Black Friday for ecommerce: stock first, discounts later
· Portican team
Prepare your shop for Black Friday by checking stock, prices, the product page and communication after purchase.
You prepare your shop for Black Friday by checking stock, prices, the product page and communication after purchase. However, the result of a campaign cannot be promised: the offer, margin, product availability and customer trust all play a part.
So first go through the products you want to include in the sale, and only then adjust discounts and communication.
How do you prepare stock and product availability?
For every sale product, check the variant, the selling price and the number of pieces in stock. Stock goes down when an order is placed, so it must match what the customer sees on the page.
Product availability is a separate setting. When stock is zero, you can also set the product to made to order, if you are able to handle that way of selling.
If you do not change availability, at least check that the stock level matches what you can really ship.
For made-to-order goods, make sure the customer gets clear information about the status. If you allow ordering even at zero stock, stock can go negative and show how many pieces you still owe.
How do you set the price without losing control?
Set up the sale as a discount with an end date, not as a manual overwrite of the original price. When it ends, the price returns by itself; with a manual overwrite you would lose the original value.
Set the amount according to your margin and test the rules with a test order. Along the way, check the price with VAT, the price without VAT, the displayed size of the discount and what happens when the sale ends.
If a sale has no end, it applies until you delete the discount, and the price looks permanently reduced. For Black Friday, therefore, also check the field with the end of the sale, so that the discount does not stay active longer than you plan.
What should the product page contain?
On the product page it must be immediately clear what the customer is buying, at what price and in what condition the goods are. The photos, the price and the add-to-cart button stay in the upper part of the page.
Below them, in Appearance, you can change the order or hide sections, for example the description in tabs, trust badges, reviews, similar products, frequently asked questions and recently viewed products.
The order applies to all product pages in the shop, not to a single product. So write the terms of the sale in the description of the sale product. The shop shows a saved change only after the appearance is published, so check it in the shop before the sale starts.
On the category page, also check the description, the filters and the subcategories. The product list always stays on the page. The description and subcategories can go above or below it, and the filters on the left, on the right, or hidden.
How do you keep in touch with the customer after purchase?
At checkout you can offer creating an account and, with the Newsletter module, subscribing to news. Both options are voluntary for the customer and are never pre-ticked. Subscribing to news and creating an account at checkout are switched off by default.
If you switch them on, the customer can stay in touch without leaving the order. For a news subscription, the consent and its wording are saved with the subscriber. If you turn on email confirmation of the subscription, the customer receives the newsletter only after clicking the link in the order confirmation.
After you switch on the account at checkout, you can set a reward for the customer on this purchase. The reward can be a discount, a fixed amount or a gift, depending on the settings available.
Adjust the value of the reward to your margin. With a gift, check that the right variant is in stock. If the gift is not in stock, the order can continue without it, and the reward stays recorded on the order for the staff.
The reward for subscribing to news applies, depending on the settings, to a verified address only on the next purchase. The reward, however, does not guarantee that the customer will come back for another purchase.
What else should you check before launch?
Go through the sale purchase as a customer:
- open the product from the category and from a direct link,
- check the price, the discount and the availability,
- add the product to the cart,
- check the texts at checkout,
- check the options for news subscription and account,
- look at the order confirmation,
- check what happens after the discount ends.
The price changes within a minute of the setting, but that says nothing about the result of the campaign. A test order verifies that the purchase works, it does not predict sales.
If you use Portican, you will find the relevant settings on the product card, in Appearance and in the section Marketing → Subscription and account at checkout. Save the individual changes and check them in the shop after they are published.
What should you take away from the preparation?
Do not build Black Friday for your shop only on the percentage of the discount. First align stock with availability, then set the price with an end date, adjust the product page and finally check the checkout and communication after purchase. Verify each setting on a specific product and order. You will find everything that can be set up in the shop in the overview of Portican features.
Frequently asked questions
Can a product be orderable even at zero stock?
Yes. Availability is a separate setting and the product can be set to made to order.
Where do I change the order of information on the product page?
In Appearance you can change, hide and save the order of the available sections. The order applies to all product pages.
Is the news subscription at checkout switched on automatically?
No. Both the news subscription and account creation are switched off by default, and the customer should not get them pre-ticked.
Can I reward a customer for an account at checkout?
Yes. After you switch on the account at checkout, you can set a reward for this purchase.