Once more, it's that time of year! Small companies all across the world are getting ready for the holiday season and Cyber Monday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Cyber Monday generated $62 billion in online sales in the US in 2021, with one-third of consumers selecting online shops over physical stores. With sales of $275 billion, Cyber Monday became the most successful online shopping day ever globally. If you run a small business, now is the time to start getting ready for Cyber Monday, which, like Black Friday, is only growing every year.
What is Cyber Monday?
First, you must comprehend Black Friday in order to comprehend the purpose of Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving in the US signifies the unofficial beginning of the holiday shopping season. Due to the final Thursday's government holiday, most firms also give their staff the following Friday off. Because of this, many merchants attempted to capitalize on the sudden availability of a sizable number of employed customers by launching "One-Day only" specials to start the holiday shopping season. Retailers established Cyber Monday in 2005 in order to increase online sales and extend the Black Friday sales period. Sales from the online shopping holiday totaled $484 million in 2005 before quickly increasing to $9.4 billion in 2019.
In the 1990s, as the Internet and e-Commerce grew rapidly, some businesses concentrated on an e-Commerce-only strategy (like eBay and Amazon.) Since the majority of their target customers would be out shopping on Black Friday, these firms needed a comparable kick-start to their holiday season but had to concentrate on a different day.
The concept of "Cyber Monday" was developed at that time. The National Retail Federation came up with the phrase to describe the online equivalent of Black Friday, allowing customers to find the gifts they couldn't find there at prices they could only find online.
How It Affects Your Business
Winter can be a slower season for sales for many businesses. You can achieve your end-of-year goals and get a much-needed lift into the slower business season by taking advantage of a deal like Cyber Monday. Consider what some of the top firms in the globe are doing for inspiration for next year even though it may be too late to implement any promotion for your company this year. Some of the most creative Cyber Monday promotions I've seen have targeted pre-existing email lists, offering a discount on a good or service while discreetly encouraging the consumer to forward the email as a type of referral.
Some tips to prepare your small business for Cyber Monday:
Where should I begin:
Choose what you wish to advertise. What goods are you hoping to highlight and get off your shelves? Together with your staff, decide on the products, offers, and price points you wish to make to clients. Deals are the focus of Cyber Monday, therefore it's critical to provide customers with some kind of special promotion. Nearly 90% of merchants, according to the U.S. Economy, provide Cyber Monday specials, while 50% also provide coupons or discounts. More than one-third of shops offer deals that are only valid for a short period of time, and 15% provide a gift with purchase. Half of all merchants offer free shipping, and 36% of online buyers stated they would make further purchases.
Test your equipment
The effectiveness of your website is essential to year-round consumer satisfaction. A spike in traffic, though, can particularly strain your website. Check your shopping channels by following these steps:
Speak with your hosting company or IT staff to determine the amount of bandwidth you have available.
Check the loading times of all the new Cyber Monday pages on your website.
To ensure mobile responsiveness, view the product and promotion pages on different devices.
In order to minimize downtime in the event of technical difficulties, create a backup of your website and Cyber Monday pages.
Have a team member or IT consultant on call to handle any problems as they appear.
Manage your Inventory
Once you've decided what and how to provide, you need to be sure you can back up your claim. Because holiday sales can quickly empty your shelves, it's crucial to track sales and inventory to estimate the necessary quantity. Look at last year's sales as a baseline for the current season when keeping track. Nothing is worse than making an offer you can't fulfill, and informing clients that their goods won't arrive until after December 25 is unacceptable and will cost you money.
Review the checkout process
You already recognize how crucial a simple checkout process is. But go on the journey yourself, and ensure that customers can purchase your goods as guests and that orders can be easily edited across all devices. During Cyber Week, think about accepting PayPal as an alternative payment method and utilizing a live chat service.
Promote
Although all of the preliminary work has been finished, there is still one significant task left to accomplish. You must advertise your Cyber Monday specials to the public. There are various methods to do this, but using social media is essential because more than 40% of merchants use Twitter and 75% of shops use Facebook to advertise their Cyber Monday specials. Create a list of the content you want to share on Facebook, then schedule it once a week using either the Facebook algorithm or a third-party scheduling tool like Buffer or HootSuite. Use Twitter and any other social media platform you like in the same way. Multiple weekly postings boost impressions, which in turn boosts engagement.
Putting everything together
Make sure everyone on staff is aware of the plan and their responsibilities for Cyber Monday. To prevent any potential disaster, create a checklist and meet with your staff before and during the big day. Once Cyber Monday has been successfully completed, have another meeting with your staff to go over the successes and anything you would do differently the following year. Continue to operate in Cyber Monday mode now that the holiday season has just begun to boost online sales.
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