Black Friday & Cyber Monday are important dates for many retail websites. Have you been preparing your website for them? Maybe you’re thinking: “What is it? When is it?” Don’t worry, we’ll explain all.

These dates were created back in 2005 by marketing companies is the USA, to encourage people to do more shopping online. Many website promote special deals, discounts, etc on these dates – and as a result they are amongst the busiest shopping days online. People love a bargain, and many people look forward to these dates to make a purchase online. They are thought by many people to be the best time of year to grab a bargain. Furthermore, many people are also persuaded to make an impulse purchase on these dates, due to the deals promoted towards them.

America sneezes – and we all catch a cold

Black Friday & Cyber Monday have been running in the US for many years, but websites all over the world are fast catching up, to the extent that for many UK retailers, these dates are firmly established in their marketing calendars. It doesn’t matter what country a person lives in, they all like a bargain.

Black Friday

Since these dates originated in the US, they both follow the American holiday “Thanksgiving“, which is on the fourth Thursday in November – which this year falls on November 26th. The next day is is Black Friday – November 27th.

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday takes place the Monday after Black Friday – this year landing on November 30th. While Black Friday is popular, stats have shown that Cyber Monday usually results in the best deals being offered by retailers, often making it the second busiest shopping day in the UK.

The term was coined by the US National Retail Federation in 2005 to encourage people to shop online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Since people are often back at work on that day, they can’t go in shops to get deals, but it turns out plenty of people will do some online shopping while at work.

How long do they last for?

Traditionally Black Friday & Cyber Monday were one day events, but now many retailers extend them for longer – in some case up to a week, which is what Amazon did last year – they offered a Black Friday Deals week, which resulted in 5.5 million items sold which was a record for them. Some websites even extend their Black Friday deals up to 2 weeks.

Suitable for your website?

Black Friday & Cyber Monday can be a huge sales opportunity for many websites. If you sell something via your website then you should at the very least test some promotions on these dates, to see if their is a demand from your audience. Around these dates huge numbers of people are actively searching for deals – these dates have caught peoples attention – people increasingly know of these special dates and are many are now expecting websites to be participating. Historically Black Friday promos has been used by websites offering lower-end electronics, however, in recent years, numerous luxury retailers have started offering sales and promotions through their outlets. Even companies such as Apple have started these type of promotion periods.

How to prepare your website

Get your website prepared as early as possible for Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

• Plan what products you are going to promote and what discount, deals, etc you are going to offer.
• Make sure you have a special landing page created for these dates – which list the products you will be selling at special rates, etc. Create a banner link on your homepage to help publicise it. Two examples are below from Marks & Spencer and TESCO:

  After these dates are over, don’t take these pages down. Keep them up and build upon them for future years.Once these dates are over make sure it still contains good content, and maybe even add a countdown time to the next Black Friday & Cyber Monday dates. This will help them rank in search engines such as Google. Many people will be typing in keyphrases such e.g. “brand” + “Black Friday”, so keep your pages up to help your SEO long term.

• Use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc to tell your followers that you have  Black Friday & Cyber Monday promotions.
• Send out a mailshot to your email subscribers, notifying them of your Black Friday & Cyber Monday promotion pages.

The time & resources you invest in creating and updating your Black Friday & Cyber Monday webpages will be worthwhile. You will be able to use them year after year – so if you haven’t got them already, then get started today!