We published our Black Friday Cyber Monday report in September knowing the data was just the beginning.
The trends surrounding these major online sales made sense: Stock up on inventory, optimize your customer experience, diversify your payment options, make sure your site can handle the traffic, and let online shoppers know that cyber week sales are coming well in advance.
There’s so much that goes into the preparation for this huge online shopping weekend, so of course, there’s more help we can provide. This post will give more context to the published report and provide recommendations for the most popular tools that other merchants are using to prepare.
Black Friday strategy: Four themes
We divided research areas into four key themes for preparation:
- Inventory and operations
- Black Friday marketing strategies
- Payments strategy
- Site performance and mobile optimization
We then surveyed customers, partners, and agencies, and gathered internal data about plugin and extension downloads from October to December. Now, we’re ready to share those findings with you. Let’s dig in.
Key data from our Black Friday Cyber Monday 2024 survey
Black Friday sales and holiday shopping contribute a significant volume of revenue: 72% of merchants attribute more than 20% of their annual revenue to BFCM and the holidays, making preparation extremely important. 81% of stores do plan ahead for their Black Friday Cyber Monday promotions, but the key finding of our research is that many would benefit from starting earlier (more than a month in advance).
Use this post to inform your to-do list, and get started right away. There’s a lot to cover.
Learnings from WooCommerce store data
This data was gathered from WooCommerce stores who have opted into sharing their website data with us — for which we are always grateful. If you’d like to enable data sharing to help us make WooCommerce better, go to your admin dashboard, and then select WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > WooCommerce.com and ensure the checkbox labeled “Enable Usage Tracking” is checked (please note that we do not track or store personal data from your customers). Read this page for more information on usage tracking.
When looking at the most popular extensions installed around the holiday season and ahead of Black Friday weekend, the data surfaced five overarching categories:
15 Popular extensions and plugins for Black Friday preparation
- Smart Coupons
- Custom Order Status
- Woo Discount Rules
- Advanced Product Fields
- Gift Cards
- Back in Stock Notifications
- WooPayments
- Google Analytics
- Import Export Suite
- Google for WooCommerce
- TikTok for WooCommerce
- Klaviyo
- Jetpack
- Checkout Field Editor
- PDF Invoices & Packing Slips
Now, let’s get into the strategy and details.
Prep your inventory and review your operations
Stocking up on inventory for Black Friday Cyber Monday
For most survey respondents, inventory preparation for BFCM means increasing stock levels based on trends from this year and last year — 26% of stores are working on building up their inventory.
Anecdotally, that inventory boost is a challenge, along with stocking up on the related shipping supplies. Hopefully, you’ve already made some progress on this. If not, we recommend starting now to spread the costs out as much as possible.
Tento: Financing can help with Black Friday Cyber Monday and holiday expenses
Ordering stock and supplies can add up quickly, which is why we recently launched a partnership with Tento, a financial wellness company serving growing businesses. Financing might be useful for growth needs across the BFCM and holidays for things like building up inventory, diversifying product offerings, advertising and campaigns, hiring additional staff, upgrading technology, or bridging gaps between sales and payments.
Provide a better customer experience through product alerts, shipping, and return policies
Since inventory and operational planning happen on the back end of an ecommerce business, it can be easy to forget that communication around these things can significantly improve the customer experience (and lead to more Black Friday sales).
To give your customers the best possible shopping experience this Black Friday season, build these features into your website (and check out the extension recommendations below for this functionality):
Add stock alerts to encourage Black Friday purchases
Create urgency by adding a stock count to low-stock items. Stock counts can encourage a faster purchase decision and prevent the disappointment when items unexpectedly go out of stock. We also recommend offering email or text alerts when items are restocked, which entice customers to return to make a purchase.
Offer free shipping to attract customers
Customers love free shipping, so much that 62% won’t make a purchase without it. If free shipping for everyone isn’t feasible, setting a free shipping threshold can increase average order value, increase total holiday sales, and decrease cart abandonment.
Offer multiple shipping options
If customers don’t reach your free shipping threshold, it’s important to provide them with options for faster shipping, or lower-cost but slower shipping. This is especially helpful for holiday shoppers, who might need fast shipping for last-minute gifts.
Send order update emails
Customers want to know when their orders have shipped, and when they’ll arrive. Online shoppers have come to expect tracking for all of their purchases. We recommend sending automated status updates (like fulfilled, shipped, out for delivery, and delivered) and tracking numbers.
Offer an extended return window for the holidays
For regions that participate in Black Friday weekend, it can be a big holiday shopping event. The only problem? If the gift doesn’t land, it might be outside of standard return windows. Give your customers peace of mind by extending your return policy through the calendar new year: 45 days should do the trick.
Top extensions for inventory and operations management
WooCommerce Print Invoices and Packing Lists by SkyVerge
Generate invoices, packing slips, and pick lists for your WooCommerce orders to help streamline your fulfillment process after the Black Friday and cyber week rush.
WooCommerce Order Status Manager by SkyVerge
Create, edit, and delete completely custom order statuses and integrate them seamlessly into your order management flow to make your customers’ online shopping experience the best it can be.
Back In Stock Notifications by Woo
Notify customers when your products are restocked, especially if they weren’t able to purchase as part of your Black Friday deals.
Pick List by Consortia AS
Master order fulfillment, enable QR and barcode scanning for seamless picking, packing, and tracking.
Split Orders by Vibe Agency
Split orders so you can process and ship each part separately if needed.
Custom Stock Status by Addify
Display custom stock statuses to communicate precise information about your stock availability and keep Black Friday customers informed when products are about to sell out.
Advanced Notifications by Woo
Easily set up new order and stock email notifications for multiple recipients of your choosing.
WooCommerce Shipping by Woo
Print USPS and DHL labels right from your WooCommerce dashboard and instantly save on shipping. WooCommerce Shipping is free to use.
Table Rate Shipping by Woo
Advanced, flexible shipping with the ability to define multiple shipping rates based on location, price, weight, shipping class, or item count.
Check out our full list of shipping providers.
Product Bundles by Woo
Offer personalized product bundles, bulk discount packages, and assembled products.
Product Recommendations by Woo
Offer smarter upsells, cross-sells, and “frequently bought together” recommendations that boost sales. Measure their impact during your Black Friday sale with in-depth analytics.
Amazon for WooCommerce by CedCommerce
Connect, sync, and optimize your listings on Amazon from WooCommerce. Rank high and showcase your products on the world’s largest ecommerce platform.
PayHelm: Export, Reports, & Analytics for WooCommerce by PayHelm
Analyze your customers, products, taxes, inventory, traffic, marketplaces, channels, and marketing campaigns to better understand store performance and consumer buying patterns.
Jetpack by Jetpack
Security, performance, and marketing tools made for WooCommerce stores by the WordPress experts. Get started with basic security and speed tools for free to keep your ecommerce business up and running during the entire holiday season.
Wordfence by Wordfence
A comprehensive suite of security features powered by research and a company dedicated 100% to WordPress security.
Google Analytics for WooCommerce by Woo
Understand — and attract — customers and increase revenue with the world’s leading analytics platform, integrated with WooCommerce for free.
Smart Search & Product Filter by Searchanise
The Searchanise extension is an all-in-one search and filter solution to improve your store’s conversion rate.
Take an omnichannel approach to Black Friday marketing
This might seem obvious, but isn’t so easy to achieve: Make sure holiday shoppers know about your Black Friday sale! It can be hard to grab customers’ attention when you’re competing with every online store and platform, so the key to a successful Black Friday marketing strategy is to take an omnichannel approach.
Make use of every avenue: email marketing and SMS, organic and paid social media marketing, and Google Ads will all be helpful during your Black Friday promotions. Tell potential customers about upcoming deals, offer exclusive discounts to email subscribers, and offer early access in exchange for SMS signups.
Lastly, don’t forget about SEO! Search engine optimization should be a year-round initiative to help your business rank higher in search results for your target audience. This is especially useful for new customers who are searching for an item but don’t have any specific online retailers in mind. Paid ads will also come in hand here and help your products get found by your target audience.
October is the time to launch a warm-up campaign and build your email list. In November, tease your Black Friday promotions all the way until the end of Cyber Monday — and launch your Black Friday campaign at least 20 days in advance. Then, follow up in December with holiday content and promotions.
Personalization should be central to your email marketing strategy
A comprehensive Black Friday marketing campaign includes personalized offers — especially for your most loyal customers.
Jamal Miller, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Mailchimp, shared that, “the name of the game this holiday season is personalization. Marketers and small businesses are using tools like segmentation, automation, and AI to build loyalty, drive conversions, and motivate repeat purchases. It’s not about sending email marketing blasts anymore — it’s about refining communications to be as tailored to customers’ needs as possible.”
This is your busiest and most important time of year. And with good reason: your revenue goals are highest, and so is the opportunity to capture new customers. Last year, the top 100 performers on the Mailchimp platform saw a 325% spike in their daily order value during the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend compared to their average daily order value. And 65% of orders that Mailchimp customers with connected stores received were from new customers.
— Jamal Miller, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Mailchimp
They noted that personalized offers in your Black Friday campaigns will stand out from the hundreds of other emails that your customers will receive. And this doesn’t just mean dropping their first name in a greeting: Use your customer and site data to recommend products based on past orders or customer demographics.
Get ahead by assessing what data you have now, and what you’ll need to build your best Black Friday email marketing strategy. Then, ask for that data through account creation, product reviews, or awarding special discounts for email and SMS signups.
Check out this post for more on Black Friday email marketing strategies.
Use social media marketing to support your Black Friday campaign and build trust with your audience
We recommend building on your organic social strategy with advertising — on a number of social platforms. For Black Friday Cyber Monday, and the holidays TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest are great places to focus your attention. Each of these extensions allow for product catalog syncing, so you can take advantage of organic product tagging and automatic updates.
Share consistent messaging and imagery across all platforms for a true omnichannel experience — and to let customers know that you mean what you post. Communicate your Black Friday sales ahead of time, and promote signing up for your email list in exchange for early sale access or insider discounts.
Acquiring engaged and loyal customers now will help your Black Friday marketing campaigns reach more people later. Post high-quality images and media with conversation-style captions — ask engaged customers for their input, about their habits or preferences, and get to know them. By asking customers to participate in the comments section (and engaging with them back) they’ll feel more closely connected with your brand.
Brand new to ads? Meet Blaze
Blaze is the advertising platform built by our peers at Automattic and designed to promote your products to over 100 million users across Tumblr and WordPress. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, setting up ad campaigns is fast and simple. You’ll be able to customize your ad image, copy, and audience targeting, all within the intuitive Blaze interface.
Sync your WooCommerce product feed with Google
Did you know that you can sync your Woo store directly with Google Shopping? Google for WooCommerce is free to install and offers a product sync feature that allows your products to show up in search results and on other Google platforms.
Once your products are synced, you can use Google Performance Max ads to showcase products across Google surfaces including Shopping, Search, YouTube and more — all to high-intent customers that are a good match for your business. This is exactly what Woo customer DOMMA did, and it helped them grow 350% in a single year.
Google also helps you learn more about your customers with insights from conversion tracking, automatic tagging, and easily adjustable campaigns.
Top extensions for your Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing strategy
Diversify your channels
Google for WooCommerce by Woo
Promote your products and Black Friday deals across Google — from Search to YouTube and beyond. Reach the right customers to make the most of your peak season.
TikTok by TikTok for Business
Sync your catalog, create TikTok ads to showcase Black Friday deals and sell your products, and install the TikTok Pixel and Events API for targeted promotions.
Mailchimp for WooCommerce by Mailchimp
Increase traffic, drive repeat purchases from loyal customers, and send personalized SMS and email marketing campaigns using Mailchimp’s AI marketing tools.
Klaviyo for WooCommerce by Klaviyo
Grow faster and more efficiently with personalized email, SMS, advanced analytics, and product reviews. Powered by your own customer data.
AutomateWoo by Woo
Powerful marketing automation for WooCommerce — offering you some time back during the busy Black Friday period. AutomateWoo has the tools you need to grow your store and make more money.
Bolster your website content
Smart Coupons by StoreApps
Boost sales and loyalty with gift cards, discounts, BOGO deals, store credits, free gifts, and more.
Trustpilot Reviews by Trustpilot
Collect and showcase verified reviews that consumers trust — helpful for encouraging purchase decisions from new customers.
Yoast SEO Premium for WooCommerce by Yoast
Optimize your posts and products for your desired keywords more easily. Yoast SEO can recognize related keywords, phrases, synonyms, and different word forms to let you write more naturally.
Invest in your Black Friday marketing strategy
Affiliate for WooCommerce by StoreApps
Run your own affiliate program as part of your Black Friday marketing campaign. Track referrals, sales and commissions; make payouts, create commission plans and campaigns all in one place.
Google Tag Manager for WooCommerce Pro by Tag Concierge
Increase data quality and unify events tracking across all channels with this premium Google Tag Manager integration.
Blaze for WooCommerce by Automattic
Promote your products, services, and Black Friday deals to over 100 million users across Tumblr and WordPress blogs with Blaze for WooCommerce.
AdRoll for WooCommerce Stores by AdRoll
Connect your WooCommerce store to AdRoll and run display, social media, and email marketing campaigns — all on one platform.
Google, Facebook, Retargeting all-in-one Marketing by Kliken
Promote your Black Friday Cyber Monday deals to potential customers with retargeting. Gain maximum exposure for your Black Friday marketing and a greater return on advertising spend.
Payments: Offer lots of ways to pay
Now is the time to make sure your store offers express and alternative payment methods to remove checkout friction and increase conversion. Use WooPayments to add Apple Pay and Google Pay express checkout, which will be appreciated by those doing their Black Friday shopping on mobile devices.
With a high-volume shopping season, it will benefit Black Friday shoppers and ecommerce businesses alike to introduce a buy now, pay later or installment option. WooPayments includes Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna as BNPL and installment options for your store. Adding PayPal and PayPal Pay Later can also help increase your conversion rates.
Affirm: Buy now, pay later increases average order value by 60%
A 2024 survey from Affirm found that BNPL options significantly increased average order values. “Consumers are increasingly seeking more transparent and flexible payment options, especially during the busy holiday shopping season,” said Erika White, VP of Marketing and Communications at Affirm. “Our recent survey found that nearly 1 in 2 consumers say the availability of interest-free offers at checkout will affect their purchasing decisions.”
With holiday shopping starting earlier and earlier each year, it’s critical for merchants to focus on making sure that their checkout experiences are as delightful as their products and services. That’s why Affirm is proud to work with WooCommerce and bring greater choice and flexibility to its network of partners.
— Erika White, VP of Marketing and Communications, Affirm
Surprisingly, only 11% of ecommerce stores offered buy now, pay later to Black Friday shoppers in 2023, and only 22% offered express checkout. Both options help online retailers serve a broader audience and meet customer expectations for a smooth checkout experience.
How to audit your payment method split
Before adding new payment methods to your store, check which options your customers use the most, and which methods you don’t currently offer. When making your choice, consider customer locations, platform processing fees, and platform reviews and reliability.
Anticipate tax needs before you have to: Understanding sales tax nexus
Taxes vary from location to location, so this can be a tough one to manage for ecommerce businesses. Avalara recommends keeping an eye on a few things: increased sales in non-nexus locations, new cross-border sales, selling new products, and selling in new channels.
“Sales tax nexus is the connection between a seller and a location that requires the seller to register then collect and remit sales tax in that location. Correctly determining whether economic nexus has been created in a given location is no small effort. But it can’t be overlooked — not even during the busy holiday season.”
— Oliver St. George, Senior Partner Marketing Manager, Avalara
Tax or economic nexus varies from state to state and country to country. In the EU, if you reach nexus in one country, you’ll have reached nexus in every member of the EU.
Top extensions for your payments strategy
WooPayments by Woo
The only payment solution fully integrated with WooCommerce. Accept credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and local payment options with no setup or monthly fees.
PayPal Payments by Woo
PayPal’s brand recognition helps give customers the confidence to buy. PayPal’s all-in-one checkout solution allows you to offer PayPal, Venmo (US), Pay Later at no additional cost, credit and debit cards, country-specific payment options, and more.
Amazon Pay by Amazon Pay
Enable a familiar, fast checkout for hundreds of millions of active Amazon customers globally.
Avalara AvaTax by Avalara
Automate tax compliance for your WooCommerce store. From sales tax calculation and tax returns to exempt sales and more.
WooCommerce Tax by Woo
Automatically calculate how much sales tax should be collected for WooCommerce orders — by city, country, or state — at checkout.
Affirm Payments by Woo
Buy now, pay later for your business — but smarter. Increase conversions and AOV by offering shoppers flexible payment plans from Affirm. Also available within WooPayments.
Klarna by Klarna
Grow your business with increased sales and enhanced shopping experiences at no extra costs. Also available within WooPayments.
Check out (pun intended) our full list of payment options here.
Afterpay by Afterpay
Afterpay allows customers to purchase products and choose to pay in four installments over six weeks or pay monthly (US only). Also available within WooPayments.
Sezzle for WooCommerce by Sezzle
Sezzle is an alternative payment platform that increases sales and basket sizes by enabling your customers to buy now and pay later with interest-free installment plans.
Site performance: Speed and capacity matter
We asked our Woo Agency Partners about typical Black Friday Cyber Monday preparation activities, and they shared consistent answers: Store owners seek help with unique technical changes, user experience updates, integrations, custom workflows, and site speed.
Of those surveyed, 85.7% of agencies prepare their clients’ stores by optimizing site speed, followed by adding payment methods, and customizing checkout.
Other popular Black Friday preparation requests include lead generation, landing page creation, and bug fixes — with requests for help typically coming in one to three months in advance. That said, earlier is always better, to give your agency adequate time to make and adjust changes to fit your needs.
Looking for advanced support? Check out our certified Woo Agency Partners.
There are plenty of performance areas that store owners should pay attention to, with several agencies mentioning code audits, stress tests, historical data reviews, user experience audits, plugin consolidation, and security assessments.
Neuralab emphasized the importance of starting early, noting that budget and time constraints can impede much-needed improvements. Kanuka Digital echoes this sentiment, sharing that they first perform code audits for site health, speed, and stability, before addressing concerns and making their recommendations.
Top strategies for improving site performance during BFCM and the holidays
Ensure adequate hosting to meet holiday store traffic surges
Inverse Paradox helps their clients ensure that they maintain hosting stability during the holidays, which notoriously include fluctuations in traffic — especially around sales like Black Friday Cyber Monday.
Optimize for mobile and omnichannel
With mobile shopping on the rise, CoSpark noted that site speed optimization needs to ensure fast load times, user-friendly interactions, and a seamless experience between online stores, physical locations, and social media platforms.
Enhance site speed and navigation for a better shopping experience
Customer expectations are high: Sleeping Giant Studios has introduced new UIs on mobile to improve user experience and create more effective customer journeys — which subsequently increase conversion rates.
Leverage analytics and AI for personalization
Use AI to offer personalized recommendations and enhance customer engagement — which also means making sure that your data flows seamlessly between your store and its integrated systems. Sparklabs México has noted an increase in data needs among their clients for better analytics implementation.
Invest in cybersecurity to protect your business and customers
Implement strong security measures to protect customer data and build trust — and not just for Black Friday. Like site performance, security is an ongoing effort that needs to be continuously monitored.
Integrate and automate what you can
Sleeping Giant Studios helps their clients streamline operations by integrating with customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and automating as many workflows as possible.
Be strategic with your investments
Focus on leveraging existing resources and be conservative with new investments. Both Inverse Paradox and Kanuka Digital noted that their clients’ investments are more conservative around new features and functionality, instead focusing on improving their current
Be proactive about site maintenance
Take a proactive approach to Black Friday Cyber Monday to ensure optimal performance during peak shopping periods. Continuous monitoring, frequent backups, and software updates all play their role in a profitable holiday shopping season.
Pause your site edits early to reduce mishaps
Virtina works ahead with clients to proactively audit and recommend changes — and then they enact a code freeze starting November 1st. CoSpark recommends having a maintenance plan in place throughout the holiday season.
You have the Black Friday trends, tools, and recommendations. Now it’s time to prepare.
It’s a lot — we know. But help is always available with WordPress and WooCommerce. The Woo Community is helpful and an inspiring resource, while more dedicated support can be found with our certified Woo Agency Partners across a plethora of needs.
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Original article written by Vanessa Petersen >
