Top Shopify Features for a Successful BFCM
Quick Summary Maximize your BFCM impact with our Shopify feature roundup! Discover top features and expert tips to elevate your planning, drive sales, and handle the holiday rush seamlessly. Get ready to turn BFCM into your biggest win yet!
Shopify merchants hit a high note in 2023, achieving a record-breaking $9.3 billion in sales over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With such phenomenal success setting the bar sky-high, now is the time to start strategizing for BFCM 2024.
To ride the wave of success, ensure thorough preparation across the board: balance your inventory to meet higher demand, craft striking and integrated marketing strategies, and optimize your commerce experience to effectively handle the influx of shoppers.
Let’s explore key Shopify features that will enhance your BFCM strategy and help you achieve results beyond your expectations:
International Commerce
Originally an American shopping event, Black Friday has gained international traction. In 2023, Shopify saw top sales in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany.
To capitalize on this opportunity, you’ll want to make sure your eCommerce platform enables you to customize buying experiences with local currencies, languages, domains, and payment methods, enhancing customer conversions and boosting your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Managed Markets enhances the cross-border management tools provided by International. In addition to features for setting up and managing international sales, Managed Markets includes extra capabilities powered by Global-e, allowing you to scale and optimize your international markets directly from your Shopify admin. Note that Managed Markets is exclusively available to merchants located in the Continental United States.
With Managed Markets, Global-e, the merchants of record, handles the complexities of international sales for you. This includes managing local tax remittances, accepting regional payment methods, and overseeing duties and import taxes, so you can quickly enter new international markets. Using Managed Markets means you don’t need to register for taxes in the countries where you sell—Global-e takes care of tax registration, ensuring you remain compliant while expanding globally.
Extended Sales Period
It is expected that this year’s BFCM will again be dominated by online shopping. However, sales and promotions will start well before the event and continue afterward, creating opportunities for in-person shopping as well.
According to a joint survey by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics, Over half (56%) of shoppers reported taking advantage of early holiday sales or promotions before Thanksgiving last year. Of these, 24% made purchases before November 16, while another 36% shopped during the week leading up to Thanksgiving (November 16-23).
Start promoting your offers as early as possible to capture early-bird shoppers and address their online or in-person buying preferences. If feasible, extend these promotions beyond BFCM. Incorporate these strategies into your Black Friday sales plan to maximize your sales and revenue potential.
Sales Demand
Handling inventory is critical but expensive, frequently being the top cost for businesses. According to a survey, around 69% of merchants used Shopify Capital to finance their inventory needs.
To maximize sales during peak periods like BFCM, early seasonal inventory forecasting is essential, especially if you depend on suppliers for sourcing or manufacturing.
As announced in recent Editions, Shopify is rolling out an updated analytics dashboard, offering real-time data with intuitive visualizations, making it easier to use your data for business decisions. You can customize pre-built reports by combining metrics and dimensions such as sales, sessions, and conversion rates. Add or remove metrics, adjust visualization types, and set date ranges to tailor reports to your needs.
For instance, you can use the "Sales by Product" report and apply filters for last year's BFCM dates to see which products performed well during past BFCM seasons.
In-Person Selling
Ecommerce is anticipated to reach 20% of global retail sales in 2024, leaving a significant market for brick-and-mortar stores and in-person shopping experiences like pop-up shops and co-retailing.
Shopify POS is your go-to omnichannel solution with fast checkout software, reliable payment hardware, synced orders, customer and inventory data, and customizable terminals for easy-to-access discounts.
Mastering Omnichannel Commerce: A Technical Deep Dive into Shopify's Advanced Capabilities
Perfect for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond, Shopify POS helps you capture sales on your customers' preferred channels.
Multi-Channel Commerce
If you haven't ventured into multichannel selling yet, now is the perfect time to start. The holiday season is fast approaching, and having a presence across multiple channels can significantly boost your sales. For those already selling on various platforms, it's crucial to identify which channels yield the highest returns and concentrate your efforts there to maximize profitability.
Shopify offers a comprehensive suite of sales channels designed to simplify your reach to buyers on popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.
Social Commerce for Shopify Merchants
By integrating these channels within Shopify, you can effortlessly sync your products, manage inventory, and streamline various tasks across all platforms. This centralization within your Shopify admin console not only saves time but also ensures consistency and efficiency in your operations. Leveraging these capabilities allows you to maintain a unified strategy, ensuring that your customers have a seamless shopping experience no matter where they choose to engage with your brand.
Traffic Surge
A slow website can quickly drive customers away, especially during peak shopping periods like Black Friday. To avoid slow load times and potential site crashes, it’s essential to optimize your website’s performance in advance. Here’s how you can prepare your e-commerce store:
Use Analytics Tools: Employ tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights to monitor and improve your site’s loading speeds. Research indicates that even a 0.1-second increase in site speed can result in about a 10% boost in conversions. PageSpeed reports help you identify performance bottlenecks and provide actionable insights to enhance speed.
Evaluate Site Architecture: Assess the overall structure of your website to ensure it isn’t overloaded with unnecessary plugins or scripts that could hamper performance. Streamlining your site’s architecture can significantly improve load times and provide a smoother user experience.
Minimize Pop-ups: While pop-ups can be effective for displaying deals and special offers, they can also disrupt the user experience if overused. Keep pop-ups to a minimum to maintain customer engagement and reduce frustration, thereby increasing the likelihood of conversions.
Optimize Product Pages: Your product pages should be optimized for conversion with clear and compelling calls-to-action (CTAs), detailed product descriptions, and multiple payment options. Ensure that these elements are easily accessible and prominently displayed to guide customers smoothly through the purchasing process.
Buy Now Pay Later
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is becoming an increasingly popular payment option for ecommerce customers. According to Investopedia, almost 60% of consumers prefer buy now, pay later options over credit cards. Notable examples of BNPL financing options include Afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna, which allow customers to spread their payments over time rather than paying the full amount upfront.
Shopify offers its own native BNPL solution, Shop Pay Installments. This service provides customers with several installment payment options, some of which are interest-free, making it an attractive choice for buyers. Additionally, Shopify offers a premium installment package available to select merchants, enhancing the flexibility and appeal of this payment method.
The benefits of integrating Shop Pay Installments into your e-commerce store are substantial. It has been shown to reduce cart abandonment rates by as much as 28%, as customers are more likely to complete their purchase when they can pay in installments. Moreover, it can increase the average order value by up to 50%, as customers feel more comfortable spending more when they can spread the cost over time.
Customer Support
Black Friday can be an exceptionally busy time for customer support teams, with a surge in inquiries and issues. Customers expect timely assistance, especially during this high-traffic period. Rapid response to their queries and concerns helps prevent frustration and shows that their needs are a priority. Implementing efficient support systems, such as chatbots, an up-to-date FAQ page, and streamlined ticketing processes, can help manage the increased volume and ensure that customer issues are addressed promptly.
Deflecting WISMO Requests with Self-service & Automation
For instances where your customer service representatives are unavailable, it’s worth leveraging chatbots to engage and assist customers on your website, social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, and mobile apps. These chatbots often appear as dialogue boxes on websites, providing quick and specific answers to customer queries, just like a customer service representative would. This responsiveness and accessibility can enhance customer satisfaction, turning browsers into buyers and driving up conversion rates.
For Shopify users, there are several ways to connect with shoppers via chat. Shopify Inbox offers an easy way to streamline communications with both potential and returning customers, no matter where they are. Inbox provides valuable context about your customers, such as items they've added or removed from their carts, allowing for more personalized interactions. You can also add FAQs to your chat window to quickly address common questions, helping shoppers feel confident about their purchases. Additionally, customers can check their order status on their own post-purchase, further enhancing their experience and reducing the workload on your reps.
Frictionless Checkout
In the months leading up to BFCM, merchants should put considerable effort into testing and optimizing their checkout experience. Requiring customers to enter extensive information can slow down the process and increase cart abandonment rates. To streamline and expedite the checkout experience, consider integrating online payment options like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. These services speed up the process by auto-filling saved details and minimizing the number of keystrokes or clicks needed, thus boosting conversions.
Shop Pay, in particular, is renowned for its high conversion rates, increasing them by up to 50% compared to traditional guest checkouts. During the 2023 BFCM weekend, sales via Shop Pay surged by 60% year-over-year.
Quick Fulfilment
A surge in sales over a short period can complicate the fulfillment process and delay order delivery to customers. To navigate this, clear and regular communication with your fulfillment and local delivery teams is essential to prevent errors and streamline operations. Utilize the Shopify Timeline feature in your admin panel to efficiently share instructions and updates with your staff regarding orders, customer details, and fulfillment processes. This tool allows for seamless internal communication, helping to ensure that everyone involved is on the same page and can address any issues promptly.
Timely fulfillment also involves prioritizing orders according to customer profiles and shipping preferences. Order tags can be particularly useful in this process. By organizing and fulfilling orders based on customer loyalty and specific shipping choices, you show appreciation for your most valued clients. Use tags from the Shopify App Store to easily identify and prioritize these top customers, and those who have opted for expedited shipping.
We understand that planning and strategizing for Black Friday Cyber Monday can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. The complexities of optimizing your e-commerce operations, managing high sales volumes, and ensuring a smooth customer experience require careful preparation and expert guidance.
The Avex team is here to support you through this critical season, offering our expertise to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities of BFCM. From fine-tuning your Shopify setup to implementing effective strategies for maximizing sales and enhancing customer satisfaction, we’re dedicated to ensuring you’re fully prepared. Get in touch today.