an average of six touchpoints in their purchase journey. Therefore, it becomes imperative for merchants to create seamless customer experiences throughout the shopping journey by incorporating omnichannel strategies. These should include connecting different channels and creating personalized experiences by adding features like one-click options. Read more.
#2: Optimize your risk settings
Black Friday and the holiday sales season are not only the prime time for businesses but also for cybercriminals taking advantage of increased online traffic. As fraud attempts will be inevitable, it's crucial to invest in some must-have security features and partners with smart and efficient risk management practices, such as PCI DSS, 3D Secure 2.0, and fraud monitoring. Read more.
#3: Must-haves for an outstanding checkout
Black Friday can be a wonderful but stressful time for online shops. To help you make the most of this time, one of our merchants who is doing it right shares some tricks and tips for creating an outstanding checkout experience. Read more.
#4: Avoid downtime and maximize sales
The increased traffic on Black Friday can test a webshop's limits. Downtime is expensive. It results in shopping cart abandonment, lost revenue and productivity, and recovery and reputational costs. It's vital to have the right infrastructure to sustain shopping spikes as well as dedicated customer service and tech support. Read more.
#5: Offer buy now, pay later (BNPL) options
On Black Friday 2020, BNPL services more than doubled compared to the year before.1 They allow customers to pay flexibly after the delivery, offer them convenience and seamless checkout, and significantly boost average order values. Not offering a BNPL method in your online shop is a conversion killer. But which BNPL option is the best for your business? Read more.
#6: Reduce shopping cart abandonment with Second Chance emails
Research has shown that 45% of cart abandonment emails - also called Second Chance or Last Chance emails - are opened, 21% are clicked on, and 50% of the users who clicked purchased something afterwards.2 Read more.
#7: Speed up your checkout with tokenization
By turning sensitive data into non-sensitive data, tokenization allows to safely store customer details. This can be used for features to facilitate and speed up purchases while ensuring secure transactions, such as one-click-shopping payments, recurring payments, and subscriptions. Read more.
#8: Fine-tune your checkouts with digital wallets
In 2020, digital wallets registered 44.5% of global ecommerce transactions. While Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are probably the most well-known names, there are quite a few other digital wallet options that might be the perfect fit for your target audiences. Read more.
#9: Create mobile-friendly checkouts
The shopping cart abandonment rate on mobile phones is higher (85.65) than the rates for tablets (80.4%) and desktops (73%).3 At the same time, more and more people use their mobile phones for shopping. To optimize your checkout for mobiles and save significant revenues, consider some features, including Progressive Web Apps (PWA) or one-click payments. Read more.
#10: Offer the right payment method mix
Whether you want to improve conversion in your domestic market or expand internationally, tailoring the checkout to appeal to different audiences is essential to enhance customer experiences. With MultiSafepay, you can choose from a mix of 30 national and international payment methods to reach customers all over Europe and offer the right payment methods to the right target audiences. Read more.
A standout checkout the whole year around? Let's talk
With these 10 winning tips, merchants will take full advantage of Black Friday, which can last long into the holiday shopping season.
Keep in mind: ecommerce is a 365-days-a-year-business and every day is important. Our experts are happy to help you optimize your checkout the whole year round, with a hands-on approach and in-house-developed solutions specifically tailored to your needs.
Black Friday is just around the corner
1 https://www.adweek.com/commerce/pandemic-trend-buy-now-pay-later-bnpl-inflection-point/
2 https://www.barilliance.com/cart-abandonment-rate-statistics/#tab-con-0
3 https://truelist.co/blog/shopping-cart-abandonment-stats/
