How to Prepare Your E-Commerce for Black Friday Sales in 2024

This article should provide actionable advice for e-commerce professionals on how to prepare their business and website for Black Friday sales.

Keep it concise and no fluff. Provide helpful advice and tips to consider. Include statistics, relevant current events, case studies, etc. where relevant to back up points.

E-commerce stores do a lot of business during the holidays, and taking the initiative to prepare for Black Friday can increase your results. Traditionally the date the companies came out of the red and started turning a profit, Black Friday has morphed into a day that marks the beginning of the highest sales of the year for many online retailers. 

The brands that prepare for Black Friday in advance will stand out from competitors. If you want to grab more attention from your target audience, turn a higher profit and move more inventory, now is the time to plan. 

State of 2024 Holiday Shopping 

For online stores in 2024, holiday shopping may be a bit more muted than in some years. Although consumers are still spending money, they aren’t increasing spending as in years past. EMARKETER predicts a modest 9.5% sales growth for e-commerce. The rising cost of everything has many people reconsidering their budgets and being more frugal. Retailers with high ticket items may feel the crunch more than others. 

However, researchers offer mixed predictions, with some warnings that at least 27% of consumers plan to spend less money than they did in 2023. Consumer confidence is down and concerns over politics and global tensions may push people to spend less than normal. Last year, the busiest holiday shopping happened between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, making up about 36% of holiday sales. 

This year will still offer many opportunities for growing e-commerce companies to earn more and grow their client base. 

How Online Stores Can Best Prepare for Black Friday Shopping

Although people often point to Cyber Monday as the time online retailers offer deals to customers, people still expect offers for Black Friday. The start of holiday shopping has been ingrained in people as being on Black Friday for decades. Some folks are starting to shop earlier and finish up by Thanksgiving, but the majority still complete their purchases between the Friday after Thanksgiving through the night before Christmas Day.

You should ensure you have offers in place for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well as additional offers in the weeks leading up to Christmas. 

1. Fix Errors Now

Late summer and early fall is the perfect time to seek out errors on your website and fix them. Run diagnostics to identify 404 errors, missing product details, broken images and links that fail to connect. 

You should also take the time to run through the entire buying process from landing on the page to adding an item to the cart and checking out. Just looking at the design doesn’t gauge how user-friendly the process is. If you have a lot of cart abandonment issues, it’s time to fix them by tweaking your buying process. 

2. Use Scarcity Marketing

What is the hot item you have in your store this year? You can create a scarcity mindset and drive people to buy early by limiting availability. Consider options such as offering free personalization to the first so many customers or offer a limited edition color.

Although selling in stores, too, Stanley is a good example of this marketing strategy. Their cups are now everywhere. People flocked to stores to get limited numbers of pink and other special cups for Valentine’s Day last year. You can tap into their marketing genius by creating scarcity in your product lines. 

You can also tap into the power of scarcity with limited time offers, such as 25% off for two days only. 

3. Create a Marketing Calendar

Create a marketing calendar well in advance of the busiest shopping days. Once Black Friday hits, you’ll be busy fulfilling orders and restocking inventory. You won’t have time to write articles or schedule social media posts. 

Spend time creating a calendar and preparing marketing materials now so you can already have them scheduled to automatically appear during the busiest shopping days of the year. 

4. Perfect Mobile Responsiveness

Statista estimates that 75% of retail site visits in Q1 came from smartphones. Fewer people are using desktop computers to shop online. It’s crucial your site is mobile friendly and people can easily check out on their devices.

One way to keep them on your site is by offering integration with sites such as PayPal, Stripe and Square so they can click a button and pay via a third-party gateway they may already have saved on their phone. Other options include Google and Facebook logins, which are often tied to payment methods, as well.

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. It’s much easier to tap a couple of times with your finger and do a face ID than to type in a ton of information on a tiny screen. 

5. Study Last Year

The best predictor of this year’s buying behavior is last year. While things do change from one season to the next, the items people bought in 2023, how, when and why they shopped aren’t likely to change much in 12 months.

Spend time digging into the analytics from last year. Survey your current customers and ask what they’d like to see improved in 2024. If you had snafus, such as problems with shipping, fix them now.

6. Review Shipping Options

Speaking of shipping, offer various options to meet people’s needs. Timely delivery can become crucial closer to Christmas celebrations. The delivery companies you choose can impact whether buyers get their item in time.

You should also consider costs. People are used to Amazon’s free shipping options with Prime. They don’t want to pay a lot, if anything, for shipping. One way smaller brands can compete is by offering free shipping with a minimum sale. Make sure it’s still profitable for your online store. 

If you notice a high number of people bouncing from your site when they get to the page to review shipping costs, you may need to revisit your offers. 

7. Hire More Customer Support Specialists

You may need seasonal workers to cover customer support, solve problems and fill orders as they come in. If possible, try to hire the same people each year as they’ll have experience with your company and be able to start immediately based on prior knowledge.

Otherwise, allow enough time to train people in your best practices. Keep management whenever possible. High employee turnover can impact everything from productivity to error rates. 

8. Tweak Product Descriptions

Black Friday shoppers may have different priorities than those shopping throughout the rest of the year. Look at your most popular items each holiday season and see if anything needs tweaked. You may need to change the photos, wording or list additional options.

You can also add approximate shipping times so people can easily see if the item will arrive before the holidays. Look for ways to make the product descriptions timely. However, don’t change every single product on your site, as you’ll have to change some things back after Christmas Day. Instead, focus on the items that are hot sellers and you’ll only have a handful of edits later. 

Prep Is the Key

Although financially rewarding, Black Friday and beyond can be stressful for small business owners. The key to getting through the season and enjoying the effect of your labor is preparing your e-commerce store for Black Friday well before it arrives.