5 essential steps to prepare your e-commerce store for Black Friday success

Autumn has arrived in her crisp, brown gown. She stands glorious outside our windows and yet we remain seated, tethered to our desks, admiring her from a distance—autumn’s beauty demands a pause, a moment of peace. 

But we remain seated, because we are not alone. Black Friday, dressed in a sleek, black tuxedo, has quietly slipped in our offices. He breathes down our necks, and we can’t help it but turn back to our computers. He whispers of urgency, points to our endless to-do list, and reminds us of the looming rush to come.

But what if we could find a balance? What if there was a way for us to prepare for the ultimate shopping event without the overwhelm, without losing touch with the season's simple joys? 

In our previous articles, we shed light on why early preparation is vital to succeed in this incoming Black Friday campaign, and how the event has changed over the years. Now, it’s time for 5 steps you ought to take to be fully prepared for the big day, without getting overwhelmed.

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Step 1: Optimize your website’s speed and performance

Your website will be the hub of activity on Black Friday, and nothing turns customers away faster than a slow, unresponsive site. Ensure your pages load quickly, images are optimized, and your server can handle a spike in traffic. 

Remember, more than half of shoppers will abandon their carts if the site is too slow, and product pages with high-quality images and videos can increase conversion rates by up to 30%.

💡 Pro Tip: Use lazy loading for images so that they only load when users scroll down to them, reducing initial page load times. Also, compress your image files without sacrificing quality to keep your website sleek and efficient.

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Step 2: Create Dedicated Black Friday Landing Pages

Organize your promotions and deals into clear, easily accessible landing pages. This improves navigation and makes it simple for customers to find the best deals without getting frustrated by long search times. 

Highlight top-selling products and special discounts right on the landing pages to capture their attention.

💡 Pro Tip: Use high-traffic keywords such as “Black Friday deals” to improve your page’s SEO and draw in more visitors.

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Step 3: Personalize the Shopping Journey

When customers feel a connection to what they are seeing on your webstore, they are more likely to complete purchases. 

Personalization tools, such as product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history, ensure that customers see the products they’re most likely to buy.

💡 Pro Tip: Clerk’s Recommendations can automatically present relevant upsells and cross-sells based on real-time data. This includes more than 20 smart logics, ensuring each recommendation adapts to trends and seasonality. 

A shopper could, for example, be reminded by our tool to buy that wool-sweater they’ve had on their mind since they felt that first autumn breeze.

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Step 4: Optimize the Search Function

One of the top reasons for a low conversion rate on any e-commerce website is an inefficient search engine. 

Ensuring a robust and intuitive search function will help visitors find exactly what they’re looking for in just a few keystrokes. This is particularly important during Black Friday, when time-sensitive buyers want fast and accurate results.

💡 Pro Tip: Clerk’s Search tool refines results in real time, adapting to customer behavior and showing popular products immediately. With faster searches, you can turn browsers into buyers effortlessly.

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Step 5: Prepare for mobile shoppers

With a large portion of e-commerce traffic coming from mobile devices, your mobile shopping experience needs to be flawless. 

Ensure your website is optimized for smaller screens, that the checkout process is easy to navigate, and that payment methods are accessible on mobile.

💡 Pro Tip: Simplify the mobile checkout experience by enabling one-click payment options and mobile-friendly forms. A seamless mobile experience can significantly boost conversions during Black Friday.

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Conclusion

In this blog post, we've explored five steps that can help you ensure your e-commerce store is ready to handle the intense rush of this major shopping event. 

From optimizing your website’s speed and creating dedicated landing pages to personalizing the shopping experience and streamlining search functionality, these tactics will help your store carry the entirety of Black Friday’s weight when the moment comes. 

Not to be underestimated are the mobile shoppers—doing the extra effort to offer a seamless experience across all devices will help you capture a larger portion of the market.

With careful preparation, combined with the use of AI-tools like Clerk’s Audience and Recommendations, you'll not only survive the Black Friday delirium, but thrive in it. 

To take full advantage of these strategies, schedule a demo with one of our experts and discover how Clerk can concretely help you make this Black Friday your most successful yet!