What is Black Friday in e-commerce?
Black Friday is a commercial event whose origin is first recorded in Philadelphia in 1961, due to the chaos caused by the sales in stores after Thanksgiving.
However, it did not arrive in Spain until 2010, when Apple announced that it was going to reduce its prices by 10%, coinciding with the Anglo-Saxon Black Friday. Finally, in 2012, the Spanish government authorized this type of discounts, opening the way for the rest of the stores, making the German chain Media Markt the first company to launch a Black Friday campaign.
The aim of this commercial strategy is to get rid of products that are going out of season before the Christmas campaign arrives. But, although traditionally these discounts were implemented in physical stores, more and more commercial companies are joining the e-commerce market, generating a considerable increase during and after the pandemic.
When is Black Friday online and how long does it last in 2022?
Black Friday has become the most powerful annual online shopping event in our country. But when is it and how long will it last? Although discounts are seen throughout the month of November, it will begin on November 25, 2022, that is, the last Friday of November, thus starting the Christmas shopping season. The duration of the campaign varies depending on the company, that is, initially the offers were only for one day, but currently they are extended for up to a week after the date.
At this point we must pause, because if you have heard about Black Friday you will have also heard about another of the most important events for e-commerce, Cyber Monday.
When to join Black Friday with your e-commerce?
While Black Friday is a great opportunity to increase your business's sales, you need to be prepared and design a good strategic campaign based on digital marketing. It is crucially important to be able to manage the increase in traffic to your e-commerce, as it could cause you to lose sales if you have not carefully thought through what the user journey will be like.
Advantages of Black Friday
The main advantages of this commercial event are brand visibility, which will be reinforced as well as the volume of purchases. Managing a good digital marketing campaign will generate an increase in the target audience that consumes your products and services in the medium term. In other words, an increase in traffic to your website and its corresponding level of income.
Linked to this, Black Friday gives you the ability to build customer loyalty, opening a window to future purchases without the need for discounts.
Disadvantages of Black Friday
If your e-commerce is new or retail, Black Friday can be a huge financial effort, where you must debate whether you want to have competitive prices or, on the contrary, stay out of the competition. On the other hand, the mass generation of content to provide on this date generates an unsustainable model, which is also reflected in the quality of the product.
Ecommerce Black Friday in Figures
As we mentioned earlier, Black Friday represents a huge increase in sales, and increasingly so in the e-commerce sector. After the pandemic, companies have started to opt for e-commerce, managing the digital marketing campaign for the next Black Friday a year in advance. Sales forecasts, according to data from the Black Friday 2022 Report by Webloyalty, indicate that there will be an exponential increase in online spending of 25%, with an increase in buyers of 18%. It also states that the profile of online buyers during Black Friday is very homogeneous (51.2% women and 48.8% men) with a generational impact on the population between 35 and 54 years old.
How to sell on Black Friday with your online store?
Preparing your digital strategy for Black Friday is vitally important, as prevention is not enough. However, there are two points you should keep in mind when preparing your online store for this macro event.
Improve your user experience and the performance of your website
At this point, your website's performance can determine whether the traffic you receive will be useful, completing their purchase journey, or on the contrary, they will abandon their shopping cart. Check that your e-commerce's loading speed is optimal, to do this you must check the size of the files and reduce, if necessary, the code of your website.
Get to know your customer and make them feel exclusive
One of the things that will make the difference in your e-commerce is your dedication to your customers. Knowing their tastes, their psychology when it comes to buying, in short, everything that your audience is made up of and needs will make your efforts pay off. To do this, you can remind them through email marketing campaigns which products will be discounted and when they will have access to them.
Design your campaign focused on Black Friday
Cyber users are on the hunt for the best deals during this shopping day and this is your moment to stand out. Placing banners on the web and social networks or creating landing pages with calls to action are foolproof techniques for your ecommerce.
Create anticipation so your client can't resist.
This is the time to bring out the compulsive buyer in us all. Creating a countdown announcing the start of the discounts on your page will create that urgency in the user that determines the purchase. You can accompany it with coupons through email marketing that are available for a limited time.
Make your buyers give you visibility on Social Networks
Design an online strategy so that your users can share their experiences and tastes based on your products and services, taking advantage of the fact that Black Friday will be a trending topic during the day. This technique will generate more visibility for your e-commerce and attract new potential customers.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, what's the difference?
At this point we must pause, because if you have heard about Black Friday, you will have also heard about another of the most important events for e-commerce: Cyber Monday. Do you know the difference between the two?
Cyber Monday is celebrated on the last Monday of November, this year on the 28th of the month. The main difference between them is the type of discounts. While Black Friday offers discounts on all types of products (clothing, household goods, cosmetics, shoes, etc.), Cyber Monday focuses on electronic products.
We hope you have a better idea of what Black Friday means and how it affects your e-commerce. Now you just have to put all of the above into action.
