Black Friday continues to dominate as one of the most lucrative sales events of the year. In 2023, U.S. consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online during Black Friday, marking a 7.5% increase from the previous year.
With these growing numbers, it’s clear that a well-prepared online fashion business can reap tremendous rewards from this important holiday shopping event. But, is your fashion e-commerce website ready to capitalize on this surge?
In this guide, we'll share essential steps to help you prepare your business for Black Friday success, from defining your offers to optimizing your tech and creating a winning promotional strategy.
3 Steps to Prepare for Black Friday
Define your product offers
Identify and plan your promotional strategy
Optimize your technology
Define your Product Offers
The first step is to clearly define the products you want to promote, backed by data such as analytics, customer surveys, or competitive analysis. It’s crucial to strike a balance between maximizing sales and maintaining profitability.
How to decide what to promote:
Focus on higher-margin products: Offer discounts on products with a healthy profit margin and bundle them with other items to increase your average order value.
Check inventory levels: Make sure you can handle the potential influx of orders and avoid over-promising.
Plan for order fulfillment: Timely order processing is key during Black Friday. Ensure your fulfillment team is ready, and clearly communicate estimated delivery times to customers.
These alternative promotions offer flexibility for businesses that may not be able to offer deep discounts while still creating excitement and encouraging purchases during Black Friday and the holiday season:
BOGO (Buy-one, get-one 50% off): This is a classic promotion that appeals to both new and returning customers. By offering a discount on the second item, you not only boost the chances of selling multiple products but also increase your average order value. This type of promotion works well for complementary items, allowing customers to feel like they're getting more value for their money while moving additional stock.
Upsells and cross-sells: This strategy involves encouraging customers to either upgrade their current purchase (upsell) or add complementary products to their cart (cross-sell).
Upselling typically promotes a higher-end version of the product they're considering, such as a premium edition or a larger quantity, increasing the total order value. Cross-selling, on the other hand, suggests related products that complement the main purchase, like matching accessories, care products, or bundled items. These tactics can significantly boost revenue per transaction while providing customers with a more tailored shopping experience that meets their needs. For example, if someone is purchasing a winter coat, you could suggest a matching scarf (cross-sell) or offer an upgraded version of the coat with premium materials (upsell).
Gift with purchase: Everyone loves a freebie. By offering a gift with purchase, such as a small accessory or sample product, you incentivize customers to complete their purchase while enhancing their overall shopping experience. This strategy is particularly effective when the gift is perceived as high-value or exclusive, encouraging shoppers to hit a minimum spend threshold to qualify for the free item.
Early access to new collections: Create a sense of exclusivity by offering early access to your upcoming collections or limited-edition items for loyal customers or email subscribers. This can make your audience feel special and appreciated, while simultaneously driving early sales and helping you gauge customer interest in new products. This promotion can be combined with a "members-only" sale for extra impact.
Free shipping or gift cards with a minimum purchase: Shipping fees are one of the biggest barriers to conversion for online shoppers. Offering free shipping above a certain order value encourages customers to add more items to their cart to avoid shipping costs. Similarly, offering gift cards for future purchases can incentivize customers to spend more now, while ensuring repeat business when they redeem the gift card later.
Limited-time bundles or gift sets: Curate a selection of products into special bundles or gift sets that are available only for a short period. This approach not only helps you move inventory but also provides customers with a convenient, value-packed purchase option that simplifies their shopping experience. Highlighting the savings compared to buying items individually can make the offer even more enticing, especially for holiday gift shoppers.
You need to entice first-time buyers as well, since this is the time that many customers will be open to looking for new products. You may have loyal customers but make sure to position your brand to a brand new audience and build market share.
Identify and Plan Your Promotional Strategy
The second step you want to do is define and plan your promotional strategy. BFCM is the most popular shopping day of the year. Your promotional strategy should be aligned with your goals and start well in advance of Black Friday. Here's a breakdown of how to ensure your products and brand stand out.
5 Key Elements of a Great Promotion:
Define your timeline. Start promoting early to build anticipation. Ideally, begin by late October and ramp up in November with weekly or bi-weekly email campaigns. You can try sending 1 -2 emails per week, featuring the offer you want to promote.
Prepare your audience. Build anticipation and excitement in advance, perhaps you can work with influencers to post sneak peeks of upcoming promotions, send teaser emails, or showcase upcoming promotions on social media to get your audience excited. This way your customers know what to expect and is ready for your offer.
Create urgency. You want to create a sense of urgency to have your audience ready to take action as soon as the promotion starts. Use countdown timers and limited-time offers to encourage immediate action.
Choose the right marketing channels. There are many channels in which to reach your audience. Leverage email marketing, paid ads, social media, and SEO to reach your audience effectively. Focus on the channels that have historically driven the most conversions for your business.
Create supplementary content. Promote your brand with various content such as blogs, videos, and other promotional materials to reinforce your brand's message and engage customers with value beyond discounts.
When should you start promoting your Black Friday offers? Depending on the size of your business and resources you have available, you can start as early as October or around Halloween. The critical time for heightened promotions is two weeks before Black Friday, gradually increasing the urgency.
Here are 4 ways to reach your audience:
Email Marketing- Black Friday emails tend to have the highest open rates, so prioritize a strong email strategy.
SEO- Make sure you perform quality Keyword Research prior to BFCM so that your know exactly what your audience is looking for. Target holiday-related keywords early to ensure you're visible when shoppers start searching for deals.
Social Media- Engage with your followers through interactive posts and stories to generate buzz around your offers.
Paid Media- Make sure to plan ahead and target your ads in a timely fashion
As you can see with all that needs to be done to ensure successful holiday sales, it's important to plan your online marketing ahead of key dates this holiday season.
Don't forget to make sure to follow up with new customers, through the new year and beyond!
Optimize Your Technology
A seamless shopping experience is essential to converting Black Friday traffic into sales. Make sure that your website is optimized for performance, usability, and reliability.
First, you want to make sure your tech can handle Black Friday. Here are four key areas to focus on:
Website UX- Check to see if there are any issues that would stop a customer from converting. Eliminate any barriers to checkout. Review your site’s navigation, speed, and mobile responsiveness to ensure a smooth customer experience.
SEO- Make sure people can find you and products you are offering. Ensure your website is search engine-friendly with optimized product pages, meta descriptions, and holiday-related keywords.
Ad Accounts- Ensure your paid ads are set up on the right channels and are optimized for your target audience.
Analytics- Do you have software in place that can track orders, sales & shipments? Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor site performance, track customer behavior, and optimize your campaigns in real-time.
Plan your campaign in advance (now) and upload your assets early to ensure they are approved in time for the launch of your Black Friday campaign. Creative approvals (paid ads) are a huge pain point and could cause an advertiser to completely miss out on running ads for BFCM.
In addition to these tech optimizations, list expected delivery dates, return policies, and payment options clearly on your website to reduce friction for new customers. Remember, first-time buyers also need to be catered to. So make it easy for them to buy on your website. That's why it's important that you take the steps listed above so that you don't lose them dues to a glitch on your website.
Some last tips to help give your e-commerce marketing a boost this holiday season:
Show "order-by" dates when a customer needs to order a product to get it before the holidays
Show countdown timers on your website and emails leading up to the sale
Make sure your messaging and branding is consistent from your ads, social posts and make sure your messaging matches on your website
Have several online payment options such as Paypal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Recurly
Give customers more flexibility with payment installments such as Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, or Sezzle
Displays scarcity messaging, such as “Only X-left”, "X people have this in their carts", “X people viewing this product now” to encourage quicker purchases.
Make the return policy easy to find. Have it near the add to cart button
Make sure chat is prominent and that your support team is able to respond quickly.
Clean up minor design issues like ugly fonts, mismatched icons, generic stock photography, add to cart and checkout buttons are easy to find
If your brand is focused on sustainability and want an alternative to Black Friday- while supporting a good cause, you can look into initiatives such as Green Friday.
With record-breaking online sales expected once again for Black Friday 2024, preparation is the key to success. By defining strong offers, planning a strategic promotional campaign, and optimizing your website for peak performance, your fashion e-commerce business can stand out and maximize sales.
Hope you found these tips to be helpful and let me know in the comments which ones you plan to use for your online store.
The world of SEO is constantly changing, and it often leaves business owners falling behind and frustrated. As the owner of a fashion e-commerce brand, you're likely well aware of the importance of understanding the latest trends. Just like the fashion world, trends in marketing keep changing.
But if you're struggling to keep up, don't worry. We've got the best SEO tips for fashion e-commerce in 2022 right here for you.
How SEO Works and Why You Should Care
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of taking steps and making changes to help your content and your website rank higher on search engines like Google. SEO involves organic marketing, as opposed to paid advertising.
Marketing e-commerce businesses can get tricky since you face so much competition. When a user types in a search, such as "women's boots" or "eco-friendly fashion," you want to try and get your business to the top of the search results.
To get your content to rank higher, you need to understand how to optimize it. You want Google to understand the content on your site, and one way to do so is to follow some recommended best practices. Google's Webmaster Guidelines is a good place to start.
So why should you care if you're on the first page or the tenth page?
People won't be able to find your shop if it's buried in the search results. Instead, they'll go with a competitor that ranked higher and landed on one of the earlier pages.
Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
Mobile shopping is bigger than ever and will soon become the norm. Almost 54% of all web traffic comes through mobile devices like smartphones.
Almost everyone has a smartphone these days, and shopping is easier than ever from our phones. That said, you need to make sure your website looks good on mobile devices. It should also be easy to navigate to offer a good e-commerce experience.
Unlike brick and mortar stores, e-commerce stores have to focus entirely on the digital experience. So make sure it's a good one!
Optimize Your Website for Speed
You want your e-commerce site to load as quickly as possible. The likelihood of a person leaving increases the longer it takes to load a web page. Over half of mobile users will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load.
Three seconds is all it takes to lose a customer.
Slow loading times impact your bounce rate. A bounce is a single-page session on a website. Depending on the design of your site, a high bounce rate can be a bad thing.
If the success of your site means that users have to view more than one page (such as a products page), then a high bounce rate is bad.
As a fashion e-commerce brand, you want to offer a stellar customer experience. You want people to stick around and browse your products and learn more about what you offer. That means optimizing your website for speed.
Make Product Pages Easy to Shop
Your product pages should be easy to navigate and understand. It should be easy to browse products on both a computer and a mobile device.
Make it simple to browse colors and patterns and see information about sizing.
Product pages also shouldn't be too distracting. The focus should be on the item and not the background. You don't want people to get visually fatigued, so avoid bright and distracting backgrounds.
Make categories easy to find. If you sell fashion jewelry, for instance, you want to make sure users can select the type they want. Let them browse by metal type or by different gemstones.
Lastly, you must use high-quality visuals of your products. Customers might want to view the item from different angles or see it on a model if possible.
Make Your CTA Stand Out
Your call to action (CTA) needs to stand out, both visually and as a message. It should be clear but compelling.
The CTA button should guide them to the next step. That's why you should choose a color that catches their attention, such as red, pink, or another eye-catching color.
Popular calls to action for e-commerce sites include "Add to Bag" or "Add to Cart." After a user adds something to their cart, you might have a CTA that says "Checkout" or "View Cart" or "Continue Shopping."
Make the process easy to follow and understand, and your customers will have an enjoyable experience.
Monitor Your Analytics
You need to monitor your analytics to determine if your efforts are working and whether you need to adjust your digital marketing strategy.
Here are some analytics you need to regularly check:
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. It indicates that the visitors did not find what they were looking for or found the website unappealing.
Click-through rate (CTR): The ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. CTR is used to measure the effectiveness of an online marketing campaign for a particular website.
Cart abandonment rate: The percentage of online shoppers who add items to their shopping carts but leave the website without completing the purchase. It indicates that the website may have usability or pricing issues, or that customers are not motivated enough to make the purchase.
Events per visit: The number of interactions that a user has with a website during a single visit. These events can include clicks, page views, downloads, and form submissions.
Number of new visitors: The number of visitors to a website who have not previously visited the website during the selected reporting period.
Conversion rates: The percentage of website visitors who take a desired action on a website, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or downloading a file.
Average session duration: The average length of time that visitors spend on a website during a single session.
Days to conversion: The number of days it takes for a website visitor to complete a desired action on a website, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
Sessions: The number of times that users engage with a website during a specific period. A session starts when a user lands on a website and ends when they leave the website or are inactive for a specified amount of time.
Devices: The types of devices that visitors use to access a website, such as desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
Pageviews and unique pageviews: A pageview is recorded each time a page on a website is loaded or reloaded by a user. Unique pageviews represent the number of visits in which a specific page was viewed at least once.
Average time on page: The average length of time that visitors spend on a specific page of a website.
Source and channels: The source of traffic to a website and the channels that are used to drive that traffic. Examples of sources include search engines, social media, and email campaigns, while examples of channels include organic search, paid search, and social media advertising.
Exit pages: The pages on a website where visitors exit the site. Identifying exit pages can help website owners determine where visitors may be encountering issues or losing interest in the site.
It might sound like a lot, but keeping an eye on these numbers will help you fine-tune your marketing strategy. If you're feeling lost, a business consulting session can help define your goals and put you on track.
Create a Fashion Blog
SEO helps you bring in more traffic and build your brand without paying for ads. However, one common mistake businesses make is they don't put out enough quality content.
Creating a fashion blog is a great way to get started in SEO for fashion brands. You'll drive organic traffic to your website and boost your ranking. As a result, more people will discover your brand, and you'll bring in more sales.
This is also a great opportunity to link content with your social media accounts. Create share-worthy content and post your latest blogs on social media.
Discover the Best SEO Tips for Fashion E-commerce in 2022
We never stop learning about SEO, as the best practices keep changing. However, these are some of the best SEO tips for fashion e-commerce in 2022 and beyond.
Start with these steps, and then learn how to grow your fashion brand when you book a consultation with us online. We'll teach you everything you need to know about optimizing your website, marketing your e-commerce business, and much more!
It’s almost a given that the small business owner wears many hats. Sometimes it feels like you’re troubleshooting more than you’re creating. Running a small business comes with its share of challenges. Combined with a lack of experience and resources, owners often need to come up with creative ways to solve problems.
In this article, I will go over common challenges that most small businesses face. I will use actual examples of challenges I’ve faced running my business and how I dealt with them and give you some creative and practical solutions to use on your business.
Before I begin, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Glynis, I’m an Apparel Business Specialist and mama to a wonderfully energetic, smart and funny little boy. I’m also the founder of Chase Your Dreams, a consulting agency focused on entrepreneurship and personal growth. I help fashion entrepreneurs build a purposeful and profitable clothing business so they can make a living doing what they love.
Before launching my consulting company, I ran a clothing design company called Punch Brand. I started my business in 2005 just as a hobby while I was working full time as a Product Manager in the apparel industry.
That hobby eventually turned into a full-time business for me that led to creating and selling my products globally. At one point, I caught the attention of the Google campus merchandise buyer and we collaborated on several official Android apparel and accessories for the Google store. I ran Punch Brand for an amazing 10 years!
In my 10 years of running Punch Brand, I was faced with many challenges as you can imagine. One that I faced from the very get-go was a trademark opposition. I wanted to register my brand crazyheads with the USPTO. There are several steps that a trademark application goes through in order to be approved. One step is that it's published in a trademark journal, so that anyone who feels your trademark is possibly infringing on theirs, has the chance to oppose your trademark application. One day before the opposition deadline, I received a notice from a trademark lawyer of a large corporation. I'm not going to reveal who that company was but I found out they are a $130 million company.
O.M.G!! What the heck? How was I, this one-woman show going to be able to go up against this huge company?
So I thought about it and came up with a solution. I did some research and learned that the USPTO publishes all the other trademarks that had oppositions from this company, and all of them had the word "crazy" in it. It became apparent to me that this company was determined to stop anyone trying to register a name with the word crazy in it. So I began to scan through each trademark one by one, then noticed something. There was a trademark lawyer that had fought and gone against this opposing company and won. So what did I do? I contacted this trademark lawyer! We talked about a strategy and came up with a plan. Also, I had limited funds to spend on this so I set a budget on how much I was willing to spend. After several months of negotiations, I was able to get my trademark for crazyheads. It was stressful at the time but it was a huge accomplishment once I got the name registered. Hooray! I used a little bit of creative thinking to figure out a solution to a difficult problem.
So let’s get started and talk about 5 creative solutions for common challenges in business:
Challenge #1: How do you stay organized with tight deadlines and a million moving parts?
The solution is calendars. They are your BFF. I learned very early on from working at various corporations in the apparel industry that those companies that followed a calendar, whether it's a product development calendar or sales calendar, they were better able to stay on top of timelines and deliveries. Those companies that didn't use calendars had problems getting their products delivered on time to stores and clients. Another reason to use calendars is to avoid burn out as oftentimes employees are scrambling and putting out fires because they are so behind on their work. Using a calendar helps you stay on track. I start with a 12-month calendar and plug in my important deadlines. For product-based businesses, those deadlines are usually your delivery or ship dates. Then I work backward to figure out lead times to hit each deadline. This may take some practice to figure out, but I would recommend adding a buffer of a week or two to allow for any unforeseen problems. Once you have all your key dates figured out, then you can break them out into your weekly and daily tasks.
Challenge #2: How do you reduce the risk of an order getting canceled or potentially losing a client as a result of suppliers not shipping on time?
The solution is to build a solid foundation. Having a diverse supply chain is a key to ensuring you do not have all your eggs in one basket, and you have back up incase one falls through. I indirectly found out through a 3rd party that my main factory had declared bankruptcy, while they still had my goods in transit. That means that their creditors could cease the goods as collateral while they wait to be paid back. This was a huge repeat order from Google, so I was freaking out a bit. Luckily my goods arrived without any problems, however, this taught me a huge lesson. You should always be looking out for new suppliers as back up in case one falls through. Even when things are going well, you never know what will happen tomorrow. Start building a database of suppliers, manufacturers, and contractors even shipping companies today. You don't want to run into the risk of not delivering your goods because your factory has gone belly up.
Challenge #3: How do I increase sales and stay ahead of the competition?
The solution is to focus on a niche business. Who’s your ideal customer? You know that saying, "If you're everything to everyone, then you're nothing to no one". Knowing who you help and how you help them is a big part of a successful business plan. I personally find it sad and frustrating when clients cannot choose what business they're in. Many business owners with a product they don't consider to be niche, resist the idea of narrowing the focus of their marketing, fearing that they will lose business. However, choosing a niche and targeting it can actually increase sales. Here's how it worked for my business. I started out creating character inspired clothing for anime fans. Pretty niche right? I was predominantly selling my products at anime and comic conventions, because that's where my customers hang out. Everything I created was designed for this one specific customer. And guess what? That's how Google found me. They were looking for someone to design and produce Android mascot hoodies and beanies for them. I guess I showed up on the search engine, they are Google after all. Niching also helps with becoming known as the expert in your field. When your business is niched very finely and you're always talking about and writing about the same pain point, you become regarded as an expert. Niching is also the best way to command a higher price. Once you're perceived to be the only person for that specific job, nobody will blink at or haggle about your prices ever again. Niching brings higher quality clients. When you increase the quality of what you offer in terms of value, the clients you attract will be of the same quality. It's the law of attraction. Like attracts like.
Challenge #4: How do I make the best use of my time? I constantly feel overwhelmed, I wear too many hats.
The solution is outsourcing. Sell your strengths. Buy your weaknesses. This is probably one of the best pieces of advice I was given when I started out. I was doing everything myself. I mean EVERYTHING. I would be packing my own orders, scheduling social media posts, even doing my own bookkeeping. It's very common for small business owners to feel like they have to do everything themselves. I hated bookkeeping to the point where I felt like it sucked the life out of me. So why did I do it for so long? Well, I was stubborn. Once I got over my need to control everything and hired a bookkeeper, it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly I had so much more free time to work on my business and do the things I enjoyed doing. Another tip, if you're thinking of hiring an assistant check with your industry or trade association to see if there are grants or wage subsidies available. I was able to get a wage subsidy through the Apparel Connexion, which allowed me to hire my first assistant.
Challenge #5: How do I get unstuck when I have so many questions? Who can I turn to for answers?
The solution (and this is very important) is to surround yourself with a support network. When you're starting out as an entrepreneur it can feel lonely, especially if you work from home. It's important to surround yourself with the right people who will support you and uplift you when times are tough. Learning from experts such as mentors and coaches are critical to helping you move along when you get stuck. A business coach can help you with brainstorming so that you'll have someone to bounce ideas off. A coach can be someone to hold you accountable to get things done and give you guidance to help you get back on track. Having an expert who's been through it can help you avoid some of the pitfalls when first starting out and that can save you from costly and time-consuming mistakes. You can also look into joining an industry or trade association, networking groups or other business groups and organizations. I'm proud to be a member of Mompreneurs and Forum for Women Entrepreneurs.
I would love to hear from you. If you have a small business challenge that you need my help with, please write to me in the comments section. If you have you have a story of a time you used creativity to overcome a challenge, please share in the comments section below.
When I started my first business Punch Brand, I was a bit of a “shy entrepreneur”. I hid behind my brand and intentionally created the illusion that I was a large, established company. I created a façade that looked somewhat “corporate” and wrote the About Us page in third person “We”; as in “We are a design studio best known for our character-driven lifestyle clothing."
I think I was afraid if I told the truth then people wouldn’t buy my product knowing that it was handmade by a girl on her kitchen table. I believed it would lack the credibility for people to trust its quality even though it was a very well made product.
As I got more comfortable getting my product in front of customers, I started to open up and tell my story of how I got started. I found I could establish a better connection with my customers as well as develop a media presence which led to getting interviews and featured in newspaper articles. Reporters wanted to get to know me and my story, not just that I make products.
Soon I started to get repeat purchases on my site and at conventions. Through years of doing conventions in person and meeting customers face to face, I was able to build relationships and even lasting friendships because they got to know who I am as a person and the story behind my brand.
Here are 7 tips on how you can use stories to connect with your customers.
1. Share the story about how you got started on your journey to developing the product
What is your company’s story? Who are you? Why do you do what you do?
Everyone’s familiar with the story of businesswoman Sarah Blakely, the creator of Spanx and how she created a product out of personal necessity. Another one is author JK Rowling’s incredible story of how she went from a single mother on welfare to a best-selling billionaire. Those stories stick and stay with you for a long time.
2. Tell stories from your customers about the product, how it makes them feel and compliments they’ve gotten from it
Share feel-good stories from your customers. Describe how they use the product. You could even run a contest for your customers to share their photos and stories and how using your product has helped them or made them feel. These will make great testimonials for your site!
3. Write stories about how you came up with a new idea for a product
It could be a piece written about “Why I made this shirt”. You could outline the design process of how you came up with the concept. You could list a step by step of how your product is made. If you have helpers, you could create a profile of the people who make your product. You could give the viewers a peek Inside your studio where the magic happens. You could give a preview of what are you working on and create a little anticipation and excitement for things to come.
4. Highlight a unique feature or benefit of the product
This is a great place to use storytelling on your product descriptions. For example, you could say “You will feel amazing wearing this…. You will feel better knowing that it was produced in an environmentally and socially sustainable way”.
5. Personal stories of your life, travel, events, celebrations, special occasions
People like to know that there’s a real person behind the brand, that it isn’t just some minions running the show. Sharing relevant real-life stories that are in alignment with your brand image, could create that realness and give it that human element that people can relate to.
6. What worked, more importantly, what didn’t work. What did you learn?
We are all human beings and we make mistakes. Sharing stories of epic fails is a way to connect with your customers that you are human, you make mistakes and you learned from them.
7. Stories related to your industry or how you were inspired by something or someone
You are the expert in your industry, therefore share stories that inform and educate customers about trends or latest news in your industry that they would be interested in knowing about. For example, if you are a sustainable fashion designer, you could tell a story about the effects of fast fashion on the planet and that your clothes are produced in an ethical and sustainable manner.
There are many ways you can use story-telling to connect with your customers. With just a little practice, you can start incorporating stories into all touch points with your customers whether it’s on your website, social media, or in person at a show. Stories are a great way to get the conversation started. I would love to hear your story, please share in the comment section below.