Black Friday sale strategies: behind the scenes with eCommerce businesses

Australian eCommerce businesses say Black Friday has become the biggest, most important sale for them to take part in.

“Black Friday keeps getting bigger and bigger: it’s the perfect time for a sale because everyone’s ready to buy Christmas presents,” says Maurice Sacco, Co-Founder of online personalised gift shop CMC Gold.

Online shopping events have been growing bigger each year, with this year’s Black Friday expected to break records. Beth Wilson, founder of Saint Jack, an innovative makeup brush cleaning brand, says, “We know our customers’ behaviour and the increased pressures of cost of living means they’re really holding out for these events.”

This means it’s more important than ever for eCommerce businesses to create effective strategies for upcoming sale events.

Selecting which online sale events to take part in

There’s a range of online shopping events throughout the eCommerce calendar, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Afterpay Day, Click Frenzy and more.

But which are the best sales to get involved in?

For CMC Gold, looking at the spread of events on offer through the year helps them spread out their sales. “We normally do the Afterpay Day sales in March and August, which generally go pretty well. We look at the year from a user perspective of what sales are coming up that we’ll participate in,” Maurice says.

It’s also about taking note of which sales are effective – in terms of order numbers and revenue – that really helps to create the strategy. And to date, Black Friday is coming out the winner.

During Black Friday sales, CMC Gold receive four times the number of orders per day compared with that of a regular day.

Maurice says, “Now that we know how much of an impact Black Friday has on our business, and how much people are aware of it and wait for it now, it’s a really important time of year for us.”

Saint Jack have also tried various sale events over their few years of being in business, and they agree that Black Friday is by far the biggest.

“During Black Friday last year, we saw a sales increase of more than 620%,” Beth says. “Our Black Friday promotion contributed to 20% of our annual sales, and it ran for 12 days.”

Black Friday sale strategies – proven ideas that work for eCommerce businesses

When it comes to building out a Black Friday sale strategy, every business is different. Your strategy needs to take into consideration your product, your customers, stock levels, staff capacity, and more.

To get you thinking about what’s right for your business, here’s a look at how two eCommerce businesses prepare their sale strategies.

Plan all year round

In the Saint Jack offices, there’s no ‘off’ switch for Black Friday – it’s an always-on part of business.

“Black Friday is the backbone behind all conversations that we have for other promotions, to make sure our offer stands out,” Beth says. 

“What we’re really trying to do is build towards the crescendo of the year.”

She adds that it’s also vital for them to plan their supply chain needs long-term, to make sure they can meet their customers’ needs. “In terms of manufacturing and lead times, it’s important to understand what we think the demand is going to be and supply accordingly.”

Build your email and SMS lists for months ahead

CMC Gold say the customers they attract during Black Friday are, well, gold.

“We find that the people who purchase in the sale period have the biggest spend throughout their customer lifetime,” says Maurice.

This means that finding as many new customers as possible in the lead-up to the sales is a core part of their business strategy.

“We do a lot of giveaways leading up to that time, starting around mid-year to build up our email and SMS lists – so when it comes time to use those lists through Black Friday, we have a lot of emails and phone numbers already.”

Go big with your offers to get noticed

In Saint Jack’s experience, the biggest sale event of the year demands a big offer.

“Black Friday has become the biggest key shopping event in Australia, and if you don’t have a striking enough offer that’s better than what you’ve provided your customers throughout the year, you won’t get noticed,” says Beth.

“People now are aware that Black Friday is coming every year, and they’re using it as an opportunity to buy Christmas presents. Everyone in Black Friday has a finite amount of cash, so whether they’re going to spend it with you or buy new homewares or a TV depends on whether you’ve made it enticing enough for them to spend a piece of that pie with you.”

Go on sale at a time that suits your customers’ Christmas needs

While Black Friday is officially held over the last weekend of November, it’s a good strategy to time the sales with what suits your customers’ needs.

For CMC Gold, having a rush of orders is best spread across a longer period of time.

“We have handmade products so people need to purchase earlier for Christmas,” Maurice says of the lead time they need to guarantee arrival well before the festive season. “So we run our sale for the whole month of November.”

Keep your messages and offers interesting throughout the sale campaign

For CMC Gold, a Black Friday campaign isn’t a simple 20% off; it’s a set of offers that keep customers engaged throughout the sales period.

“We plan to always have something to say, so every couple of days over that month we’ll do emails talking about different products and offers – we’ll do a sale, but also a ‘golden ticket’ offer and a ‘win your order back’. We always trying to keep it interesting,” Maurice says.

This also helps their email campaign succeed. “If you have something interesting in the email subject line, you’re likely to get more opens and more people interested in what you have to say – it’s about trying to keep people engaged through that month.”

Work with a reliable delivery partner

Saint Jack are happy to partner with Australia Post so their customers receive a great delivery experience – and they know how good this is after trying other options.

“We were with another provider that couldn’t be integrated with our website, and required manual data entry. We were receiving multiple complaints from customers that deliveries had gone missing and were taking an extraordinary amount of time,” Beth says.

“Then last year we started working with Australia Post and, out of thousands of consignments, I haven’t had a single complaint, which is phenomenal to me.”

Beth adds that they’re saving huge amounts of time due to the integrations on offer. As a small business owner, she also appreciates the options of delivery pick-ups and Post Office drop-offs. “Those options mean we can provide a better experience to our customers that is unmatched. No other logistics provider in Australia can do that.”

Our guide to preparing for peak season will also help your eCommerce business sail through this busy time of year.

Customer retention is the focus post-sales

New customers: this is one (or hopefully many) of the biggest benefits of participating in an online sale event.

Saint Jack experienced a huge influx of shoppers in last year’s Black Friday sales. “More than 75% of customers were new – so retention is a massive priority, because if they like our product they’ll come back to buy it again,” says Beth.

Their customer retention strategies after the sales include a variety of methods.
“We’re really big on nurturing our customers through our email database, as well as our social media strategy. Last year during Black Friday we also had a strategy to put a discount card into every order, so our customers could purchase again for a discount,” Beth says.

She adds that this is also an always-on focus. “It’s much cheaper to look after existing customers than acquiring new ones, so what can we do to make sure they’re Saint Jack customers for life? That’s a big conversation that we have all year round.”