Running a mega sale event can help you attract bargain-hungry shoppers and boost your sales. However, if you’re not prepared, it can quickly turn into unhappy customers, lost sales, and a damaged reputation. That’s why we’re here to help you prepare for your next mega-sale event for your online store.
Launching a sale event for e-commerce isn’t only about offering promotions and huge deals. In fact, according to a Meta IQ report, 96% of millennial shoppers believe that Mega Sale Days are about more than just discounts. The younger audiences are looking for pre-sale events and other interactive activities.
We created a preparation checklist to help your e-commerce business not only survive but also thrive in every Mega Sale event.
How to Prepare Your Online Store For Mega Sale: 10 Tips and Best Practices
1. Understand your Targets
Before you launch your campaign for your mega sale event, make sure to set your targets. And by “targets,” we mean your audience and your goal. This is particularly important if your e-commerce business has multiple products with various audiences. You can narrow down your focus to a specific product category and a particular audience segment.
For instance, if you are joining a holiday sale, highlight products in your campaign that are suitable for gift-giving and target customers who are looking for presents. This way, you have a better chance of converting and creating sales.
Identifying your goal should also be a part of your mega sale event preparation checklist. Of course, you want to boost your sales, but how much are you aiming for at the end of the campaign? Or perhaps you want to clear out excess inventory? Having clear objectives will guide your e-commerce strategy for a big sales event and help measure success.
2. Refine Your Supply Chain
Your inventory plays a crucial role in the success of your Mega Sale event. First, ensure that you have accurate records. With the right data, it will be easier for you to maintain sufficient stock levels before the sale event. Pay attention to this to prevent stockouts and customer disappointment.
Consider restocking those popular items that your customers love. Additionally, we suggest offering special deals for those slower-moving products to clear them from your shelves.
3. Analyze Your Online Store Performance
If you are here, chances are you have some experience running a sale event on your online store. To enhance the results of your next sales event, you can use the data from that experience
For instance, if you’re using Shopify for your webstore, several pre-built dashboards and reports can help you track your inventory and sales. You can use these insights to measure your customer acquisition, retention efforts, top-line revenue growth, and more.
By using your previous data, you can make more effective and data-driven decisions. More importantly, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your store for the next Mega Sale event.
4. Optimize Your Website
Make sure your website and e-commerce store can handle an influx of visitors. No matter how meticulously you plan your promotions for a mega sale event, a sudden website crash can lead to a loss of sales opportunities and even customer trust.
It is important to invest in a robust hosting infrastructure that can accommodate increased traffic. Additionally, we suggest conducting stress testing prior to the actual sale event. Try simulating various levels of traffic to identify potential challenges early. This way you have enough time to address every issue.
5. Mobile Compatibility and Speed
Your website should be able to adapt to different screen sizes and work well on mobile devices. Mobile compatibility is essential for any website today, as more and more people use their phones to shop online.
Take the Black Friday Cyber Monday event in 2022. Shopify unveiled that 73% of sales were made on mobile devices. To compare, only 27% of sales were made on desktops. This shows the importance of having a mobile-friendly website for your online business.
In addition to mobile-friendliness, your website’s loading time also plays a crucial role in the success of your sales event. Your customers want to acces your website quickly and easily from any device. If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you may lose 40% of your visitors. Moreover, even a 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. These numbers emphasize the importance of optimizing your website speed for mega sale events.
6. Create a Straightforward Check-out Process
A huge sale event can be a hectic time for any business, this can be Black Friday, an anniversary celebration, or even monthly double-digit sales This is when customers are actively seeking the best deals online, and everything must run smoothly for both customers and your team. This is critical, especially for the checkout process.
If your checkout process is still complicated, you may want to make extra efforts to simplify it in preparation for your mega sale event. A clunky process can cause cart abandonment. According to Shopify, 26% of customers will abandon their shopping carts if the checkout process is too long.
Streamline your checkout process and ensure that your customers can complete the orders without the need to create an account.
7. Build Anticipation
A huge sales event are typically popular. Your customers are already anticipating it. However, it is still your responsibility to make sure that your shoppers don’t miss it. You need to have a marketing strategy for mega sale events. Your goal is to amplify the sense of urgency.
There are different strategies you can use. For instance, setting up a countdown timer on your website can serve as a visual reminder that the clock is ticking and that shoppers need to act fast if they want to save money. You can also generate excitement by teasing upcoming deals and promotions through email campaigns and social media.
Displaying the number of items left can also create a fear of missing out (FOMO) in your shoppers. Certain messaging, such as “only x left in stock” or “low stock,” can convince some of your audience to act fast and buy the items before someone else does.
8. Spread the Word on Social Media
Your audience is on social media. To give you a glimpse, there are 90.2 million Facebook users in the Philippines. This means that you have a huge opportunity to promote your products and business on the platform. By launching a Facebook marketing strategy, you can take advantage of this huge market.
But it’s not only about the number, it is also effective too. According to McKinsey & Company, 58% of consumers say their holiday shopping decisions are influenced by social media.
Keep in mind that your social media shouldn’t be a place for product showcasing. It’s also a great opportunity to create value and entertainment for your audience. By doing this, you can build a stronger relationship with your audience. So don’t be afraid to share useful tips, inspiring stories, or funny memes that relate to your niche. Your audience will appreciate it and engage more with your content.
9. Ready Your Customer Support
Expect a volume of inquiries and concerns during a mega sales event like Black Friday and Anniversary Sales. You should have enough people and resources to handle each concern.
Also, make sure that your team is reachable through multiple channels. Your customer support team should be able to offer assistance by telephone, live chat, email, and social media. Providing prompt and efficient support is essential to maintain customer satisfaction.
10. Invest in Automation
Your customer service team may not be able to address all inquiries promptly. But, don’t worry, you can utilize a chatbot to support your team.
According to an IBM study, chatbots can handle 80% of routine tasks and customer questions. It can provide quick support whenever it’s needed. This way your customer service team can focus on more important tasks.
Master Your E-commerce Mega Sale Preparation
Any mega sale event can bring huge opportunities for any e-commerce business. However, this requires careful preparation and execution. The tips and best practices we have mentioned can help you get the most out of your e-commerce sales event. But don’t forget, the most important thing is to provide your customer with a smooth and satisfying experience during these critical sales events.
Want to bring your next sale event to a new level? Be Global E-commerce Corporation is here to help. Our entire e-commerce experts and digital marketing will help you craft a winning strategy that turns a one turning a one-time purchase into a long-term relationship.
Contact us today and let’s make your every e-commerce sales event a success.
