Last Black Friday is really a failure, what should I do for upcoming Christmas?

[Rachel_Miller]

I have done all everything I heard from you guys on the forum, read every single word, every tip, every recommendation for the previous Black Friday. Put on 20% discount, do the social work, improve the site, advertising... A lot of traffic came in, BUT STILL NO SALES. That's awful 😞

What did I miss? Did the discount too small? I tend to put on the 30 - 35% discount for the upcoming Christmas and accept no profit! Will it work? Any experience that you can share? "No sales" really discourages me 😞

I'm selling home deco btw. Thanks for your help

[Hannah_PaMa_Han]

Following! I'm not successful for last Black Friday too! A lot of traffic, no sales. I'm selling handmade stuff. Here is my shop: http://www.pamahandmade.com

[Nathan_Le]

Hi, Rachel

I think it's not really about what you have prepared, but about the idea. 30 - 35% discount "may" work for Black Friday, but not for Christmas, I'm afraid. In my mind, Christmas is not a promotion event, but a special holiday event, when people would love to care and share more. So that it better for you to send people a gift when they purchase or help people send a gift to their family and friend.

Also, you should care more about your old customer. Sending them an email saying that "this email is just for you" with private discount makes them feel special. Old customers are more likely to buy from you.

You can follow Shopify holiday toolbox or the Christmas promotion guide that I'm using. Think that it may be helpful. It's all about promotion ideas and turns the ideas into actions. I also apply some of the idea from it on my upcoming campaign.

Hope it really helps 🙂

[DennisMoons]

Hi Rachel,

I know selling nothing can be frustrating, especially if you put a lot of yourself into it.

When a promotion ends, it's important to try and figure out what worked and what didn't. That's exactly why you're posting here so let's try to figure that out.

All you know people came onto your store and didn't convert. So let's work backwards:

• How much traffic did you get?
• Where was the traffic coming from?
• How well did these visitors know about your store?

This will give you a good idea if you actually got enough visitors to your store, if their quality was high enough, if the prerequisites in order to make a sales were fulfilled.

Next you can try to go a bit more personal. Try to reach some of the people that have been on the website (email/communities/survey on the site) and try to understand more about what they were doing on your site.

All these pieces will give you a better idea what to try next, instead of just upping the discount percentage.

[Mary_Yeboah]

Hey there, 

I'm going through the same problem right now. I launched my website 3 months ago. I've spent a lot of money on google ads, Bing ads, Facebook ads, Instagram yet, all of that has amounted to nothing.  I have made no sale at all. I'm almost about to give up. it's very discouraging. Anyways good luck to you!

Mary

[Rachel_Miller]

Hi Nathan, thanks for your resource, I'll read both 🙂

[Rachel_Miller]

Hi DennisMoons,

I don't really know how to thank you, really helpful for me. I just have one more question, how can I know exactly what people are doing on the website? As you said:

Next you can try to go a bit more personal. Try to reach some of the people that have been on the website (email/communities/survey on the site) and try to understand more about what they were doing on your site.

Thanks so much for your help

[Anh_Nguyen1]

Hi Mary Yeboah, wow, you have a really good site. Seem that you have spent time and even yourself for that site. I have some comment that may help you.

About the homepage

I think you can have a look at some big Fashion eCommerce site to see how they are doing. For example Zalora: https://www.zalora.sg/women/ (and now is Robin). There always a big banner on top, it is like a show window that you always see in any Fashion offline store, which shows the most feature product of your store at that moment, with a big call-to-action button, so people can take action right away. After that now comes the categories.

About the product page

I think it's pretty good, very clean and tidy, but you can add some fake reviews. Review make people trust you more.

Add blog page

I believe that selling Fashion is to sell style. You can write the blog post about trending style, clothing/accessory review with video or lookbook to attract traffic. It's good for SEO too 🙂

[DennisMoons]

how can I know exactly what people are doing on the website?

There are a couple of ways to do this:

Hotjar: it's a free tool that will show you heatmaps & recordings of what visitors do on your site, this usually is really helpful - https://www.hotjar.com/

Email: get people to optin to your email list / if you had people abandoning their cart, follow up with them. Don't focus on getting the sale, focus more on understanding what was holding them back

Survey: the Hotjar tool described will also allow you to run small polls to ask stuff about your visitors. These usually require a lot of traffic but can be really helpful in understanding what's happening & what's going wrong.

[Rachel_Miller]

Fantastic, DennisMoons! Thanks so much, I will try hotjar

[Val_Allen]

I have been following that eCommerce blog too. They give tons of useful advices and tips for e-merchants!

@Rachel, if the front-end jobs have been done, then it's probably because of the back-end stuffs. The most important thing to keep in mind is customer touchpoints. I guess somewhere in this process you have lost them due to loose engagement and persuasion. 

Try visiting some eCommerce blogs to read their tricks. They save lives!

[Amy7]

Now you are preparing, I'm afraid that it is too late, I'd have been prepared it for weeks. I think it is the same reason for Black Friday, NOT WELL PREPARED! You should pay attention to the trend. People begin seeking for Christmas promotion from the middle of NOVEMBER! That's quite weird, but true

But don't give up, people will look for CLEARANCE SALES right after that. Google confirmed it: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/last-minute-christmas-shopping/ . You can follow Think with Google for more insight, which may make you surprised!

For Christmas promotion idea, I make it really simple this year, I'm selling shoes (not really ready to give you the store link, sorry). I got to partner with my friend who is selling clothing. When people buy a pair of shoes from my store (with 15% - 20% discount), they will receive a gift card to buy an item from my friend's store with another discount. And vice versa, so they will receive DOUBLE DISCOUNT! By that way, my store is also advertised to my friend's customer, then lower marketing cost!

Quite simple, right?

[Stacey_Brazen]

Great feedback here. Something that came up for me was: what's being done to nurture and engage the traffic that you did get?.

Are they on your mailing list, are they being retargeted, have they been surveyed, etc?

I was also wondering what you're doing to drive traffic outside of paid traffic? i.e what assets are you creating that will send you traffic weeks, months, year later (without paying for it).

[Rose9]

Hello All,

I have read all the issues and suggestions but I would like to tell you guys that I am also selling on sears, yes it is that I have not earned so much but my earning was satisfactory. A few months ago, I have faced the same issue but when I have researched on the products of sellers which are listing on sears as a featured then I have gathered some major points. Such as:

1) Product Pricing - The major issue is pricing that also included the shipping charges. Sometimes the buyers left the products just because of pricing & shipping charges. The discount is not the solution of this. Because it may happen that they get the same kind of products from another vendor. So you have to put the price reasonable and have to manage the shipping charges and fast delivery.

2) Product Description - Not only the price but the proper description of the products also matters. If buyers do not find the relevant information and qualities, I am sure they will switch on another seller. You have to put the content in an elaborative but meaningful way.

3) Product Title - It should be unique and make it always clear.

4) Product Images - Multiple images should be associated with the products if the buyers do not found the images then due to doubt they will not purchase the product.

5) Always active to pursue the demand of the buyers, if possible then ask them for their requirements through emails.

After then you have to come up with the advertisements and promotions. I am not saying that you have not followed the mentioned points but it would be better if we analyze the things in deep.

Sears Marketplace launches wishbook on every BFCM and publishes the list of product categories. This time they have again created the new category on  'Christmas'. If your product category will list in this category then your products will get the maximum sell.

The only sears marketplace provide the maximum benefit. They always provide the offer time to time

As I have already faced this issue so I know what others have to do in this case. But now I am satisfied with sears marketplace because I have got the direct solution from them through an integration partner. I advise you all to follow my points if looks you fine.

Great thanks !!

[Tony_Bui]

HI Val Allen,

In your opinion, which top 3 blogs you're recall right away related to "ecommerce tips & tricks"? Just curious...

Tony

[Val_Allen]

Hey @Tony Bui,

The 3 eCommerce issues that always bug my head are traffic, conversion, and sales. So I always search for articles and tips about them. 

My first recommendation is one about increasing traffic to your site. Read it here . If you have more time, check out some valuable SEO tips here as is the rule of thumb of your content. 

The second one is about converting visitors into customers. As entrepreneurs, we hate it when visitors leave empty hand, or worse - abandoned cart. This article helped me understand tons of things about customer journey and minimize the problems. 

Last, but definitely not least, is increasing sales with overall customer optimization. Once you can satisfy and delight the customers, money is not the problem. Check out this article.

Hope that helps 🙂

[Jason]

@Tony - please cut down on the sellersmith spam. You're running the chance that your account - and all those others will be flagged/banned. Looking back through the posts from you and others it's quite clear what accounts are associated with your team.

[Tony_Bui]

@Jason,

Apologies for the posts that looked like SPAM from me and my team. Just to be clear that we want to contribute to the community with the responses containg the solution. The solution we gave in the posts direct users to SellerSmith blog which contain more detailed solution details.

Since now, I'll keep the solution on the Shopify forum, so Shopify merchants will benefit from it and no need to go anywhere. Thanks again for reminding.

Tony