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Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are the two busiest days for ecommerce merchants. These 48-hour super sales attract buyers to purchase gifts for the holiday season. All ecommerce stores offer hard-to-resist deals during this time, creating chaos among shoppers.
As Shopify reports, in 2022, Black Friday saw the highest shopping volume moment when sales peaked at more than $3.5 million per minute. In this sales madness, ecommerce stores need to be at the top of their game in offering a hassle-free shopping experience to their buyers.
The checkout process is one of the critical aspects of closing a transaction.
As a study mentions, on average, the cart abandonment rate for ecommerce retailers is 70.19%, meaning only three in 10 shoppers complete their purchase. So, you're bound to lose customers if there are hiccups on your checkout page - especially during BFCM, when no one wants to miss the deal available on other sites as well!
In this post, we will look into how you can customize and optimize the Shopify checkout process to double your conversions and sales during BFCM.
How to customize Shopify checkout for BFCM
Optimizing the checkout process is one of the key aspects to see more successful transactions during a BFCM sale. Optimization helps avoid friction and offers a quick, hassle-free checkout experience so the buyer doesn't get agitated and abandon the cart.
Here are some ways we recommend customizing the checkout process in:
1. Display of payment modes
Did you know that 11% of buyers will abandon the cart if they don't find their preferred payment mode on the site?
That’s why it is important for businesses to offer multiple payment modes like debit or credit cards, buy now and pay later, digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay or payment channels like PayPal.
But during BFCM, you want to pay close attention to the payment modes you’re displaying.
While some may increase the number of steps it takes for someone to complete the transaction, others like cash on delivery may result in higher fraudulent orders, NDR and RTO issues.
This is where we recommend displaying payment methods based on set rules for the products in cart, cart total, delivery address and other parameters. You can also reorder and rename the payment modes based on what you want most of the shoppers to choose.
2. Display of delivery options available
Along with the evolution of ecommerce, buyers' expectations have evolved too. They want full control of how they want to shop and how they want their orders to be delivered. Today, shoppers demand flexible delivery, so merchants need to have multiple delivery options. The four key things to consider here are:
- Where the deliveries should be made
- What to pay for deliveries
- When their order should arrive
- How their packages should be delivered
Along with these, the shoppers also want to keep track of their delivery. Keeping up with this demand, ecommerce merchants are now adding multiple delivery methods:
- Express shipping
- Same day delivery
- In-store pickup
- Standard shipping
A recent study found that out of 800 retailers, 86% said they noticed an increase in sales when they added multiple delivery options at checkout. But does that mean these delivery methods can help you increase the profits you make on the BFCM sales?
Express shipping or same-day deliveries can often cost extra and logistics partners may additionally include handling charges, which eats into the business’s revenue.
During BFCM, your products are already available at discounted prices. So ensure you display the delivery modes that don’t cost you the revenue you make!
3. Show personalized product recommendations
Optimizing checkout doesn't mean focusing only on a hassle-free checkout process. Improve the possibility of selling more to each customer by displaying personalized product recommendations.
For example, if they have added a pair of shoes to the cart, remember to also recommend a pair of socks that is available on a similar deal in your BFCM sale before they complete the transaction. They get to buy a ‘whole’ experience, while you get to increase your average order value!
While you can use Shopify apps like Checkout Wizard to leverage AI for recommendations, you can also recommend some items manually - these could be high value products at bigger discounts, or even slow-selling items.
4. Customize the thank you page
Now that the buyer has successfully placed the order, you will probably show an order confirmation page with a simple "thank you for your order" message. While there's nothing wrong with the message, there is more that you can do to nudge them to buy more during BFCM!
This could be signing up for your newsletter to receive new product launches and deal offers in their inbox, or you can show similar recommended products, or offer them a discount coupon for a limited time period while the BFCM sale is live to encourage another purchase.
5. Localize the checkout process
Ecommerce gives you the power to sell to a global audience. But shoppers prefer to shop in their local language and currency - especially during BFCM when they don’t want to move back and forth making conversions while the deals run out!
A localization strategy may include:
- A domain that’s specific to a country instead of a generalized .com domain
- Localize currencies as per the country instead of a generic price in one currency
- Multiple payment options like cash on delivery, digital pay, any specific domestic payment methods
- Website language that can be translated into other languages, especially for the navigation bars, call-to-action buttons, product descriptions, etc.
6. Offer a gift cards and cashbacks on purchases
During the BFCM sale, buyers are usually on a shopping spree for the upcoming holiday season. They want to shop for themselves, their friends, family, and others. So, encourage them to buy more by offering a gift card after they have completed one successful transaction during the same sale period.
Alternatively, you can also offer a cashback based on the cart value to create a win-win situation during the shopping spree. The positive feeling can lead to them coming back for more!
Another tactic we recommend is nudging the customer to purchase a gift card for their friends and family - ‘Got something for yourself, get something for your family too!’. Gift cards can help you increase your AOV and also become a gateway to reaching new customers.
7. Set up a countdown timer
Despite the never-before deals and discounts being offered, consumers never stop looking for something ‘better’ and ‘bigger’. While some may add products to the cart and checkout right away, others may dwell upon the purchase, moving back and forth to explore the options available to them.
The farther they go, the more likely they become to not make a purchase from you.
This is where adding a countdown timer in your checkout process can come in handy. It subtly keeps reminding this shopper that the items available on discount in the cart are going to sell out fast or not be available soon. The strategy creates FOMO, leading to online shoppers making faster purchase decisions.
8. Display on-site notifications
On-site notification is a tactic often adopted by ecommerce merchants to give a live count of how many people are viewing the same product, have added it to the cart, or how many pieces of the product are available in stock. Such notifications create an urgency among the buyers to quickly decide to buy.
When these notifications come through while someone is in their checkout process, it gets them to act on the purchase faster.
9. Display exclusive or locked deals
If an online shopper made it to the checkout process, delight them further by unlocking and displaying other available discounts.
Imagine purchasing a product during BFCM after having waited for months, only to be offered an additional discount - that aha-moment wouldn’t just ensure your visitor completes the purchase, but also improves their customer experience during the sale season!
Conclusion
Customizing Shopify checkout and ensuring it is optimized for conversions, is easier said than done.
That’s where we come in.
Checkout Wizard is designed to help Shopify stores easily tailor the checkout process on their website for BFCM.
The app offers features that let you take complete control of your Checkout with Checkout Blocks which allows customizing Shipping and Payment Page by reordering, hiding and renaming the options visible to online shoppers according to various rules like Cart Total, Collections, Product Type, Weight and Tags.
And that’s not all
We also ensure that the checkout process UI and UX remains consistent with your store’s branding.
Install the Checkout Wizard app today.
You can leverage all the features of Checkout Wizard only if you have migrated to checkout extensions. So, here's a short video to get you started -
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