It was plain to see every day but you missed it.
You felt it in the change of temperature outside as you left for the office and yet you missed it.
Now it is upon you and you are worried about your sales plan.
You start to question, did I take this into consideration, did I take that? Were we prepared enough? BOOM! The site is down or you get a call from your colleagues in the Customer service department, or worse yet, a buyer who is upset because he is having issues logging into his account. What am I inferring? Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
Wait… Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Yes, these “national treasures” that some businesses live by.
These yearly occurrences, where we stock up on the things we need for our families and friends. Flip the coin, it is the time when distributors are looking at their inventory and asking themselves, do we have enough or can we get to move it quickly enough so that at the end of the fourth quarter we end balanced?
Always two sides to a coin, the B2B business looks to ensure that the items they have to sell are ready, in stock, and promoted right so that they can end the year well. Other B2B businesses are counting on their B2C markets to kick in the final push before the end of the year, before the close of the 4th quarter.
Regardless of the scenario, don’t make the mistake of not being ready. You have under 100 days and counting down. Let us see what you can do today, to better prepare.
Content Ready and Marketed Enriched – Marketing Parts
With this new traffic coming into your website, it begs the question if your marketing banners are strategically placed for visibility.
Question: how easy is it to upload marketing banners throughout your website? Have these areas been identified throughout the website so that your customer has the best chance to review these promotional markers and take advantage as they navigate your website? How well is your marketing plan using third-party services like, Hubspot, MailChimp, and others working cohesively with your content management system?
These questions are good to reconcile before a huge surge of potential customers comes to your website. You would like to have them readily available so that the percentage of your sales grows with these strategic marketing placements.
UI/UX Friendly – Easy flow
In retail, right before a huge sale, sales associates would normally take pop and add it around the building to create a theme that acts as a reminder as users walk the aisles of the various promotions set forth by the company.
These promotions normally have a look, and feel to them that align with their marketing plan. It also has sometimes a time stamp as to when it, the sale, is good for.
What does this have to do with my website? I’m glad you asked. The user experience is very important. So much so that it is said that 88% of consumers will not return to a website if they have a bad UI/UX experience. When you have a website that is responsive in all formats, mobile, tablet, and or desktop, you lead the charge for your customers to have a much better experience allowing them the freedom to shop at ease from their comfort. Small changes allow for these experiences to be a success.
We also have services to help your website be ADA & WCAG Compliant. These compliances place your business at the forefront of clients that might not have yet been reached.
According to Accessibility.com, 90% of websites are inaccessible to people with disabilities who rely on assistive technology. 98.1% of home pages had detectable Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 failures.
93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. You have an opportunity to gain a client and ensure that your website is cutting edge granting anyone a chance to purchase from it without any issues.
Related: Front End Optimization To Improve Your Magento Store Performance
Server Side – Expansion
So when a surge happens inside a brick-and-mortar store, it is up to the management to tame the isles ensuring that the customer is safe and that the customer can proceed through the isles without frustration risking the business’s chance for the sale.
How is this different on a website? That is a great question. Statista stated that last year 125 million people had in mind shopping Black Friday, this only days before the launch of this “national digital holiday”.
Zippia says that 55% of shoppers would be shopping online rather than going into the stores. All that traffic now going into your website would cause havoc if not ready. So when customers come to your website, there is an initial surge on the server of the traffic coming in.
In order to maintain this surge, you should look into providing ample space for your web server to maintain the clients during peak hours. Failure to do so could cause a slowdown on the website and worse a crash causing a not-so-good experience with your clients.
We have services where we could ensure that your website even through high traffic times does not find itself interrupted for business. This will help your clients shop with ease and confidence.
Tested and Secured – Checkout and Cart
While your clients are navigating through your website after you have added content-ready, market-enriched banners strategically placed, enjoy the new experiences you created with UI/UX flows. While you have allotted for serve expansion to occur during peak hours, the final phase of this scenario would be to ensure your check out cart is secured and tested using the processors you have connected within your business.
Payment processors continue to evolve since their inception. Ever since there, popularity has grown and so has the trust in use. People use the payment processor they feel most comfortable with. This can be Apple Pay, PayPal, Stripe, Cash App, and Venmo just to name a few. When you, as the business owner, provide an experience for your customers, would it benefit you to have something they feel comfortable with?
If not the payment processors, how about pay as you go or over time? Does your company have an alliance with third parties like Bill Trust granting credit to your clients or something like Bread Financial? These options help ease the initial sting of some prices the clients may not be able to pay upfront. This makes you, the company, a hero for providing solutions.
Good Luck!
I hope these suggestions help you make the most of this year’s major shopping holidays! Of course, it doesn’t stop there.
