Some major retailers are announcing they’ll stay closed on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24 this year). And that’s the right move, according to a survey: 68% of U.S. shoppers said stores should be closed on Thanksgiving. Retailers will very much be offering Black Friday deals online on Thanksgiving.
While brick-and-mortar stores will still reign supreme on Black Friday, consumers are more open to shopping online on other days—including Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Day eCommerce sales will see the highest growth of all Cyber Five days this year, rising 20.7%.
The holiday shopping season is starting earlier and becoming more spread out, making it less necessary to stay open on a single day.
How to Prepare Your eCommerce Store for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
The biggest shopping days of the year are around the corner, and we want to help you make the most of the holiday season and the amazing opportunities it can bring.
Most US sales out of November and December – 20 percent, to be more precise come from these few days alone. You can imagine online sales accounted for a pretty big part of that.
- Offer a mega sale on a popular product to attract customers to your store and once people are there for the super awesome discount there is a chance, they will snag some other items on the way to check out.
- Use social media. Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are excellent platforms to get people to notice your shop. Don’t just market your store and products but engage with customers and provide high-quality content to drive them to your shop research which hashtags performed best, like #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday
- Make sure your website is up and running with online shopping, and that you are connected to ALL available shopping channels where people are shopping to capture market share. If you are not cross-posting to eBay, Poshmark, Google Shopping, Tradesy, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and all the other options you have available, you need to set that up ASAP.
- Have branded promotional materials ready to insert into shopping bags and shipping bags to allow people to revisit your store online or in person. Useful items like pens, tablets, refrigerator magnets, jar openers, key chains, calendars, glasses cleaners, and nail files are all great examples of items that people will hang onto and that will allow your brand to linger a little longer than a receipt might.
- Consider printing postcards called gift certificates instead of promotional cards with a discount code. $25 off a $75 purchase is an example of a significant saving that someone would hold onto. The actual $, € or £ amount can be more meaningful to a repeat customer than a percentage rate off that isn’t tangible to them at the time they receive it. It’s easy to set this up in Shopify so you can limit the number of times someone uses it and/or it has an expiration date on it to drive them to shop later – perhaps in January and February when things tend to slow down.
It’s not too late to get online in time for the holidays if you are not already selling there.
Aravenda has created a simple system to help manage your inventory, pay consignors (if applicable), and sell your products online.
Here’s how it works:
- We create a custom website on Shopify for you to showcase your inventory
- Log into your Aravenda account and upload & track your inventory with automated payouts.
- Sell Sell Sell – Globally
Aravenda is the only platform that offers 24/7 service and enables inbound shipping allowing someone who has a dream of becoming the next Real Real to execute it.
We would love to chat with you about taking your resale business to the next level.
Contact us today and set a time to chat with an Aravenda representative about your business needs. Our in-house team will convert any existing data you might have in another system and can create your website for you – with your guidance as to look and feel. *
*Additional design charges may apply depending on the complexity of the design.