Are You Ready For When Cyber Monday Hits? All eCommerce Websites Should Be!

You know about Black Friday, of course; that intrinsically American day when stores offer deals and price cuts on their products which drive their customer base crazy. The madness has spread to Europe, with Wal-Mart owned companies and Amazon trying and, in most cases, succeeding in creating the same atmosphere in the UK. Customers spend millions on this one day, and many businesses consider it to be their main part of the Christmas season.

Cyber Monday, however, is the equivalent of Black Friday, but for eCommerce websites. Whilst the risk of personal injury is much lower than on Black Friday, the possible gain is much greater, with a wider range of companies offering a wider range of deals and price cuts. In recent years, the spending on Cyber Monday has been phenomenal, with Amazon alone making 4.1 Million sales on that day alone; with a rate of approximately 47 items a second.

7 Ways That Ecommerce Websites Should Prepare For Cyber Monday!

1. Construct Effective, Relevant Promotions – Keep an eye on your main competitor's offers and promotion. On Cyber Monday you need to undercut them, to match their offers and beat them and draw an increasing amount of traffic to your website.
   Think of Cyber Monday as something of a war between you and your competitors; even if you make less per product, you will sell more. Ecommerce websites, if sufficiently prepared, can draw more traffic.
   Understand your average analytics, and use that data to craft promotions that your average customer will want to take advantage of. Competition is never higher than on Cyber Monday. Your business cannot afford to lose out on the massive influx of traffic because another website is a few pence cheaper.
2. Optimise Your Website For Heavy Traffic – Removing unnecessary plug ins and clearing up your database can help to contribute to the load speed of pages and allow your servers to cope better with the peak times of traffic.
   Doing everything you can to improve the experience for the customer and ensuring that your site remains up can be the best ways of enjoying a high conversion rate from amongst your visitors.
3. Streamline Your Checkout Process – On Cyber Monday and, admittedly, every other day, your customers want a quick, efficient transaction process which provides them with little opportunity to hesitate in the purchase. Implement a guest checkout if you haven't already, and let your customer buy from your business in as few clicks as possible.
4. Prepare For Your Site To Crash – Even with the very best plans eCommerce websites can still go down. It's important that you are ready to get it back up as quickly as possible. Keeping your customers regularly updated via social media can ensure that they can get back to your site as soon as it is back online.
5. Optimise Your Website And Landing Page Design – Check that your designs are simple, easy to navigate and provide information about specific deals that the customer might want to see.
6. Enhance Your Search Engine Advertising And SEO Presence – Tweak Meta-descriptions to really encourage newer customers and make your products easier to find. Utilise PPC to advertise your offers and promotions to a wider audience, particularly if you aren't on the front page of relevant search engine results.
7. Make The Most Of Social Media – These channels are fantastic means of referring your customers to your products and incredible ways of creating excitement around your business. Utilise relevant hash tags (such as #CyberMonday) and regular updates, or flash deals, to open your business up to a wider audience.

Is Your Ecommerce Site Ready For Cyber Monday?

By carefully planning your Cyber Monday experience you can ensure that your business is perfectly positioned to take advantage of its incredible benefits. At Advansys, we specialise in creating business-centric eCommerce websites and have extensive experience in creating sites for a wide variety of industries and occasions.

For more information on how our incredible website designs can help your business to make the most of Cyber Monday and the busiest week in eCommerce, contact us today on 0845 838 2700, visit our website, or email us at sales@advansys.com.