With December around the corner, online stores are gearing up for one of the most hectic, high-spending months of the year as Christmas arrives. Among the deals, discounts and promotions, the highlights are Black Friday, Cyber Monday and its Spanish version, eDay, an online sales event taking place next Monday, December 1.
If you’ve just opened your eCommerce store and want to seize this business opportunity, stay tuned. First of all,
What are Black Friday and eDay?
Black Friday takes place the day after Thanksgiving. On that day, US stores are overwhelmed by a flood of customers looking for gifts and everything they need to get ready for Christmas. And the following Monday comes Cyber Monday, the day of the year’s biggest online sales.
Created to bring eCommerce to the general public and boost sales ahead of Christmas, eDay landed in Spain on November 26, 2012, with such success in participation and sales that an extra summer edition was added in 2013 and another in 2014.
Online stores either sign up on the eDay organizers’ portal or run exclusive promotions on December 1, coinciding with the US shopping frenzy.
Why is this day important?
According to the latest data from Spain’s National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), eCommerce in Spain reached €3,291 million in revenue in Q3 2013, up 21.7% on the same quarter of 2012, with online revenue and transactions growing year after year.
Within these revenue figures, Cyber Monday and eDay stand out as key moments to promote and showcase a site’s products and/or services. Both days share a single premise: offering exclusive discounts or much bigger ones than previous promotions run by participating online stores.
You can take part with your eCommerce by signing up for eDay on December 1 or by offering exclusive promotions for Black Friday on November 28. This way you can:
- Increase visits: if you have an Adwords campaign, use the event to drive more traffic to your eCommerce.
- Get to know your audience: Given the volume of traffic your store will receive, create a survey to find out your target audience’s preferences. That way, both returning and new visitors can give you ideas on what to improve in your eCommerce.
- Increase revenue: by offering exclusive discounts or promotions you can encourage purchases from users who might not have bought without that incentive.
- Identify your star products/categories: Develop different strategies depending on the products and/or categories you want to promote. This way you’ll learn firsthand where you can be most competitive and why certain items sold more (price, product page appeal, etc.).
What can I do with my eCommerce?
eDay brings together online stores and well-known service brands offering everything from plane tickets to tech, beauty and clothing. If, due to margins or pricing strategy, you can’t discount your product or service much further, there are other ways to attract visitors. But first you’ll need to think: what will you offer in return?
Discounts, deals and promotions are the usual options, but you can also reach customers with free shipping or gifts with purchase.
To find out whether your offer will be well received, it’s worth drawing up a strategic plan beforehand that covers:
- Product(s) to offer: Consider what you’ll sell and why you’re choosing one product over another. Identifying how our products differ from competitors’ will help us better understand our business and our competitive position.
- Competition: Which competitors are already preparing their Christmas campaign? Do they have anything planned for Black Friday or eDay? Keep an eye on what they’re doing and will do to understand your campaign’s strengths and weaknesses.
- Analysis of our customers and followers. Based on their age, education, gender and tastes, we can design the right kind of offer to motivate them to buy.
Once it’s clear what we’ll offer…
How to promote your online store?
The next step is to get the word out about your promotion. You can do this in several ways:
- Work with your advisor on an Adwords campaign for that day to drive more traffic to your store. If you have a Remarketing or Google Shopping campaign, you can analyze data from your active campaigns to find which products in your online store could convert best with a special promotion.
- Send a newsletter to your customers announcing what you’ll be doing that day. Or create a discount or give a free product to returning customers to build loyalty and support your sales strategy.
- Run a giveaway for eDay to encourage participation from users who haven’t started their Christmas shopping yet. For example, raffle a weekend getaway among your store’s social media followers to support the promotional campaign.
By following these tips, next weekend could be one of your online store’s highest-revenue periods. Keep in mind that the sooner customers understand your promotion and product, the faster they’ll buy, so analyze and fine-tune your online store to make the most of it.
