TRANSCRIPT
Are you already starting to get a debilitating case of the Sunday Scaries thinking about black Friday?
It’s true. Ecommerce is getting more competitive every year. And with consumer attention spread more thin than ever, the only way to win this holiday season is to stay ahead of the curve and prepare early. Check our round-up of top trends to expect this Black Friday Cyber Monday.
1. Buy Now, Pay Later is a Must Have.
The hottest trend this holiday is going to be Buy Now, Pay Later. In 2023, the pay over time option hit a staggering $940 million in sales on Cyber Monday alone.
This holiday season, Adobe estimates that 1 in 5 Americans will use Buy Now, Pay Later, so they can make a first payment at checkout, then take care of the rest later with easy installments.
With Shopify Shop Pay Installments, you can boost sales while giving customers more flexibility online and in-store. Shop Pay lets them pay in interest-free installments for up to 24 months. And customers love it. Shopify says that Installments can lower cart abandonment by as much as 28% and increase average order value up to 50%. In addition to Shop Pay you can check out other tools like AfterPlay and Klarna.
2. Product Discovery Will Be the Key to Unlocking Revenue.
During the holiday season, shoppers are oftentimes products for gifts they wouldn’t normally buy and are outside of their sphere of knowledge.
In 2023, Black Friday shoppers viewed 22% more pages and spent 10% longer on each page than the year before. You need to make it as easy as possible for customers to find what they are looking for in order to speed up the time between discovery and purchase.
Invest in improving five key areas of your site to help improve discoverability and increase your conversion rate:
- Product recommendations - While customers are searching for gifts during the holiday season they are 5 times more likely to click on product recommendations, with product discovery campaigns increasing sales by 4.4% in 2023.
- Predictive search - 43% of users on retail websites go directly to the search bar.make sure you’re offering them advanced and predictive search options to make this experience as easy as possible for them.
- Product listing page filters – add granular product filters to help customers find what they are looking for more quickly.
- Product badges – add these visual signifiers to help customers quickly identify meaningful product attributes like ‘locally made’, ‘ethically sourced’, and ‘in-stock and ready to ship’.
- Product bundles - shoppers are looking for convenience and value. That’s why bundle deals are so effective. If shoppers can get a deal while also ensuring that they’re not missing any bells or whistles — they’re more likely to purchase.
3. BFCM Gift Guides Will Allow Tastemakers to Excel.
Gift guides go hand-in-hand with bundling and are a great way to inspire customers to take action. This is an opportunity to show your curatorial strength while exposing customers to more of your catalog.
One phenomenon we always see around BFCM is high spend on ad campaigns directing shoppers to on-site gift guides. This will become more common and effective as AI allows marketers to optimize audiences and search terms more effectively.
4. Paid Search Will Dominate.
Paid search was the top sales driver during BFCM in 2023, accounting for almost 30% of all online sales.
Paid search ads are only served to people already looking for a relevant product. Because of this, paid search captures high-intent shoppers. These ads are especially effective on mobile.
Phones are where people do the majority of their shopping research, and where 72% of BFCM purchases were made in 2023.
Mobile shopping will account for even more purchases in 2024, and you can expect paid search to create a huge volume of Cyber Week sales as well.
5. Smaller Discounts Than You Think.
When you think Black Friday, you probably think of deals as high as 40 or 50% off. But After BFCM 2023, A Klaviyo meta-analysis revealed that the most common discounts offered by retailers were just 20, 25, and 30% off. Even more surprising, deals in the 20-29% range converted the best across all verticals.
That doesn’t mean that customers prefer to save less. But it does mean that many brands have figured out that their customers will accept a smaller deal if they’re already loyal. Expect most deals from popular brands to fall well short of Black Friday’s fire sale reputation.
6. Custom BFCM Landing Pages Will Outperform.
This BFCM, most ecom stores will just create a storewide hard markdown or offer a discount code. But retailers that are going that extra mile to maximize conversions will send shoppers to customized landing pages.
Landing pages that showcase unique offers with tailored messaging and merchandising for Black Friday are super effective.
These types of landing pages typically achieve 8-11% conversion rates — and 35% conversion rates on ads if you factor in view-through attribution. Forward-thinking retailers will begin building and testing deal-specific landing pages in October.
If you’re looking to accelerate your sales this holiday season, reach out to us at pthreemedia.com and we’ll show you how we can custom tailor your growth strategy.
