Black Friday falls on Friday 24 November this year, with Cyber Monday on 27 November. For many Australian online stores, the next seven weeks are the busiest of the whole year. That is great news for sales. It also means any problem with your store costs more than usual, because more people are trying to buy.
A little preparation now can save a lot of stress later. Here is a checklist to work through over the next couple of weeks.
Make Sure Your Store Can Handle the Rush
- Check your speed: Visit your store on your phone and time how long the pages take to load. Shoppers on sale days are in a hurry, and a slow store sends them to a competitor. Large product photos are a common cause of slow pages.
- Check your hosting: Hosting is the service that keeps your website online. If your store runs on WordPress and WooCommerce, ask your hosting company whether your plan can cope with a big jump in visitors. A cheap plan that is fine on a quiet Tuesday can slow down or stop working when an email offer goes out. Stores on Shopify have this looked after by Shopify.
- Test your checkout from start to finish: Place a real test order. Add a product to the cart, use a discount code, pay, and check you get the confirmation email. Try it on a phone and a computer. If you are running a sale, test that the sale prices and codes work exactly as you expect.
Get the Practical Details Right
- Stock levels: Make sure the numbers in your store match what you actually have on the shelf. Selling something you don't have leads to refunds and unhappy customers.
- Christmas shipping cut-off dates: Australia Post and the courier companies publish the last days to send parcels so they arrive before Christmas. Look up the dates for the services you use, and show them clearly on your website, for example on a banner at the top of every page. This answers the most common question before customers have to ask.
- A clear returns policy: Many gifts get returned or swapped. Make your returns policy easy to find and easy to understand. Say how long people have, who pays for return postage, and whether you offer a refund, an exchange or store credit when someone simply changes their mind. A clear policy gives people the confidence to buy.
- A recent back-up: A back-up is a saved copy of your whole store that can be put back if something goes wrong. Check that back-ups are happening automatically, and take a fresh one just before your sale starts.
Don't Make Big Changes in the Busy Weeks
This is the advice we give every client at this time of year. Once your sale is about to start, leave the big changes until January. That means no new design, no switching payment providers and no big updates to your store's software unless they are urgent for security.
Any change, even a small one, can have side effects that are hard to spot. In a quiet month, you have time to notice and fix them. In the week of Black Friday, a broken checkout for even a few hours can mean a lot of lost sales. Make your changes now, test them well, and then leave the store alone while it does its job.
How We Can Help
At IDM2, we help Melbourne and Australian businesses get their online stores ready for busy periods. We can check your speed and hosting, test your checkout, take back-ups and keep an eye on things while the sales are running. Have a look at our online stores and hosting and maintenance pages, or get in touch before the rush begins.