Cyber Monday 2023! 3 Tips For E-Commerce Merchants
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are huge online shopping events, with customers deliberately delaying their shopping until this day to benefit from hefty discounts.
As you probably already know, the third week in November officially kicks off the holiday frenzy. The events start on Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday and cut across the weekend up until Cyber Monday.
This period is usually accompanied by lots of gift shopping for family, friends, or even one’s self, as several promotional activities make it easy to get a deal. Many online shoppers are looking for some cheap deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and you can leverage this opportunity as an e-commerce merchant to increase your sales revenue.
In this article, we’ll discuss three important tips to make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) and boost your online business income.
Let’s dive in!
What is Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday emerged in the early 2000s as an innovative extension of the traditional Black Friday shopping phenomenon. Originating over 70 years ago, Black Friday, observed the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally involved in-store, physical purchases. However, with the surge in online shopping around a decade ago, the whole dynamics of holiday shopping during this period have changed.
It is important to remember that Black Friday as a shopping event has been around for well over 70 years, as the day after Thanksgiving, extending into the weekend. Of course, online shopping didn’t get popular until about a decade ago, so Black Friday sales were often physical, and Cyber Monday was only recently created as an extension of the discount shopping window, albeit targeted at online shoppers.
Initially conceived to cater to online shoppers, Cyber Monday strategically positioned itself as a post-weekend opportunity for consumers to continue their discounted purchases after returning to work on Monday, and with the popularity of e-commerce now, it has become a billion-dollar shopping event.
In fact, as a result of online shopping becoming more popular, Black Friday sales have now transitioned to a hybrid model, encompassing both in-store and online discounts from Black Friday through Cyber Monday (BFCM), underscores the evolution of consumer preferences. E-commerce retailers have seamlessly integrated into this shopping window, leveraging the momentum of Cyber Monday to extend their offerings.
Beyond immediate profitability, BFCM serves as a strategic period for retailers to discern consumer preferences and forecast demands, particularly in preparation for the imminent Christmas season. This dual-purpose approach not only capitalizes on instant revenue but is also used to gather data and insights toward profitable investments and informed strategies for the retail market ahead of the year-end sales.
Tips For Making The Most Of Cyber Monday
- Optimize Your Website For Mobile Compatibility: Unlike the early 2000s, when most shoppers used a desktop computer to browse websites, smartphones have now taken over. According to Pew Research Center, 91% of U.S. adults from 18 to 49 use a mobile device when shopping online.
Putting it into perspective, this means that of all the potential shoppers who would visit your website, nine out of ten would be using their smartphones or other mobile devices. Hence, it is important that your website be mobile-friendly so as not to deter users from shopping on it.
It’s perhaps no news that the discount shopping window is short, and people would love to make the most of it. An unresponsive or confusing website will likely be dumped for the next available one. - Invest in Paid Search Advertisements: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are huge online shopping events, with customers deliberately delaying their shopping until this day to benefit from hefty discounts. As said previously, the short window for shopping makes it difficult for shoppers to dig too deep, looking for deals. Instead, many of them simply search for what they want and choose the available options.
If you’re familiar with Google search results, you’ll notice that advertisements come on top, especially when displaying retail commodity search results. As you already know, users are searching with the intent to buy; hence, investing in Google ads to rank at the top for your best-selling retail items may be a good idea to sell massively during this shopping period. - Accept Global Payments: No matter how good your product offerings are, it will be for nothing if your customers have difficulty making payments, particularly those who reside outside your country/region.
Hence, it is important to have multiple payment methods available, including ones that are accepted globally, like cryptocurrency.
It’s important to remember that accepting payments for your holiday sales is as important as the season itself. Your efforts to ensure profitability will be futile if payments are processed at high transaction fees and are limited in their reach to your buyers. Thankfully, cryptocurrency allows near-instant transaction confirmation periods that allow shoppers from across the world to purchase your products at cheap transaction fees, which are only a fraction of what is paid to process payments via alternative digital payment means.
How To Accept Crypto Payments For Your E-Commerce Business
The easiest way to execute cryptocurrency transactions is by simply providing a wallet address to the purchasing party to make payments while the selling party confirms the payment.
However, when accepting cryptocurrencies on your eCommerce website, including a QR code or wallet address is not sufficient. To automate the process, facilitate ease, and eliminate bottlenecks, employing crypto payment gateways on your checkout page is crucial.
Crypto payment gateways operate as middlemen, facilitating secure cryptocurrency exchange between buyers and sellers. With a single crypto payment checkout page, crypto payment gateways allow you to accept multiple cryptocurrencies easily.
CCPayment is one such crypto payment gateway that simplifies the process of accepting crypto assets as payments for commodities. It converts fiat currencies into their corresponding crypto values, verifies payments, notifies you as a merchant, and provides top-notch security as well as accounting features to manage your business.
How To Accept Crypto Payments With CCPayment
With an industry-low transaction fee of 0.03%, CCPayment stands out, as it allows you to process transactions worth $1,000 with just 30 cents. More importantly, CCPayment facilitates easy API integration, so you can easily add it to your existing checkout pages without needing too much technical expertise. It is compatible with 70+ wallets and boasts of Military-level encryption algorithms.
To get started with CCPayment, you’ll first need to create an instant account with CCPayment and log in with your new details.
After signing in and accessing your dashboard, you’ll need to configure your Payment API and include a webhook URL for push notifications. You’ll also need to configure merchant preferences, such as adding a business logo, cryptocurrencies you intend to accept, email preferences, etc.
To begin accepting crypto payments on your website, all you need to do is create an account with CCPayment, set up your preferences, copy API keys, and plug in your E-commerce website integration, and you’re good to go!
Final Takeaway
It’s always beneficial to prepare for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping period; however, even with little time to prepare, you may still employ the tips above to promote your websites and get sales rolling in.
Also, remember that the sales do not end on Cyber Monday; the data and insights gotten here can help you prepare better for year-end and Christmas promotions, so there’s a win for you!
Always remember that a diverse payment method is crucial for e-commerce success. So, do well to expand your payment options by adding cryptocurrency today; CCPayment makes it super easy!