By this point, everybody has heard of Black Friday. It's the day after Thanksgiving, when Americans and, more recently, Europeans go a little crazy as high-street stores offer insane promotions that regularly end up in a stampede or two.
What you may not have heard of, however, is Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday and it is infamous for offering the same, and sometimes better, deals from the security of eCommerce websites, rather than the dangerous environment of a brick and mortar store.
5 Signs That Your Business Isn't Ready For Cyber Monday!
- You Aren't Prepared For The Increased Traffic – eCommerce websites do experience a massive high on Cyber Monday, and this can often result in disaster for an ill-prepared business. If you are a small business owner then the chances are you utilise shared hosting to support your site.
Whilst that is fine for the long-term (not great, but fine), you will need to invest in a dedicated server for a short period of time to ensure your site stays up over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. - You Aren't Acknowledging The Date In The Website's Skin/Landing Page – Customise your site and landing page to welcome Cyber Monday shoppers! Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year, with the exception of Boxing Day, and by not taking note of it in your web design you are deterring customers from exploring your site further.
If you are heavily promoting certain products or services then it is a good idea to create separate landing pages for each, ensuring that your customer is instantly exposed to the deal they want to see, and don't need to go searching for it amongst a sea of irrelevant products. - Your Checkout Process Takes Too Long – Cyber Monday is all about speed. You want to encourage the sense of immediacy that your customers expect. If they want a product, they need to buy it now; otherwise the wider crowd of other eCommerce customers, their competitors, will buy the entire stock.
You want your audience to think that they are only a few seconds from missing out on a fantastic deal, and so sending them on a long, convoluted Checkout process is only discouraging that sense of urgency you need to create.
Amazon, for example, often called the ‘pioneers' of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the UK, can boast a one-click buy button for many products, particularly electronically delivered ones, which provides a massive boost to spontaneous sales and a hugely increased conversion rate.
A professionally designed eCommerce website is often the difference between a high conversion rate and a high abandonment rate, and never more so than on Cyber Monday. - You Aren't Using A Responsive Website Design – Once, an mCommerce solution would have been enough; a dedicated website for use on mobile devices. Now, however, as more and more eCommerce traffic has originated on mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablet PCs, a more efficient method of ensuring a consistent user experience with an eCommerce website has become the standard.
A responsively designed website shifts to match the features of the device in question, ensuring a quick, easy and enjoyable purchasing process, along with encouraging a higher conversion rate. - You Don't Have A Long-Term Marketing System In Place – Whilst the extra traffic on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a fantastic advantage to any business, the way to properly take advantage of your increased traffic is to encourage them to sign up for newsletters, accounts et cetera, and then convince them to make a return to your site when the sales have ended.
Without impeding their checkout, eCommerce websites must find a way of voluntarily convincing them to give owners their information. A boost in traffic is good; an increased regular audience is far better.
Professional eCommerce Website Design, Making Your Business Ready For Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is the biggest online retailing day in the world, and it requires a professional, innovative and wholly personal web design, to ensure that your business is making the most of the pre-holiday spending spree that is Cyber Monday.