Black Friday is the biggest sales event of the year - and 2024 is shaping up to be bigger than ever.

In 2019, there were $2.9 billion Black Friday sales on Shopify.

In 2022, that figure rose to $7.5 billion - a 258% increase compared to 2019 and a 19% increase compared to 2021.

Another 19% increase this year would put 2023 Black Friday Shopify sales at just under $9 billion.

So you can only imagine what's in store for 2024.

But even with all that opportunity for revenue, Shopify merchants still leave their planning to the last minute. We’ve consistently seen that the businesses who plan sooner, get better results than those who start a couple weeks before.

So, in this article, we’re looking at 5 top tips you can start to implement right now to drive more sales than ever on Black Friday.

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What is Black Friday?

Generally, Black Friday is the most popular sales date of the year, and many businesses use it to understand economic positivity. The more money made on Black Friday, the better the overall economic state. For some people, It also marks the day when Christmas shopping starts.

Black Friday always occurs the day after Thanksgiving, a U.S. holiday.

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What is Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is the Monday following Black Friday, and traditionally, is focused more on online sales opposed to in-store sales. Though, the majority of Black Friday sales occur online. The full weekend is often referred to as Black Friday Cyber Monday.

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When is Black Friday 2024?

Black Friday 2024 is on Friday 29 November 2024 Cyber Monday is on Monday 2nd Dec 2024.

However most brands start their sales earlier, often on the Wednesday or even the previous Monday - and we’ll explain why you should later on.

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Key Stats about Black Friday on Shopify

In 2021, 47 million customers bought from Shopify stores and the average cart price was $100.70.

In 2022, those numbers rose to: 52 million customers and $102.10 average cart value.

Weekend sales peaked at more than $3.5 million per minute (0.4 million greater than 2021) at 12:01PM EST on Black Friday itself.

The top 3 product categories were:

1. Apparel & accessories
2. Health & beauty
3. Home & garden

Trending products included: Gymshark’s Training Leggings, MIELLE’s Rosemary Mint Scalp & Hair Strengthening Oil, and Our Place’s Always Pan.

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5 Top Tips to Maximise Your Black Friday Sales on Shopify

1. Start Your Sale Early

65% of US shoppers would make a purchase before Black Friday.

And in 2021, sales throughout November rose by 10% vs. the year before, but sales on Black Friday actually dropped by 31%.

We’re starting to see more and more businesses start their sales early and ending them late to draw in more shoppers whilst beating high ad-costs across the weekend itself.

Remember, on Black Friday, you’ll have almost every company in the world to compete against - it’s not just your competitors. Your audience will be shopping everywhere and anywhere. In 2021, 58% of Black Friday sales were impulse buys, meaning only 42% were planned purchases. If you start your sale later, you’re reducing the chance of your audience having money left for you.

We recommend starting your sale at least a couple of days before Black Friday and building excitement at least 4 weeks beforehand so your audience know what to expect.

As much as you need to prepare, you also need to prepare your audience. Use channels like organic social, email, and your website to inform you audience about when your sale starts, when it ends, what’s included, and how much your customers can expect to save. You can even tell them to build a wishlist of items so they’re ready to check out as soon as the sale starts.

If you have a loyalty club, you could even provide early access to your Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday or exclusive discounts to encourage other customers to sign up.

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2. Focus on Mobile

In 2022, 73% of Black Friday Cyber Monday Shopify sales were made on a mobile device.

And on average, 79% of traffic to Shopify stores comes from mobile devices.

Clearly, mobile is overwhelmingly the favoured choice for Shopify customers, but most Shopify merchants still focus on desktop.

Ask yourself:

• How positive is your user experience on mobile?
• How easy and intuitive is it to make purchases on your mobile store?
• How responsive is your mobile website?

Thankfully, Shopify themes do a good job of adjusting to mobile screens, but they’re still not perfect. The average conversion rate for Shopify stores is 1.8%, but the average conversion rate for Shopify stores on mobile is only 1.2%.

But there’s an easy solution to skyrocket your sales on mobile.

Mobile apps convert 3x better than mobile websites, so it may be worth investing in a Shopify no-code mobile app builder.

No-code mobile app builders allow you to build your very own mobile app without any coding knowledge or expensive developers.

And mobile apps for Shopify stores deliver a better user experience and easier customer journey for your audience, driving more sales and reducing abandoned carts.

With free-to-send push notifications, you can also market to and communicate with your customers far easier (and cheaper), with open rates 10x greater than email, transforming your ROI.

Check out the StoreLab no-code mobile app builder here.

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3. Create Contingency Plans

Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t go as planned across Black Friday, so it pays to be prepared.

You need to be thinking about:

• How do you plan to communicate if your shipping gets delayed?
• Have you bought enough stock?
• What if your sale isn’t enticing enough? What’s your back-up plan to increase engagement?
• What if there’s an issue sending emails over the weekend?

Preparing for the worst doesn’t mean it’s going to happen - it just means you’re ready in case it does.

You’re going to have a lot of new customers coming into your business over the weekend, and you need to keep their interest in case things don’t go smoothly. Most customers don’t mind too much if they have an issue - but they do mind if you don’t deal with it well.

In fact, customer support is often the best retention tool you have available. In fact, 89% of companies admit excellent customer service is vital to customer retention.

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4. Check Your Benchmarks & Customer Journey

What does a successful Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend look like to you?

Are you basing your answer on last year’s results? Other sales results? Or just shooting in the dark?

It’s important to properly benchmark your results ahead of Black Friday to make sure you’re aiming correctly.

Shopify have an Ecommerce Conversion Rate Calculator you can use to find out how your business shapes up against your industry average.

1.8% is the standard average conversion rate on Shopify across all industries, whilst the average conversion rate across all businesses on Black Friday in 2022 was 3.4%.

So, what can you do between now and Black Friday to increase your conversion rate - and how much are you looking to increase your conversion rate further across your sales weekend?

• Take a look at your customer journey, where are people falling out?
• Is your bounce rate high?
• Are you having troubles with cart abandonment?
• Are people converting well through desktop but not mobile?
• Which traffic source are people converting the best and worse from?

Look for the leaking holes and see how you can plug them, then look at the previous sales you’ve run and set a goal increase for Black Friday to keep you on track.

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5. Keep Your Sales Offer Simple

Finally, keep your offer straight to the point.

The last thing you want is your audience confused by how much they’re saving.

For a good sale to work, customers need to immediately know the benefit to them - otherwise they’re going to look elsewhere.

Pick a % discount (we recommend at least 20%) and show that discount on your product pages - don’t save it for checkout - that allows customers to immediately understand the benefit of your offer.

Take a look at what your competitors did last year. What engagement did they get on their posts? What comments did their audience leave on their social posts? Have they started posting about Black Friday this year? What can you learn from them?

You want your offer to be as obvious and understandable as possible. As soon as someone lands on your website, they need to know how great of a deal your offer is.

To help drive more excitement and urgency from your offer, use countdown timers so customers know how long’s left, as well as labels for when a product is low in stock. We also recommend sending out daily reminders through email and social media posts with how long of your sale is left.

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The 15-Step Shopify Checklist for Black Friday Cyber Monday 2024

To help guide you through your Black Friday preparations on Shopify, we’ve compiled a 15 step checklist taking you all the way from research to review.

1. Research your industry and competitors to build inspiration and insight
2. Decide what your offer will be
3. Decide how long your sale will run for
4. Find out the conversion rate benchmark for your industry & see how you stack up
5. Check the key stats from your previous sales
6. Create goals around those key stats for Black Friday to monitor and improve your performance
7. Create any and all necessary assets for your website, ads, and emails (ChatGPT can be a lifesaver)
8. Create and schedule an email flow to promote your sale in the run-up and across the weekend
9. Do the same for your organic social media posts
10. Test your customer journey across both desktop and mobile
11. Look to implement upsells during the checkout process to improve your average order value
12. Improve your mobile customer experience (and consider getting a mobile app for 3x more sales)
13. Create contingency plans for any common problems (shipping issues, stock problems, etc.)
14. Create an email flow for after the sale that introduces your brand to new customers
15. After the weekend, set aside time to review your sale and make notes for next year

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To learn more about how to maximise your Shopify sales this Black Friday, discover our guide, 10 Shopify Black Friday Cyber Monday Strategies to Increase your Sales [2023-2024].

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The Best Way to Maximise Your Black Friday Sales on Shopify

As we’ve already mentioned, 73% of Shopify sales were made on mobile devices in 2022. If you’re not focusing on mobile, you’re missing out on sales.

However, mobile websites are slow, inefficient, and unintuitive for customers.

Mobile apps convert 3x better than mobile websites and 1.5x better than desktop sites, whilst delivering a 10% higher average order value.

Plus, mobile apps have an 85% higher add to cart rate and 74% of customers use apps with an intent to purchase.

And it’s not just you who benefits from a mobile app - customers prefer using them, too.  In fact, 85% of consumers favour mobile apps over mobile websites.

If you really want to skyrocket your sales on Black Friday and beyond, you need a no-code mobile app builder for your Shopify store.

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Take a look at the impact a mobile app had for Carol.

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If you want to improve your customer retention, drive more sales, and easily communicate with your customers, get in contact with us today.