Black Friday eCommerce: Your Ultimate Preparation Guide
As the holiday season approaches, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are two of the most critical events for eCommerce businesses worldwide. These days represent a massive opportunity for online store owners to boost their sales, attract new customers, and build brand loyalty.
In 2023, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales reached a staggering $38 billion, highlighting the growing importance of these shopping events for eCommerce store owners. With eCommerce sales projected to continue rising this year, it’s essential for store owners to strategically prepare for the surge in traffic and competition.
In the following chapters, we’ll cover everything from preparing your site for high traffic to optimizing your sales funnels to battening down the hatches on your site’s security.
Whether you’re a global retailer or a small, local shop, this guide will equip you with the tools and knowledge needed to optimize your online stores for BFCM.
Traffic management and scalability
As BFCM approaches, capitalizing on a potential surge in traffic from eager shoppers requires robust traffic management and scalable infrastructure. Preparing for this influx is essential to ensure your site can handle the heightened commerce activity without issue.
By investing in the right infrastructure and tools, you can provide a seamless shopping experience for your customers, minimize the risk of downtime, and maximize your sales opportunities.
These strategies will help you effectively prepare for and manage high traffic during critical sales events like BFCM.
Preparing for increased traffic
Black Friday and Cyber Monday can bring irregular surges in traffic. To maintain a great experience during peak traffic times, you need to prepare for increased strain on your site.
Load testing, a type of performance testing that simulates real-world load on software, applications, and websites, can help you determine how many visitors your site can accommodate at once.
Then, if you decide you need additional server resources to handle the BFCM boom, you can talk with your hosting provider to upgrade your server capabilities.
Caching and content delivery networks
Caching solutions and content delivery networks (CDNs) can greatly improve your WordPress site’s performance during BFCM.
Caching refers to the process of storing static versions of your web pages and serving them to users. This reduces the load on your server and speeds up page load times.
WP Engine offers advanced caching capabilities, including our proprietary EverCache software, which automatically caches your content and ensures fast delivery by minimizing server requests. For eCommerce sites on unmanaged hosting platforms, caching plugins like Cache Enabler or Super Page Cache can enhance your site’s speed and performance.
Content delivery networks also play a critical role in reducing latency. By distributing your content across a network of servers located in various geographic locations, CDNs ensure that users access your site from the server closest to them, significantly reducing load times.
WP Engine utilizes a CDN to provide multiple layers of security and performance optimization. Included with every WP Engine plan, the Cloudflare CDN ensures pages can be served up quickly to provide a smooth shopping experience for your customers around the globe, even during peak traffic times.
Real-time monitoring and alerts
Setting up real-time website monitoring (sometimes called uptime monitoring) allows you to detect traffic spikes, server response times, and other anomalies instantly.
Some popular plugins used for site monitoring include Super Monitoring, WP Umbrella, and Snitch.
WP Engine’s Site Monitoring tool helps our customers stay ahead of website problems by allowing them to check their current site status and average response time, linking to site-specific access logs when an issue is detected, and emailing an alert as soon as an issue is detected.
This proactive approach allows our users to take swift action and resolve issues quickly in the event of an interruption to maintain optimal performance and avoid downtime.
eCommerce funnel optimization
A comprehensive, data-driven view of your sales funnel, from the time a customer lands on your homepage all the way through their purchase, can help you refine site elements and optimize conversions.
These strategies will not only help you capture and convert more visitors during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but also create a more effective and user-friendly shopping experience year-round.
Optimizing the user journey
The first step in optimizing your sales funnel is enhancing the user experience (UX) from the moment a potential customer lands on your site to their final checkout. Start by ensuring all your pages load quickly. According to Google, 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load.
Prioritizing your page loading to ensure important elements load first, minifying your code, and using optimized images can all reduce server strain to speed up your site. There are numerous plugins you can use for each of these tasks. For WP Engine customers, Page Speed Boost instantly delivers 30+ code-level optimizations that do all of those things, increasing page speed scores on average 30% for desktop and 128% for mobile.
Simplified navigation is also key to a smooth UX. Use clear and concise menus, simple URL structures, and filtered views to help users quickly find what they’re looking for. A “Quick view” option for products can reduce the number of clicks it takes for customers to access product details.
Finally, take some time to check out your checkout process. A seamless, one-page checkout will improve conversion rates and reduce cart abandonment. Offering multiple payment options, including major credit cards as well as payment systems like Stripe, and displaying security badges that show your trustworthiness can encourage more customers to complete their purchases.
Search functionality
During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, users are often on a mission to find specific deals quickly. The effectiveness of your site’s search functionality is crucial in connecting a buyer with the right product.
For that reason, improving your WordPress site’s search capabilities can significantly enhance user satisfaction and boost conversion rates. Consider integrating a powerful search tool, like WP Engine’s Smart Search, to improve your search capabilities.
Smart Search offloads your search queries from your WordPress server, allowing for high search volumes without an impact on your site’s performance. It’s also typo-tolerant (unlike WordPress’ inherent search functionality), and allows you to prioritize your best content in search results with custom weighting.
To further optimize search, ensure that your product descriptions, categories, and tags are well-organized, and use keywords that your customers are likely to search for. Using synonyms and alternate spellings to account for different query inputs and providing search filters for price range, color, size, and customer rating can help users narrow down their choices and find the right product more quickly.
A/B testing and performance metrics
The best way to improve your UX is to go right to the source. Tracking your user behavior will help you see what parts of your site they’re responding to. A/B testing allows you to compare different versions of a page or site element to determine which performs better in terms of user engagement and conversions.
Tools like the Google Marketing Platform (formerly Google Optimize) can be integrated with WordPress to conduct A/B tests on various aspects of your site, including headlines, call-to-action buttons, product page layouts, and checkout forms.
In addition to A/B testing, monitoring performance metrics will help you understand your site’s effectiveness. Google Core Web Vitals are essential metrics that evaluate your website’s loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability, so improving these metrics can lead to better user experiences.
Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse can help you measure and improve your Core Web Vitals. Reviewing these metrics, especially before, during, and after high-traffic periods like Black Friday, allows you to identify potential drop-off points in the user journey and make adjustments to improve your conversion rate year over year.
Leveraging managed eCommerce hosting
The hosting provider you choose can make or break your eCommerce sales during BFCM.
By leveraging a managed host, eCommerce stores can take advantage of a highly optimized, secure, and scalable environment with the peace of mind that comes from knowing your website is in expert hands.
Benefits of managed hosting
Managed hosting providers specialize in the optimization of a specific type of site. WP Engine, for example, is a managed hosting company optimized for WordPress, so our only focus is improving the experiences of WordPress site owners and their end users.
Managed hosts can handle many of the technical aspects of eCommerce website management, including software updates, backups, security, and performance monitoring, allowing store owners to focus on their business and marketing strategies rather than the underlying infrastructure of their digital storefronts.
The primary benefit of managed hosting is improved site performance and reliability. Managed hosts typically offer superior server configurations, which results in faster load times and smoother user experiences. This is particularly crucial during high-traffic sales times like Black Friday when slow-loading sites can result in lost sales and frustrated customers.
Plus, managed hosts can provide more robust security features on a wider scale, like automatic malware scanning, firewall protection, and DDoS mitigation, to protect sensitive customer data during peak sales periods.
Boosting eCommerce performance with managed hosting
Managed hosting providers offer a range of tools and optimizations that can significantly boost your store performance, including many of the optimizations mentioned in this guide.
Advanced caching mechanisms, such as server-side caching and object caching, robust CDNs, simple staging environments for making and testing changes, automated backups, and real-time monitoring and performance analytics can all be managed by the right hosting partner.
This deep insight into performance metrics like page speed, uptime, and server response time enables you to quickly identify and resolve any issues that may arise during high-traffic periods.
While some hosts offer simple, seamless migrations to their servers, complications can still arise when moving between hosts. It’s important to review the benefits of your current hosting plan well before Black Friday because if you do decide to migrate your site, you’ll want plenty of time to test your new environment before the biggest sales day of the year.
Strengthening site security
If customers believe the site they’re on is unsecure or compromised in any way, they’ll have a hard time entering their payment details to make a purchase.
These strategies both protect your site data and help maintain customer trust, even in the face of potential security threats.
Implementing SSL and advanced security measures
One of the foundational steps in strengthening your WordPress site’s security is implementing SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates. SSL encrypts any data being transmitted between the user’s browser and your server to ensure sensitive information, like credit card details, personal data, and login credentials, are protected.
When a website has an SSL certificate, its URL will start with “https://” instead of “http://” and include a padlock icon in the address bar. That simple icon can help put users at ease, letting them know it’s safe to make a purchase from your site.
SSL is not just a security best practice; it’s a requirement for PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance. Most managed hosting providers offer free SSL certificates with their hosting plans, making it easy to secure your site.
Beyond SSL, additional security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA) for both customer and admin logins can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized purchases or data breaches.
For WordPress sites, plugins like Wordfence and Sucuri can provide additional site security, including malware scanning, firewall protection, and brute force attack prevention to safeguard your site against common vulnerabilities.
Because outdated software is a common entry point for hackers, WordPress users should ensure WordPress core, your PHP, and all your plugins and themes are running on the latest versions. You should also regularly audit user permissions across your site to ensure no unnecessary privileges are granted.
Developing a disaster recovery plan
Even with robust security measures in place, no system is entirely immune to all threats. That’s why developing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan is so important.
A disaster recovery plan outlines the steps your team will take in case of a security breach or data loss, so you can quickly restore your site and minimize downtime. A broad disaster recovery plan might include:
- Preparation and prevention: Regularly back up your site, use 2FA, keep your software up to date, and limit access to the WordPress admin dashboard and file systems to prevent bad actors from accessing your data.
- Detection and response: Set up real-time monitoring to help you identify security issues early. Designate a team responsible for handling security breaches (including internal staff, external experts, or both) and establish communication protocols across the team so you’re ready to take immediate action in the event of a breach. Response actions may include temporarily disabling the website to prevent further damage, changing all admin credentials, and isolating the infected site environment to prevent the spread of malware.
- Assessment and containment: If there’s an active threat to your site security, conduct a thorough investigation to identify the extent of the affected files and compromised data. Use security tools or hire additional experts to remove any malicious code and apply necessary patches or updates to close the security gap.
- Recovery and restoration: Restore the site from the most recent clean backup and comb the restored site to verify integrity, ensuring it is free from malware, backdoors, or lingering security issues. Once safety is verified, bring the site back online, gradually restoring normal operations.
Regular backups are vital to any disaster recovery strategy because, in the event of a catastrophic event, you can easily restore your site to a previous, uncorrupted state. Many managed hosting providers offer automated daily backups as part of their service.
There are plenty of additional backup solutions available in the WordPress Plugin directory. UpdraftPlus and BackWPup are two popular options that allow you to schedule and store backups.
It’s also helpful to test your disaster plan to ensure it works and you can restore your site swiftly if needed. Think of it as a fire drill for your website: a bit of practice can help identify potential gaps in your plan and ensure that your team is prepared to handle a crisis.
Building an effective marketing strategy
By optimizing your on-page content, crafting targeted holiday marketing campaigns, and launching them early, you can enhance your WordPress eCommerce site’s visibility, which impacts how easily customers find you during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
These strategies will help drive traffic, increase conversions, and ensure successful holiday sales.
Optimizing on-page SEO and content
To optimize your website’s on-page SEO, start by conducting keyword research to identify high-intent search terms that customers are likely to use when searching for deals. Tools like Ahrefs or the Yoast SEO plugin can help you discover relevant keywords and incorporate them into your site’s content.
Creating holiday-specific content, like gift guides, holiday shopping tips, or product round-ups, can also provide value to your visitors and position your brand as a helpful resource, increasing the likelihood of attracting organic traffic.
Optimize all content for mobile users, as a significant portion of holiday shopping now occurs on smartphones. Plugins like AMP for WP can help ensure your content loads quickly and is mobile-friendly.
And remember: Google’s algorithms prioritize user experience, so ensuring your site is fast, secure, and easy to navigate is the best way to significantly boost your search rankings during the holiday season.
Holiday campaigns, promos, and design updates
Launching your holiday campaigns early can help build anticipation and capture early-bird shoppers, so start promoting your upcoming sales early and often. A pre-sale or teaser campaign can create buzz and encourage customers to sign up for notifications about additional upcoming deals.
Promotional content should be strategically placed to draw attention and drive customer action. Start by featuring your top deals and best-selling products prominently on your homepage. Use eye-catching call-to-action (CTA) buttons with compelling language like “Shop now,” “Limited-time offer,” or “Black Friday deal” to guide users toward your most lucrative promotions.
A dedicated “Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals” page or section that consolidates all your deals in one place can help simplify navigation, making it easier for shoppers to find and compare your best offers. Ensure that this page is well-optimized for SEO with relevant keywords and meta descriptions to attract organic traffic from search engines.
Your BFCM campaign strategy could also include creating dedicated landing pages and banners that promote special offers. WordPress page-building plugins like Elementor and Beaver Builder can help you design and customize festive page elements to engage users.
Leverage pop-ups and sliders to promote flash sales, exclusive discounts, or time-sensitive offers. OptinMonster and Popup Builder are two plugins that can help you create and manage these dynamic elements. To avoid overwhelming your visitors, make sure your pop-ups don’t feel intrusive by limiting the number of times they are served to each user.
Subtle design touches, such as incorporating different, icons, or animations, can create a cohesive theme without overwhelming your end users or deviating from your brand standards. For example, adding a Black Friday countdown timer on your product page can create a sense of urgency, motivating customers to take advantage of your deals.
The data you glean from your site analytics can be used to tailor your messaging to different segments of your audience to target individuals based on their position in the sales funnel. For instance, you can offer exclusive discounts to loyal customers or target abandoned cart users with special offers that encourage them to complete their purchases.
Popular email platforms like Mailchimp and HubSpot can help you automate and personalize email campaigns based on past purchase behavior, browsing history, and customer preferences.
Plus, you can leverage social media platforms to reach a broader audience with targeted ads and engaging content. Social media plugins like Smash Balloon and Social Warfare can streamline content sharing and visibility between your social media accounts and your website.
Managing shipping and fulfillment
A late delivery can be the difference between a glowing review and a glowering customer.
By offering free shipping, adjusting pricing strategies, preparing for increased order volumes, and ensuring timely deliveries, eCommerce site owners can optimize their shipping and fulfillment processes that encourage repeat business long after the holiday season.
Offering free shipping
One of the most powerful incentives you can offer during Black Friday—when everyone is offering their lowest prices—is free shipping.
Studies consistently show that free shipping is a top motivator for online shoppers and can significantly reduce cart abandonment rates.
For WooCommerce sites on WordPress, configuring free shipping options is fairly straightforward. Using extensions like WooCommerce Advanced Shipping Packages, you can create more complex shipping rules, like offering free shipping only on orders over a certain value or only on certain items.
Preparing for increased order volumes
As order volumes surge during BFCM, preparation is key to managing fulfillment. Start by forecasting your inventory needs based on past sales data and current market trends.
Plugins like Stock Manager for WooCommerce or ATUM Inventory Management can help you monitor stock levels in real time, update order statuses, send confirmation emails, and notify warehouse teams of new orders, reducing manual work and speeding up the fulfillment process. Reach out to your suppliers to ensure they are prepared for the increased demand to avoid any delays in restocking.
Integrating your store with third-party fulfillment services like ShipStation or Easyship can provide seamless order management, shipping label generation, and real-time tracking updates.
Managing customer expectations and ensuring timely deliveries
Timely deliveries are crucial to maintaining customer satisfaction long after Black Friday transactions are finalized. Shoppers expect fast, reliable shipping, especially when purchasing gifts for the holiday season.
To ensure timely deliveries, consider partnering with multiple carriers to offer a range of shipping options, from standard to expedited shipping. WooCommerce Shipping integrates with popular carriers and allows you to display real-time shipping rates and estimated delivery times directly on your checkout page. Offering multiple shipping options gives customers flexibility based on their needs and helps manage their expectations regarding delivery times.
To that end, it’s important to communicate clearly with customers about shipping times, including potential delays. Set realistic expectations by displaying estimated delivery dates on product pages, on checkout screens, or in follow-up emails. Automated email updates can also keep customers informed of their order status, from confirmation to shipping to delivery.
In the event of unexpected delays, proactive communication can help reduce frustration, and a well-managed shipping issue can even result in a positive overall customer experience.
To further enhance your shipping strategy, consider offering local pickup or same-day delivery options for nearby customers. Plugins like Advanced Local Pickup can help you manage and coordinate these alternative delivery methods, providing added convenience for local fans of your brand.
Prepare for Black Friday with WP Engine
As the holiday season approaches, ensure your WordPress eCommerce site is optimized for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, you can ensure a seamless, secure holiday shopping experience for your customers.
To further enhance your store’s performance, explore WP Engine’s managed hosting solution for eCommerce stores on WordPress. With advanced features like built-in caching, CDN integration, and real-time performance monitoring, WP Engine can help you provide a seamless shopping experience during Black Friday and beyond.
