Shopify BFCM Guide 2024: Checklist + Examples

The holiday season is the period that brings excitement and more sales for most businesses than any other time of the year. Holidays are the time when people get in a delightful mood and are likely to spend more on things that give them joy and boost their self-esteem. In particular, two shopping events i.e. Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) come into the picture when we talk about the holiday season.

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You can get an idea of the popularity of BFCM with the fact that Shopify store owners collectively recorded USD 6.3 Billion in sales in BFCM 2021 up from USD 5.1 Billion in BFCM 2020. BFCM possesses the potential to gain new loyal customers and increase sales revenue for any eCommerce business.

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In this guide, we will deep dive into the Shopify BFCM, checklist, examples, and strategies to capitalize on this event.

What Works in the Black Friday Sale

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When it comes to Black Friday sales, customers usually flock toward brand deals surrounding their home items, clothing, and consumer electronics. Various large online retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target tend to provide great deals on a wider range of products on Black Fridays.

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Top 5 searched products for Black Friday worldwide in November 2021:

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• Nintendo Switch
• Airpods
• Apple Watch
• Dyson
• PS5

What Works in Cyber Monday Sale

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Cyber Monday sales represent the biggest online shopping opportunity for tech deals. Laptops, TVs, and appliances are just a handful of categories that businesses will offer excellent deals on.

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Some brands treat Cyber Monday as a second day to sell merchandise that went unsold on Black Friday. Brands push for in-person retail experience on Friday and then push for online sales on Monday, that way they are able to sell more and target two different audiences on the same weekend.

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Products like laptops, PCs, gaming systems, TVs, smartphones, tablets, subscription services, and even SaaS programs are some of the most sold items in Cyber Monday sales.

How Can a Shopify Store Prepare for BFCM | Checklist

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Now that you understand the trends for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it is time to make sure you take full advantage of this BFCM sales season. To get your store in front of many potential customers, you need to develop a proper marketing strategy.

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Here are a few of the most important best practices to help you get started:

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1. Optimize Your Shopify Store for Mobile

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Mobile devices continue to dominate the e-commerce sales chart. E-commerce sales from mobile devices accounted for a whopping 72.9% in 2021, up from 70.4% in 2020. Customers will continue to use their phones to find the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, so it becomes crucial to optimize your store for phones.

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Ensuring your store for mobile friendliness will not just help you avoid losing any potential clients, but it will also boost your Search engine rankings resulting in more traffic. You can run a mobile friendliness test of your store and also make sure to pay special attention to your product pages.

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2. Design Dedicated Landing Pages

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Landing pages lead customers to a specific service, product, or offer and encourage them to take action. Landing pages give you the opportunity to convert your store visitors into leads and are designed to increase your conversion rates and build a customer base.

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A perfect landing page should properly deliver the product information the customers want and give a clear CTA (call-to-action) to make the purchase. To improve your landing page performance, you can try these tips:

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1. Keep the design simple and clean.
2. Create a content copy that is focused on your product offer.
3. Add CTA multiple times throughout the page.
4. Remove sections that increase loading time.
5. Add product images with product descriptions.

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3. Utilize Multichannel Marketing

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To increase your brand visibility and campaign's reach, you need to leverage as many other channels as possible. Apart from using your online store and physical store as your central pillar, you need to run marketing campaigns on social media platforms and other channels.

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Paid ads are another key marketing channel that can offer you great results if used properly. The competition for consumer attention is so high that getting first for the search results just will not do the job.

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You will need to create a strategy that works and focus on personalizing your message to reach your target audience.

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Multichannel marketing e-commerce platform like DataFeedWatch by Cart.com can be very helpful with that. Harnessing the power of such platforms simplifies the complex task of managing diverse advertising channels, ensuring optimal performance and maximizing sales potential for your business.

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4. Build your Email and SMS List

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BFCM is the biggest event of the shopping season with a huge revenue opportunity for e-commerce brands. Every customer on your email and SMS list is important.  

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How to start growing your list in the weeks leading up to BFCM?

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Run Facebook lead ads by Syncing your email list

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Add a signup form to your homepage  

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Add an email signup option to your social media profiles

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Include sign-ups in order confirmation emails 

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Add loyalty programs for email sharing

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Want to find the best deals on your favorite apps?

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Read our blog on 16 Best Shopify Apps and Deals for BFCM 2023.

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5. Update Related Email Flows

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The holiday season for shoppers means tons of emails that land in the spam folder or go unnoticed and unread. Standing out from the competition becomes easier when you thoughtfully plan your emails.  

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Customization and creativity are crucial factors for Shopify Black Friday and Shopify Cyber Monday sales. Create highly focused emails and segmented flows to grab customer attention.

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6. Early Bird Offers

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Another way to grab attention is to give early access to Black Friday deals as a reward for your VIP customers. Use reliable third-party apps to sort out and include related products in your products section. By doing this you save a lot of time and display high conversion pre-purchase and post-purchase upsell offers.

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Look for ways how you can customize emails with promotional codes, exclusive savings, and early shopping access. Analyze your customers’ needs and count on their shopping history to offer accurate recommendations. 

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7. Optimize the Checkout Process 

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Creating an awesome online shopping experience goes beyond updating your website, or giving good Shopify Black Friday deals. Apart from focussing on a great first impression, you also need to ensure the final process of checkout is flawless.

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Optimize the checkout page to make the process as smooth as possible, so the customer doesn`t leave it in the middle. You can create a seamless checkout experience:

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• By keeping only one checkout page.
• Allowing guest checkout.
• Offering multiple payment and shipping options.

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8. Fine-tune Shipping and Delivery Communications 

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During the holiday season, customers place an order, they want to track the order, and they want to know when they can expect the delivery. Integrate appropriate tools that will enable the tracking of orders, which reduces customer stress.  

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As you will dealing with several orders for a wide variety of products and from different places, you will also need to display accurate shipping rates. You can use the Shipeasy app to calculate accurate shipping rates, dropshipping rates, and also set shipping rules.

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Enable monitoring of shipping and delivery delays, and keep communication flowing by updating customers about stalled shipments via email and SMS. 

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By following this, you have another opportunity to display related products on your order tracking page, which allows customers to buy holiday gifts easily. This means even more revenue for your business. 

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9. Offer Curbside Services

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Another trend for 2023 is the rise of in-store and curbside pickup. Especially during the holiday shopping season, buy online pickup in-store (BOPIS) is a common strategy among brick-and-mortar stores to take some pressure off the delivery services.

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Experts believe that the BOPIS helps brands reduce their liability for delayed packages and possession of their items on the same day. You can easily enable in-store pickup on your Shopify store to avoid any loose ends and grow your business.

Shopify BFCM Store Examples in 2023 to Learn from

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Glossier

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A bundle of lip balms from Glossier Balm Dotcom Trio is a perfect example of displaying bundle offers as part of an ideal BFCM Marketing agenda. This is a great way of upselling your products without the customer realizing it. Their customizable three-pack offer is a perfect bait to attract customers to choose whatever would work best for them. 

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Giglio.com

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Giglio.com has come up with a holiday discount offer on its FENDI products. The product section redirects to a pop-up display that offers access to the holiday discount after the customer enters the details required. Holiday discounts are traditional ways to attract customers and even big brands swear by this.  

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Brooklinen

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Brooklinen offers a discount and a gift as part of their holiday marketing efforts. They offer 15% off on their products, which also come with a tote bag as a gift, which would otherwise cost $25. Adding such offers to the cart page gives a sense of saving dollars on their purchase.  

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Mango 

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Mango has geared up its site for BFCM this year with a page dedicated to the BFCM season. They have included email subscription options alongside special discount sections for in-store and online shopping. They have also included an option to save more with their amazing discounts and exclusive promotions. 

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Increase Your Shopify Store AOV This BFCM with Selleasy

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There you have it - strategies, ideas, and examples to make the most of this BFCM season. Getting new customers and offering them a great shopping experience is good but you also need to increase your profits to maintain the growth of your business.

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You can use Upsell & Cross Sell ‑ Selleasy to significantly increase your average order value (AOV) with the same marketing effort. Being rated one of the best Shopify upsell apps, this tool lets you display frequently bought together bundles, related product add-ons, post-purchase upsell, and much more.

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Importantly, the app offers multi-language, multi-currency support with a lightning-fast user experience and seamless theme integration. Customer attention is the key to making more sales and with no annoying popups, you can leverage this power and make this Shopify BFCM a hit for you.

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People also read:

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• How Do You Do Holiday Marketing On Shopify - Ultimate Guide [2022]