Month: August 2024

So, what is an FBA business? An Amazon FBA business is the ultimate dropshipping model. 

FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon, so an Amazon FBA business is an online business that uses Amazon to store, sort, and dispatch your goods to your customers. It also provides the customer service that comes with the territory.

It’s fairly easy to sign up to Amazon FBA. Once you familiarize yourself with how to sell on Amazon, you’re ready to get started. Here are the steps:

1. Register and Pick Your Plan

You’ll need to register your business and provide all the legal, financial, and practical details necessary to run your online business. This includes your bank account info, a credit card, ID, tax info, and a business phone number.

Then you will need to pick which subscription plan works for you. (See below for the cost breakdown). You don’t have to feel anxiety to pick the wrong one – you can always switch back and forth.

Amazon FBA handles your orders, from picking products to packaging and shipping, for you.

2. Amazon Provides You with Your Seller Central Hub

This will help you keep track of everything – your sales, engagement, inventory, etc. Take your time and have a look around! There’s a lot of information there and you don’t want to miss out on anything that will make your life easier.

3. Check Out Your Competition, Both On and Off Amazon

This is a key step that some new online business owners skip at their peril. You need to see what competitor hubs look like, how much your competitors sell their comparable goods for, and which dispatch services and discounts they offer. That’s where market research comes in!

Online customers have no problem taking an extra two to three minutes to see if they could save money with someone else. We do it with our purchases all the time! So you have to make it worth their while. What can you offer that competitors aren’t? How can you improve the customer experience?

4. Get the Product Information

You’ll need information and details about the products for your listing including SKU numbers and descriptions. Amazon provides detailed information and if you aren’t sure about what to include Amazon has a video to help.

5. Create Your Product Listings

If you want to edge out your competition, don’t forget to first focus on what your customers will feelif they get your product. It’s the emotional side of things that persuades a customer to buy. Then include the logical and practical stuff.

Have a think about how your customer’s life would actually improve if they bought it (honesty is important!). Will they have more fun? Will they delight a friend? Will they have fewer headaches? Will their day-to-day life be more organized?

It’s all about improving their lives. You just have to know the language to do that.

6. Make a Million Jillion Dollars!

Our favorite step. Bear in mind, it might take some time.

In all seriousness though, it does take patience and dedication to build up a customer base, grow sales, and beat the competition. Keep monitoring, testing, iterating, and improving, and you’ll get there! It also helps to understand your Amazon conversion rate, how to calculate it, and the factors that influence it!

Amazon FBA offers an app to make the experience easier for you and your customers

As with any service, there are pros and cons to using Amazon FBA.

Pros

Increased Visibility: Your products are eligible for Prime two-day shipping (yay, customers love that!) and will have the Prime logo on the product detail page. Not only do you know your products will ship according to ecommerce shipping best practices, but the Prime logo can increase visibility and sales.

Increased Convenience: Amazon handles pretty much everything, so you’ve got more time to grow your business.

Amazon’s Logistics Network:Amazon’s huge network makes everything easy and efficient.

Improved Product Listing: Your products will have priority in search results because they are stored in Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

Cons

Limited Control Over Shipping and Handling: Amazon controls the speed and quality of the service.

Potential for Stockouts:Increased visibility means your product could get popular, fast. This means a risk of running out of stock, which can harm your reputation and lead to lost sales.

Dependence on Amazon: You can become dependent on the platform, which limits your flexibility and increases your risk if Amazon changes its policies or fees.

Yes, there are costs (see below) but it’s a model where you have to do very, very little heavy lifting – literally and metaphorically!

We like to give it to you straight, so we will say that Amazon FBA can be expensive. There are a lot of fees to consider.

Subscription Fee: $0.99 per item or $39.99 per month

This is the fee for operating as a business under the Amazon umbrella. If you choose the Individual plan, you’ll pay $0.99 for every item sold. If you choose the Professional plan, you’ll pay $39.99 per month.

Selling Fee

Like you see on eBay, fees depend on how much the items cost. There might be additional referral or closing fees, so check if your item categories include these.

Shipping Fee

This varies wildly, depending on the size and weight of your items as well as what type of shipping services and speeds you offer. The locations of where you are willing to dispatch your items too will also alter your shipping fees.

FBA Fees: $3.22 – $158

These are separate fees that Amazon puts on top for handling the end-to-end process for you. This will include the storage and customer service costs. Fulfillment fees depend on the size tier, dimensions, and weight of your products.

Storage Fees: $0.87 – $3.63 per cubic foot

You need to pay for the storage your inventory uses in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. This is charged as a monthly inventory storage fee – the cost depends on your product type, size-tier, and the time of year. For example, “dangerous goods” are more expensive to store, and all products become more expensive to store during peak times such as between October and December.

Amazon FBA is not the only choice you have as an online business owner – many sellers seek out Amazon alternatives. You’ve got dozens of options, but here are three of the most popular both on and off the Amazon platform:

Amazon FBM

FBM does increase your profits and reduce your overheads because you get to take advantage of Amazon’s enormous freight and shipping discounts. But you’re going to need to put in more work. With FBM, you as the seller stores your products and ships them directly to the customer.

You will be responsible for all aspects of fulfillment, including storage, shipping, and customer service. FBA is ideal for those who want to focus on product sourcing and marketing, while FBM is better for those who want to retain control over their fulfillment process and keep costs low.

FedEx Fulfillment

FedEx is a multinational courier delivery services company that provides shipping, logistics, and supply chain management solutions to businesses and individuals. The company offers a range of services, including wide coverage of ground and air delivery, international shipping, printing, and office services. It has also integrated with ecommerce website builders and offers inventory management.

At first glance, it can be more cost-efficient than Amazon FBA. But bear in mind you will need to store your goods and package them – that could drive up your costs again.

FedEx gives plenty of info on its benefits

ShipBob

Though both ShipBob and Amazon FBA are fulfillment models, there are some big differences. ShipBob integrates into a variety of ecommerce platforms. With ShipBob, the retailer retains ownership of their inventory, while with Amazon FBA, the retailer transfers ownership to Amazon.

ShipBob’s storage fees are cheaper than Amazon’s, especially during peak season. ShipBob partners with multiple carriers to offer shipping at competitive rates (so you’re not just stuck with one carrier option). ShipBob is more flexible on what type of products can be stored. It also provides dedicated customer service and account management.

Whichever platform you choose, it’s important to remember that with non-Amazon platforms there will be a steep learning curve when it comes to their systems and software.

Amazon FBA is an extremely convenient option for online business owners who want to sell products online but don’t have the space, resources, or expertise to handle storage and shipping.

Whether you are simply extremely busy, or your online business is a side-hustle, or you quite frankly hate admin, FBA is a great option.

But you have to be aware it is expensive, so the time that you save should be worth what you have to pay out in all the fees associated with using the service, including storage fees, fulfillment fees, and shipping fees.

You also have to be very comfortable selling products on the Amazon platform because you’re tied into its marketplace by signing up to FBA.

It’s nice to have so many options for your shipping and fulfillment. As long as you are aware of the benefits and costs associated with each, you’ll be able to choose which one is best for you. We started out by asking “What is an Amazon FBA business?” and by now you should know the answer, and have an idea of whether it’s the right path for your business.

Sometimes it can feel a little intimidating to make such a big decision, but remember, nothing is set in stone. If you find out that the fulfillment service you chose isn’t right for you, you can always change.

The biggest nightmare for any site owner is your website breaking down just as you get a surge in customers looking to buy.

It’s enough to make you wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. Downtime on a website is like putting up a sign on your front door inviting your customers to head over to the competition.

Preparing and testing your website for Black Friday and Cyber Monday therefore is essential.

The important thing is not to panic: crashing a website usually takes A LOT of traffic. Even so, it’s still worth giving your site a stress test before the big weekend. Think of it as giving your car an MOT before you compete in a Nascar rally event.

What can you do to make sure your store is fighting fit?

• Test the load capacity (the amount of activity your store can take before it packs it in) using tools such as LoadImpact.com. If your store is self-hosted, you may want to consider upgrading the service or your hosting plan to unlimited bandwidth.
• Test email marketing in advance – if you’re sending any automated emails over the period, test, test and test again that they are delivering properly and that the copy is clear. Sending the wrong email to the wrong customer could affect sales and really damage your brand in the long run by making you look amateur.
• Test your site across different browsers (Google, Firefox, Internet Explorer) and across different devices (mobile, tablet, desktop) to make sure it’s working smoothly on all of them. Your shoppers will use all manner of browsers on a number of devices, so it’s important to spread your net as wide as you can to avoid missing out on sales.
• Test your checkout process and make sure it can cope with a large volume of orders all at once. This is particularly important if you’re thinking of running flash deals or time-limited offers on the day.
• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. A website that doesn’t load or function on a mobile device is the stuff Black Friday nightmares are made of.

Advice From Experts: Infinity Dish

Laura Fuentes

My number one tip for Cyber Monday is to make sure your site can handle the traffic pouring in.

Any tips for handling website traffic on BFCM?

Nothing frustrates a shopper more than slowed screens and glitches. Unless a shopper is intent on purchasing a particular item from your specific business, if glitches happen, they will move on and look for similar deals with your competitors. Use a service like Google to check your site speed and whether or not it is fully mobile compatible. Check these metrics out ahead of time so that you can upgrade your speeds and compatibility well before Cyber Monday is here.

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2023 saw a 4.5% rise in holiday retail sales across key dates, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And according to our recent report on Black Friday statistics, 76% of Shopify customers were looking for high quality goods in 2022 rather than fast fashion items.

As a result, competition is much higher, and customers becoming more selective, so it’s crucial you give your products every chance of standing out.

If you took part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, the first step is to analyze your sales data to see what went well. Use the information to make alterations to existing product layouts and product descriptions.

Plan ahead by creating a product schedule that determines when a product goes on sale and its price. Rather than playing catch up, you can get ahead of the game and then make slight tweaks rather than making it up off the cuff. Website builders like Shopify have apps that can help you auto post products. We like BigCommerce’s Discount Manager (more on this later).

Your product descriptions should instill urgency. Remind people they only have a certain window to bag the bargains on offer by adding phrases like:

• Black Friday sale ends soon
• Limited time only
• Only one left
• In high demand
• Sold out soon

Add special mentions to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the product descriptions to signpost their relevance to the shopper.

If you’re stocking products from any well-known brands, make sure the brand names appear in a prominent position – this doesn’t just improve your organic rankings (which equals more traffic and so more sales), it also adds credibility to your store and makes customers more likely to become repeat shoppers.

You might also think about running a keyword search on Google and using Google Trends to find some Black-Friday-related keywords for your products. Including these in your descriptions may give your site an SEO (search engine optimization) boost – by climbing Google’s rankings for relevant terms, you’ll get more traffic on the day and, hopefully, more sales.

The top search terms for Black Friday 2022 included Nintendo Switch Black Friday and Black Friday TV Deals, highlighting a need to alter your keyword targeting to be Black Friday-specific in the run up to, and during, the big weekend.

It’s also worth running a quick audit of your categories and product listings to make sure they’re up to date, to avoid overselling. There’s nothing worse than advertising a product you’re not able to deliver.

Plus, now might be a good time to review what you’re selling. The pandemic has changed consumer habits for the long-term, and purchases are starting to reflect this. People are spending more time at home, and products that fall into health and fitness, work at home, and eat at home have all seen an increase in sales. If you don’t want to completely rewrite your catalog, why not think about ways you can associate your current stock with these areas?

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are bargain hunters.

Be prepared: you’re going to have to slash at least 20 per cent off your items to compete. You might want to consider offering a free gift with your products as a little sweetener; web builders like Shopify allow you to add gift cards to your store for free.

You can also get in the holiday spirit and advertise a percentage of sales going to a charity, making shoppers more likely to purchase from your store. Learn more about holiday marketing tactics in our full guide, including how to target emotions and offer holiday discounts for your customers!

Expert Advice: Rebate Key

Ian Sells

Ian has been using marketing to grow businesses. He sold an Amazon brand first and is now managing over 10 million in sales.

If you’re going to run Black Friday deals, you want to be strategic.

What is a common Black Friday & Cyber Monday mistake?

A huge mistake a lot of retailers make is to give discounts on everything. When you discount everything, you’ll end up unnecessarily losing profit.

What advice do you have on the lead up to Black Friday?

Try using a high runner strategy to draw more people into your store and optimize for margin. Amazon uses a high runner strategy itself. To build a high runner strategy, all you need to do is determine the most popular products in your store, then discount those products as a way to drive traffic to your shop. Once a consumer is in your shop, they’re less likely to navigate away, which means you have the opportunity for strategic cross and up-sells of complementary products.

When it comes to discounts, the more creative the better.

Plenty of retailers will be offering 20% off, but how many will be offering “50% off for first-time buyers” or “30% off if you buy more than 5 pairs of shoes”? Let your imagination off the leash!

How to Design a Product Page has everything you need on designing a product page for your ecommerce site.

Everything about your store’s design on Black Friday and Cyber Monday should be geared towards making a sale and turning browsers into buyers.

The first thing to check is that your website is fully optimized for mobile visitors. Mobile shopping made up 51% of all online shoppers throughout Black Friday week in 2022, up from 46% in 2021.

Because of this, double-checking that your website layout configures properly on different screen sizes without compromising UX should be high on your priority list.

Making sure all of your content is mobile-friendly not only plays a large part in boosting your sales, but works in tandem with Google’s Core Web Vitals rollout to determine the search engine ranking of your store.

As well as poor mobile optimization, a sure way of missing out on sales is overlooking key opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.  For example, if you’ve got a great discount on a pair of shoes, cross-sell that customer some cut-price socks by displaying them on the same product page. Or, if you’re wondering how to upsell, advertise a better version of the shoes. Doing this is easy if you build categories of products that naturally fit together (like socks and shoes).

A customer should arrive on your store’s homepage and be in no doubt where to go.

Consider building distinct Black Friday and Cyber Monday pages to clearly signpost where your customers need to go to get the deals. Ultimately, you want your customers to get to your discounted products in as few clicks as possible.

Just like your product descriptions, your whole site should convey a sense of urgency. Here are two DIY steps to create a sense of urgency in the same time it takes to eat your dinner:

• Display discounts clearly on the homepage – this may sound obvious but it’s easy to get so caught up in your product pages that you forget to sort out the shop window.
• Add a countdown banner – a timer that ticks down to Black Friday and Cyber Monday can really help build excitement. Tools like Powr (fully integrated with BigCommerce) can help you do this for free in a matter of minutes.

Here’s an example of a countdown banner we added through Shopify:

Adding a countdown banner like this Shopify example drives excitement for your store’s sale

You might think, “my checkout is working fine, if it isn’t broken, why try and fix it?”

That would be a mistake.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are fickle – they’ve got thousands of stores to visit and a limited amount of time, and so won’t think twice about leaving you hanging at the checkout.

Taking some time to improve and optimize your checkout process could pay off on the day. In 2023, cart abandonment rate reached 70.72%, so there’s always room to improve your customers experience at checkout.

Can you add extra payment options such as PayPal or Bitcoin? The more strings to your ecommerce bow the better because you’re giving your customers more opportunities to give you their money.

With 36% of American’s now having at least 3 digital devices to their name, a single online transaction can span multiple devices before completion. Tying shopping carts with accounts means your customers don’t lose their orders if they switch device, and you don’t risk losing out on almost a third of your revenue.

It’s a win-win!

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Running campaigns on social media sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram can be a great way to get eyeballs on your ecommerce site; but it’s not enough to just push ads out there, you have to push those adds to the right people.

Watch out for Black Friday and Cyber Monday hashtags you can piggyback on. Using the social media plug-ins available from ecommerce website builders will let you integrate your store with Facebook or Twitter.

In our experience testing ecommerce stores, Facebook is the most effective channel to drive traffic to your site and generate sales. This is reflected in the stats we found in our recent report on digital marketing ROI statistics: it sees the best ROI, with 40% of marketers citing it as their leading social channel.

To give your social media strategy and campaigns the best chance of success, choose a quality product image and add your logo and some text advertising your deals. Make sure you start circulating the ad at least a few days in advance to build excitement. Leave it to the last minute and customers may only see your ad once, which means they’re unlikely to click through, given how many retailers will be demanding their attention.

Advice From Experts: Dark Horse Schooling

Tracy Brinkmann

Start working on your social media presence now to gain traction for those all important big sale days!

How do you leverage social media in this holiday season?

When it comes to social media there is a recipe to this – you cannot just be throwing random content out there and expect people to react. I mean it is social media, after all, so you have to be social, so put up some R&R content (i.e. jokes, funny stuff, throwbacks). Then some enlightening content (i.e. tips, trivia, etc). From there, toss in something to strike up a Conversation (i.e. polls, surveys, ask advice etc), as well as some Invigorating and Inspirational content (i.e. quotes, client success stories).

What is the outcome?

Once you’ve done that, hit them with a Promo (eg. show customer reviews, give a discount, invite them to a webinar). Finally, show off your Endeavour (i.e. show behind the scenes, let them see behind the curtain). Your spending time being social before you hit them with a ‘Buy My Stuff’ message.

Want to learn more about social media?

3 Easy Ways to Set Up a Facebook Store is the guide you need to get your Facebook marketing campaign off the ground.

Learn How To Grow Your Business on Social Media in our helpful guide.

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For many of us, Black Friday and Cyber Monday can feel overwhelming. Email gives you the chance to cut through the noise and provide a really personal offering to your customers.

We asked 65 business owners, which channel was the most effective for marketing, and 24% said email marketing!

Make sure you start your email campaign at least a week in advance to whet your customers’ appetite for the sales you’re going to offer them on across the weekend.

A simple but effective email campaign would include:

• One weekly email from four weeks until Black Friday.
• An email both the night before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• An email on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You may even consider offering your long-standing customers a special VIP offer over email. For example, you could give them a sneak preview of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts and offer them an early chance to buy them. This can be a great way to build up brand trust; because repeat customers are more valuable to you, it also makes commercial sense.

Email gives you the chance to provide a really personal offering to your customers. Research shows that personalization helped increase email open rate by 30% and click rate by 50% on average

Advice From Experts: USA Wholesale

Alexis Frankel

In the past, the best campaigns I’ve produced have been for Black Friday/Cyber Monday ($10,000+ in a single day from email campaigns).

Is email marketing valuable during the Black Friday season?

Leads are in the mindset to buy and will do so if they see what they like. Give them what they want! Use data from their previous purchases, abandoned cart items, and average order value to target specific promotions that they will be interested in. Make sure to tweak and test for the best results.

Even if you do all of the above, you’re not done.

Make sure you follow up after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to ask for feedback and invite them to revisit your store.

Adding an automated abandoned cart recovery email is a great way of stopping customers slipping through the net. If a customer gets all the way to the checkout but then fails to purchase, they’ll get a follow-up email allowing them to go straight back to their cart.

This is a useful tool for your customers and potentially profitable one for you!

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday online shoppers are ruthless. With so many retailers competing for their attention, they can afford to be.

If your store is even remotely slow to load, many shoppers will simply vote with their feet and close the tab. Big, colorful product pictures and homepage banner images make your site look good but they can also affect load time and hit your conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who go on to make a purchase) and your rankings in Google.

The simple way to solve this issue is to use an image optimizer. These are tools that compress your image into a smaller version, without affecting the dimensions or the quality. Shopify has its own tool to help store owners resize and optimize images, but we’ve used a tool called Kraken.io before, which also works well.

Other helpful pages:

• Image Optimization for Best Website Performance – Find out what steps you can take to optimize your images and boost your site’s performance.
• How to Take Product Photos – Give your products the best chance with our guide to great product photography.

Determining how much your shipping will cost is almost as important as determining how much the product itself costs.

High shipping costs can be off-putting to shoppers, especially those looking for big bargains. In fact, many Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers will expect free delivery.

It’s up to you to weigh up the cost of free shipping against the discount you’re offering. For example, many shoppers would rather have free shipping worth $6 than a discount of $10, bizarrely.

A survey conducted by Finances Online found that almost half (49%) of all Black Friday 2022 shoppers stated shipping rates as their primary influencer for making a purchase and that they could be swayed into making an order if they were offered free shipping.

Advice From Experts: M&I

Brian Deschesare

Use a loss leader product, and offer free shipping on expensive orders.

What are your thoughts on shipping costs during Black Friday?

A ‘loss leader’ is a product sold at a loss to bring in more customers. You might be wondering why you would ever sell a product at a loss, but the idea is simple. You want to make it cheap enough to get them shopping. That way, they’ll start taking a look at the rest of your products, and they’ll buy even more.

Is using a loss leader too risky?

Without first using a loss leader, your customers might not even start shopping with you. There needs to be that ‘initial push’ that gets them browsing your store. The next step is to introduce free shipping over a certain amount.

Now that they have one cheap item in their basket, they’re going to start browsing through the rest of your selection. This is when you advertise that you offer “free shipping on orders over $50”, for example. Your customers are now a lot more likely to find items that they like.

With Walmart and Amazon dominating Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, you might feel like a small fish in a big pond.

The trick is to turn this to your advantage.

One way to do this is by providing personal and quality online customer service. If you haven’t already, write a detailed FAQs section specific to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so any questions your customers might have can be dealt with as seamlessly as possible. Make sure you cover key areas such as:

• Your refunds and returns policy.
• How long your sale lasts for.
• Expected delivery time.

If you employ any staff to help you run your store, make sure you give them a brief pep talk on the importance of being polite and helpful. You could provide them with certain customer service phrases or advice on how to respond to negative reviews, to ensure all customer interactions end on a positive note.

Anything you can do to improve the on-site level of service can have a big effect. You might, for example, want to introduce BigCommerce store, offers a free 30-day trial, so time it right and you can add a really attractive customer service tool for free.

If you aren’t using conversational technology as part of your ecommerce strategy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday make for the perfect excuse to get started.

With over 130 million people visiting US online stores over Cyber Weekend 2022, digital shopping isn’t set to go anywhere anytime soon – voice technology and chat solutions are ideal for bridging the gap between online and in-person shopping experiences.

Conversational commerce covers everything from voice search (assistant) technology to chatbots and boxes. Each can be used to bolster customer service efforts, as well as acting as an extra channel for matching customers with new deals and upselling related products.

Given that almost 33.3% of the global population now shops online, conversational technology fills the person-sized hole left in your shopping experience. For example, fashion stores like H&M use chatbots to deliver custom recommendations to customers, whilst Alexa reports all of the best Black Friday deals when asked. There are plenty of ways for you to use and optimize for voice search!

So at the very least, we recommend installing a chatbot to your site to give customers a deeper level of service, even when they’re shopping digitally. Not only will it foster better relationships, but it’ll drive sales, too – with business leaders estimating that chatbots result in a 67% increase in sales.

Advice From Experts: The Converted Click

Dave Nilsson

Our voice search optimization strategy gave us an increase in website traffic of 23.7% and an increase in sales leads of 34.2%.

Why did you add conversational technology to your website?

As SEO specialists we have implemented voice search optimization on our website with great success. We implemented voice search optimization on our website to increase our sales leads.

How does this help your customers?

Our approach is to focus on creating detailed answers to common conversational questions from our customers. For each question, we create content that gives clear and concise answers. Our content framework starts with a headline asking a common question, provides a concise answer in the first paragraph, then elaborates with further details in the rest of the page.

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Touch wood, you’ll be receiving more orders than usual across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A lot more orders, hopefully.

It’s crucial to make sure your shipping process can cope and you’re not going to fail to deliver orders if they’re coming through thick and fast, or that you won’t sell out too quickly and end up failing to meet demand. Contact your supplier and make sure they know what’s happening.

Test your order fulfillment process, whether you’re using a dropshipper, a manual system or a fulfillment app like ShipStation.

You also need to ensure you’ve set up a smooth and optimized returns process. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may result in a lot of sales, but they can result in a lot of returns too if customers aren’t happy with the items or regret their purchase made in a haze of discounts and deals.

Plan your returns process in advance, make it easy to find the relevant information on your website, and don’t keep customers waiting for a refund. Good returns management, and an easy returns process, can help to ensure they return to your online store in the future.

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When making sure your store is ready for the busiest shopping days of the year, it’s easy to forget how important it is to make sure all the changes we’ve suggested work as well on mobile as they do on desktop.

Mobile devices made up a staggering 76% of all Cyber Week traffic in 2022, with the upward trend predicted to continue in 2024.

Don’t forget to look at navigation on a mobile, mobile responsiveness and the buying process.

Advice From Experts: The Gray Dot Company

Tory Gray

I recommend testing your site’s mobile compatibility in anticipation of these big-spending days.

What are your mobile and desktop recommendations for BFCM?

It’s more important to target mobile searches than ever before. Mobile makes up a whopping 61 percent of Google’s organic search traffic. Mobile users are also more likely to convert than desktop users, so it’s crucial that you are mobile-ready in the lead up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I recommend testing your site’s mobile compatibility in anticipation of these big-spending days. You should test your site’s responsiveness, loading time, and image sizes to make sure they are mobile-ready. Not only can mobile compatibility make for better user experience, but it can also improve your ranking and visibility on Google.

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Many retailers get caught up in the competitiveness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and risk damaging their brand with unethical practices. Here are a few rules of thumb to bear in mind:

• DON’T spam customers with relentless emails. Just because they’ve bought from you or signed up to your newsletter doesn’t give you right to abuse their inbox.
• DO always have an unsubscribe button on any emails.
• DON’T offer promotions or products in paid advertising that you aren’t offering on the site. Customers must get what they were promised when they click on a paid advert.
• DO offer genuine discounts. Don’t raise the price a week before and then drop it back down to its original price but advertise it as a discount. You’ll be caught out and shoppers will punish you in the long run.
• DON’T be rude to customers requesting refunds or making inquiries. Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be stressful, but you should always remain professional and courteous.
• DO make sure any pop-ups you add to your website are as unobtrusive and as relevant as possible. We’d suggest they only appear after a visitor has been on your page for 10 seconds. There is nothing more off-putting than arriving on a webpage only to be attacked by a pop-up immediately.

Not built your online store yet?

Don’t worry it’s not too late!

• How to Build an Online Store – get the tools you need to get ready for Black Friday online sales.
• Online Store Builders Comparison Chart – our comparison chart will help you find the perfect online store builder for you.
• Best Website Builders – discover the best website builders compared side by side.

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There are no hard-and-fast rules, Black Friday and Cyber Monday trends are always evolving and changing. With it we’re always updating our content to keep you in the best of loops!

We hope we’ve helped prepare you for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping dates in the calendar. Standing out of the crowd can feel impossible if you’re a small online store with limited resource.

But if you ask yourself the right questions, and take the right steps, you can ride the Black Friday and Cyber Monday wave and get in on the action!

Hopefully this guide has shown you some easy DIY methods to get your ecommerce store ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, without needing to hire an expensive developer or a designer, and pointed you in the direction of some really helpful tools available from top ecommerce website builders.

If you haven’t even built your ecommerce store yet, it’s never too late to get up and running.

Check out the Best Ecommerce Website Builders and the Best Free Ecommerce Website Builders to find which builder is best for you and your store.

Explore the Best Ecommerce Software to help you sell online, which shows you how quickly and easily you can build an online store and start selling, without needing any technical knowledge whatsoever.

Let’s hear it for a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

More Information

• How to Design a Customer-Winning Product Page for Your eCommerce Store: Part 1 – for the 8 pieces of content your ecommerce product page must have if you want to supercharge your online store.
• How To Sell Online | 4 Superb eCommerce Solutions To Help You Succeed – your one-stop guide to selling online successfully, covering everything from building a brand to technology that helps you sell.

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Some ecommerce shoppers have time to browse through pages of products leisurely, but most don’t. A streamlined search function takes the headache out of online shopping, giving customers a way to quickly and efficiently evaluate everything available.

Note that there’s a difference between offering a passable search function and offering a good search function. Not all search options are effective in an ecommerce space and may even deliver results that are frustrating for users. One study found that 70% of ecommerce sites are unable to return valuable results for searches with product-related synonyms. In contrast, 34% fail to offer worthwhile options when a model number or name is misspelled.

An ecommerce-specific search function should focus on delivering product results rather than text-based keyword matches. Take Camelbak, for example. The search function is located on the top right of the homepage — not buried in site navigation — and provides product and image links to make shopping simple.

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It’s easy to believe that the checkout process doesn’t matter — especially after a shopper has a cart full of great products — but this could not be further from the truth. A frustrating checkout can be the death knell for an entire sale.

One survey found that 9% of people will abandon a purchase if the checkout process is too long and confusing, while a whopping 22% will walk away if they have to create an account to make a purchase. If you want to ensure shoppers complete the purchase process, a clean, simple, and easy-to-use interface with a guest checkout option is essential.

Offering a guest checkout option doesn’t require any additional steps in the ecommerce site setup process. LARQ, the brand behind the world’s first self-cleaning water bottle, excels here: the checkout offers Amazon and Google pay options that can make purchasing with a click incredibly simple as well as a guest checkout feature.

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It would be nice if every shopper who visited your website followed through with their purchases, but unfortunately, that’s not reality. Instead, around 70% of carts are abandoned prior to checkout.

Cart abandonment can happen for many different reasons. Sometimes, customers realize they can get products for a lower cost elsewhere, or they know that their eyes are bigger than their budgets. And sometimes, customers simply switch to another task and forget to complete the transaction.

Cart abandonment emails are a great way to bring back buyers. Serving as a reminder as well as a way to offer discounts to entice a sale, cart abandonment emails are popular for a reason: they work. Around 60% of customers who receive emails come back to make a purchase.

Not all cart abandonment emails are as successful as others. Before sending, keep these ecommerce tips in mind.

Send your emails in a timely fashion

A successful cart abandonment email can’t be sent too soon, but it also can’t go out weeks after a cart is left behind. Finding the sweet spot is key to inciting sales. For large purchases, a few minutes isn’t enough time for shoppers to ponder, but waiting a week may be too late. Ecommerce best practices suggest an email within 24 hours and another three to four days later, giving customers the push necessary to click “purchase.”

Have a well-crafted subject line

The average person gets over 100 emails a day, and a lot of them go straight to the trash. The open rate for marketing emails is a paltry 17.8%, so if your subject line doesn’t stand out, conversion rates will likely be poor. Give your email a snappy subject line, and if you’re offering a discount or other promo, make sure this is clear from the get-go.

Show off your product

A customer who liked your products enough to put them in a cart saw something appealing. In your abandonment email, a reminder can be a great way to inspire a purchase. Show images of the abandoned items, add the product descriptions, and emphasize why investment is ultimately the right choice.

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Everyone has a debit or credit card, so it’s easy to think other payment options are redundant. However, statistics imply otherwise. Around 6% of carts are abandoned due to a lack of ideal payment options, and when every dollar counts, that 6% can add up. And, without magically adding more options overnight, those shoppers are ones you probably can’t get back with a strong cart abandonment email.

Multiple payment options can open the door to more sales. Many shoppers have their favorites, like Amazon Pay or Paypal, and aren’t overly interested in platforms that can’t support their preferences. While credit cards will always be a forerunner, buy now, pay later options are on the rise, particularly among young people with poor or nonexistent credit. The opportunity to make four smaller payments later versus one larger payment now is enticing indeed. One study found that 31% of people who chose BNPL wouldn’t have made a purchase at all had the option been unavailable.

Redirects

Payment options that redirect users to another site to complete payment information before returning to a merchant’s checkout screen are trendy. Paypal is arguably the best known. Using this model, customers simply click the Paypal logo and are redirected to Paypal’s site. After logging in, they can then choose a payment method if multiple are available and proceed with the purchase. Billing and shipping information associated with Paypal is then used to complete the purchase.

Redirects are helpful because they reduce the information a customer needs to enter, like credit card numbers and addresses, making the checkout process fast and painless.

Checkout on-site, payment off-site

Checkout on-site and payment off-site is a model in which the checkout process is completed on a merchant’s website, but a third party processes payment, which means that all confidential banking info isn’t stored on the company’s servers; all transactions are managed off-site. Not only is this convenient for users, but the extra security can give buyers peace of mind. Stripe is a well-known example of one such payment processor.

On-site payments

On-site payments are what most customers have come to identify with ecommerce purchases: the merchant themselves processes all payments. This puts more onus on the merchants without a third-party to alleviate pressure, but does open the door to more options.

When control is in a retailer’s hands, the flexibility to use multiple methods, including on-site payments in conjunction with off-site and redirects, can create a robust environment tailored to a great customer experience. Revelry, a premium bridesmaid dress retailer, is a great example of how multiple methods can come together; buyers have a chance to see what payment options are available as soon as items are added to a cart.

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An iPhone can take a lovely photo, but that doesn’t mean cell phone cameras are right for ecommerce. While good enough for daily use, the average phone can’t capture an image high-quality enough to impress.

Three-quarters of buyers use images to inform a purchase decision, so if your images aren’t professional and don’t convey quality, shoppers won’t bite. Skullcandy, the beloved headphones brand, does a great job of sending a message with pictures. Their image quality is excellent, and products are illustrated beautifully, giving customers the information they need to move forward.

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Images matter, but so do words. Without a way to physically touch or try products, ecommerce sites need to lean into every available resource to inform customers. Product descriptions can come off a little dry when they’re not well-crafted, but a great description touches on all key points and can play a significant role in inspiring buyer confidence. With 87% of customers making decisions based on product content, the more information you can provide, the better.

Think about the who, what, where, when, why and how

A good product description needs to answer a few different questions, including:

• What is the product, and what features make it unique or noteworthy?
• Who is the product for?
• Where can the product be best utilized?
• When should the product be used?
• How does the product work?
• Why is this product a necessity for shoppers to purchase?

A well-crafted description can be all the ammo necessary to convince a customer to hit the ‘Add to Cart’ button.

Determine the best format to describe your products

Not all product descriptions are made equal. Some products, like clothing, are better suited for flowery prose, while others, like electronics, require a no-nonsense summary of functions and features. Once you determine what you need to communicate, you can move forward with the best format in which to do so.

Solo Stove does a great job with the format by providing a punchy description at the top of the page and a longer blurb below, for customers who want to dig deeper.

Make your product description copy short and sweet

Customers are on your site to shop, not read novels. Product descriptions need to be short and to the point to avoid losing readers. If your description needs to be a little longer to emphasize the nature of a product, add the highlights in bullet points so that customers have access to the cliff notes.

Use storytelling to your advantage

Using a story to sell a product isn’t always essential, but narrative can be very effective in certain circumstances. Creative storytelling can help a customer best understand why they need a product and how it can fit in their lives better than cold hard facts. For example, describing shoes as leather doesn’t pack the same punch as telling a shopper that these stunning, velvety couture leather shoes will carry you effortlessly throughout the night, complementing your outfit at formal functions or executing a corporate meeting ensemble.

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A decade ago, mobile didn’t really matter. Today, the opposite is true. Almost 80% of people have made purchases on their mobile devices, and 75% of users prefer mobile sites. Focusing solely on desktop leaves your business vulnerable to the competition.

There are advantages from a search engine perspective as well. Since 2016, Google has prioritized responsive and mobile sites on devices like phones and tablets, so a lack of mobile optimization costs you in more ways than one.

Lingerie retailer Natori has an excellent mobile site, making it easy for customers to make purchases without resorting to desktop.

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Reviews can mean everything online. The new evolution of word of mouth marketing, 90% of customers read reviews before making a purchase. There are plenty of review sites out there, from Yelp! to TrustPilot, but featuring reviews on your website can make a big difference in the research process.

When positive reviews are available front and center, site visitors don’t have to go very far to get a feel for the quality of your products. You can use a number of different online survey tools to gather product reviews, then display them on different areas of your site. So where are the best places to add them?

Category pages

Reviews on category pages provide a great way to make a first impression. With the ability to instill trust in a customer before they view products, buyers feel much more secure in their purchasing decisions.

Product pages

It’s easy to showcase great products on your site, but it’s harder to make customers believe that they’re great. By allowing customers to leave reviews on specific products after purchase, potential buyers can get detailed and legitimate feedback as they shop.

Cutter and Buck, for example, lets customers leave post-purchase star reviews, giving shoppers a quick way to evaluate the perceived quality of products while shopping.

Shopping cart

The shopping cart may seem like the last place reviews would be relevant, but this isn’t the case. Featuring reviews on a checkout screen can reduce cart abandonment, convincing customers on the fence that making a purchase is the right decision.

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Maybe you have a warehouse full of inventory ready to fulfill client offers quickly and efficiently — but you don’t have to let your customers know this. Creating the illusion of scarcity can compel a customer to make a purchase by making them believe it’s now or never. When done properly, this technique can increase conversions by over 300%, boosting your business in a way few other strategies can rival.

Showcase your “sale ends” date

Having a sale? Make sure your customers know that your great deals won’t be around forever. Many sites use a countdown clock when advertising promo codes on sites, driving home the point that if they want a low price, they have to act now.

Low stock notices

Many companies use low stock notices to push products. Labeling a product with a note like “four left in stock” or “only a few left” creates a sense of urgency that is otherwise lacking. Low stock notices can be real or artificial, but regardless of the reasoning, implying a lack of stock can drive sales. Larq does this well with a subtle but effective “limited stock” message below specific products on their product pages.

Use numbers to show demand

Low stock notices can use vague phrasing or numbers. When you have low stock, however, numbers make the most sense. Customers are provided with a tangible way to assess how long they have to act, and seeing low numbers, like one or two, can be the tipping point between purchasing and walking away.

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Customers love to feel important, and nothing does that better than a personalized experience. Personalizing pages when customers log in can create a perceived relationship between customers and retailers that otherwise wouldn’t exist. In fact, 91% of customers are more willing to make a purchase when an ecommerce retailer provides some level of customization. This can range from a welcome message for customers logged into an account to targeted promotions based on past activity. Whatever the strategy, personalization can make a big difference.

Display recently viewed items

Displaying recently viewed items is another great way to provide a level of personalization, even when customers log in. A simple setup using nothing but cookies, customers can see their browsing history and easily return to products when needed.

Make personal product recommendations

Using either logins or cookies, making personal product recommendations can make a shopper feel special. This technique provides customers with a seemingly-curated collection of products to consider and, when done successfully, can connect shoppers to products they may want to purchase.

Check out how Jeep People immediately asks visitors to select their Jeep model when visiting the site so that it can customize the page specifically to them.

Create personalized homepages

A personalized homepage inspires a feeling of community. Using a customer’s name when they’re logged in, featuring recommended products on a home page, or reminding shoppers of prior orders without forcing them onto an account screen can all make buyers feel welcomed back.

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Sometimes, customers have questions. With no live store associates, like in a brick and mortar store, shoppers are forced to turn to whatever web-based resources are available. This often means a chat function of some sort. Unfortunately, many stores feature automated chats, which limit interactions and can leave customers frustrated. Live chat, on the other hand, can boost conversions as much as 45%.

Increase conversions

No one likes talking exclusively to robots, especially when canned answers lead to dead ends. When customers can speak to a real person who can resolve their issues or answer their questions, they’re much more likely to move forward with a purchase.

Live chat software

Live chat software can facilitate the discussion process, helping customers to make contact easily. Some are exclusively live chat while others start with a chatbot and pass users on to live agents when automation can no longer address queries.

Some of the most popular examples include:

• Drift
• Liveperson
• Livehelpnow
• Olark
• Talkative
• Zendesk

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No matter how awesome your products are, some of your customers will inevitably want to return them. Maybe what they purchased wasn’t what they were looking for, or they chose the wrong size. No matter the reason, around 10% of all products get returned, so every ecommerce store needs a solid return policy to best satisfy customers.

Don’t hide your return policy

Some businesses believe that hiding a return policy in the fine print can make customers forget that returns are an option. However, this isn’t a wise choice. Hiding a return policy can actually scare customers away as it implies they’re stuck with their purchase, even if they’re not happy with what they receive.

Remove jargon, keep it simple

A return policy doesn’t need to be fancy; it merely needs to state what customers can expect. Making it too complicated can easily scare prospective shoppers off, sending them fleeing to competitors who don’t obscure their policies.

True Linkswear has a great return policy that doesn’t mince words. Customers are told clearly and plainly what they can expect without fancy phrasing or confusing industry terms.

Outline what they can expect from you

When customers send back an item, what happens? Do they get a refund in full, or receive store credit in exchange? Are there any items that can’t be sent back? Are there limits on how soon items need to be returned? What happens if returned items are sent back without a receipt? All of these questions, and then some, need to be addressed in full if you want customers to trust you.

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Customers want to trust ecommerce businesses, but the impersonal nature of transactions can make it a little harder. With no way to talk to an employee face-to-face, try products, or browse store shelves, ecommerce forces anonymity in a way that can be intimidating. As such, brands need to establish trust and legitimacy in other ways.

Add trust badges

Trust badges are a small, simple token that can go a long way. These badges, like McAfee Secure trust mark, the Norton Secured trust mark, and Better Business Bureau Accredited Business mark, all lend authenticity to a brand.

Media mentions

Has your company been mentioned in the media? Put it on your site. Brands that have been featured by legitimate media can use this to their advantage, advertising that a known entity endorses products and services. Di Bruno Bros features mentions in the New York Times, Travel & Leisure, and Food & Wine at the bottom of their site with links to references, to boost customer trust.

Business phone number

Providing a lack of support information turns company perceptions from comfortable to cold. Some customers just want to hear a voice, and there’s no better way to do that than with a phone number. Without a number present, customers may find themselves wondering who you are and what makes you so resistant to consumer contact.

Physical address

Just as with a phone number, a physical address further communicates the idea that your business exists. While location doesn’t specifically matter for ecommerce, an address to the headquarters drives home the point that, yes, real people work for your business.

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Ecommerce trends may come and go, but the thirteen points we’ve covered in this post are now well-established as best practices across a broad range of ecommerce industries. Let’s recap that list again:

Top 13 Best Practices for Ecommerce Stores

1. Allow Users to Search for Products
2. Enable a Guest Check Out
3. Send Shopping Cart Abandonment Emails
4. Accept Multiple Payment Options
5. Take High-Quality Product Photos
6. Write Informative Product Descriptions
7. Optimize for Mobile
8. Feature Customer Reviews
9. Create Product Scarcity
10. Personalize the Experience
11. Offer Live Chat and Support
12. Have Thorough Return Policy
13. Make Your Website Trustworthy

There are plenty of ways to boost your ecommerce business sales, but most of them boil down to one thing: a great customer experience. No matter what you sell or how you sell it, catering to customers and increasing customer engagement should be your number one priority. From easy payment options to measures that instil trust, your customers should never experience anything other than your best. With a customer-centric focus, you can create a store that keeps customers coming back again and again.

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