How Black Friday Benefits Ecommerce Industry Plus Best Deals

The 2022 Black Friday deals event is arriving early than ever, thanks to early sales from some of our favorite retailers like Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. While the official Black Friday date lands on November 25, you can find record-low prices right on TVs, air fryers, AirPods, vacuums, mattresses, and more. Our team here at jmexclusives is sitting through all the offers.

More so, in order to bring you the hottest deals, plus everything else you need to know about this year’s sale event. It is believed by many that the term Black Friday derives from the concept that businesses operate at a financial loss, or are “in the red,” until the day after Thanksgiving when massive sales finally allow them to turn a profit, or put them “in the black.”

However, this is untrue. A more accurate explanation of the term dates back to the early 1960s when police officers in Philadelphia began using the phrase “Black Friday.” To describe the chaos that resulted when large numbers of suburban tourists came into the city for their holiday shopping and, later on, attend Saturday’s annual Army-Navy football game.

The huge crowds created a headache for the police, who worked longer shifts than usual as they dealt with traffic jams, accidents, shoplifting, and other issues. For your information, Black Friday 2022 Deals specifically fall on November 25 this year. The actual date shifts, but the day of the week stays the same: it’s always the Friday after Thanksgiving so to say.

In recent years, Black Friday has been joined by other shopping holidays such as Small Business Saturday to be precise — which encourage shoppers to visit local retailers. As well as Cyber Monday in that order — which promotes shopping online.

Why It Is Called The Black Friday

The day following Thanksgiving — commonly referred to as Black Friday — has become one of the busiest shopping days of the year in the United States. And the effects are felt all over the world. National chain stores traditionally offer limited money-saving specials on a wide variety of goods in an effort to lure shoppers into stores while offering similar deals online.

According to Britannica, within just a few years, the term Black Friday had taken root in Philadelphia. Moreover, even city merchants attempted to put a prettier face on the day by calling it “Big Friday.” Eventually, the keyphrase “Black Friday” to signify a positive boost in retail sales didn’t grow nationwide until the late 1980s due to some noble merchants.

Whereby, these merchants started to spread the red-to-black profit narrative. And, as a result, Black Friday was described as the day stores began to turn a profit for the year and as the biggest shopping day in the United States. In truth, most stores saw their largest sales on the Saturday before Christmas in comparison to all the other marketplace days.

But, that’s not all! For one thing, the first officially known mention of Black Friday related to this shopping experience was in November 1951, when the Journal Factory Management And Maintenance used it to describe people calling in sick. More so, the day after Thanksgiving — so they could have an extra day off work.

At the same time, US police were using the phrases “Black Friday” and “Black Saturday” to describe the horrendous traffic that occurred at the beginning of the pre-Christmas shopping season. In 1961, the local government moved to change the shopping season to “Big Friday” and “Big Saturday,” but it never caught on.

How To Locate The Best Black Friday Deals For This Year

First of all, it’s important for you to realize that most online retailers offer Black Friday deals, but it’s our job to sort through the thousands of offers to find the very best bargains from the bunch. Be that as it may, you’ll typically find the best Black Friday deals from big-name retailers like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target, with Amazon leading the pack.

Amazon is a Black Friday favorite darling to many! Not only because they offer record-low prices but because they offer discounts on a wide variety of categories. So, whether you’re looking for tech items like laptops, TVs, or AirPods or searching for discounts on clothing, kitchen appliances, or toys Amazon it is — to get Black Friday deals on the product you’re after.

But, there are also other retailers that offer impressive Black Friday deals as well. Including but not limited to Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Dell, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Overstock. Of course, it can be overwhelming with so many retailers and promotions at hand. Well, for such reasons, that’s where our eCommerce Marketplace deal expertise comes in.

Perse, together with our other partners, we often go through every retailer to pick out the very best Black Friday deals just for you. So that, in the end, you can make sure you’re getting the lowest price available from these marketplace giants. We also keep a live list of the best Black Friday sales from all the top online retailers — you can easily jump to the offer you want.

Some of the deals from the topmost retailers: 

Always remember, in order to get the best Black Friday deals, that homework really helps. Suffice it to say, some retailers up prices from August through to October — so that they can offer supposedly amazing discounts on Black Friday. Therefore, you don’t need to be fooled by such moves, right? This’s fine in theory, but whether it works in practice is debatable.

It’s worth mentioning that: Back in 2021, most retailers kept the really good deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so no need to rush at the very onset. Luckily, most customers may well have learned to wait for the main day by now already.

This Year Online Retail Deals That Are Open To The Public (Live)

The increase in online sales (2019 to 2020) has seen the biggest value increase since 2016, so this holiday has no signs of slowing down. Consumers who would usually participate in Black Friday on foot have had to transition online to grab a bargain.

Clearly, Black Friday moving online has created a hybrid sales event for both buyers and sellers between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Meaning, that customers have a little more time to make a purchase given both holidays will merge into one.

Best Buy has launched a ‘Black Friday Right Now (opens in new tab)‘ sale with massive discounts on OLED TVs, laptops, headphones, appliances, and more. Target is also running a Black Friday sale on tech gadgets and kitchen appliances (opens in new tab), and Walmart just announced (opens in new tab) its ‘Black Friday Deals for Days’ sale would begin Nov 7.

Technically, according to TechRadar, it will also start featuring in stores on November 9. And then, last but not least, Amazon is running an ‘Epic Holiday Deals (opens in new tab)‘ sale, with Black Friday-like, deals dropping every day leading up to its official sale. So, you see! It’s time for you to go for early Black Friday deals on AirPods, TVs, vacuums, and much more…

Some early deals with quick links: 

With that in mind, continuing last year’s trend of early Black Friday deals, we’ve already seen retailers like Target, Walmart, and Amazon launch holiday sales this month. We expect to see more early Black Friday sales rolling out as we get closer to Black Friday proper. Thus, we’ll be updating this page (pin it) with all the latest promotions and dates as soon as they drop.

The All-Around Ultimate Strategy That Works For Ecommerce Stores

As we aforementioned, Black Friday is, for the US and UK, the biggest online shopping period of the year. Already well established in North America, it has grown to surpass the pre-Christmas shopping period in the UK over the last five years. And now, this year, it is expected that Black Friday and Cyber Monday will break all the previously known commerce records.

Specifically, in terms of traffic and sales, on both sides of the Atlantic. It makes November one of the busiest retail months online in terms of buying goods and selling products. This is a month that both retailers and buyers look forward to getting something in return. The sheer popularity of Black Friday ecommerce means that many retailers can never plan to fail.

Resource Reference: Download The SaleCycle Full Black Friday Ecommerce Strategy & Stats Report

At all costs, this is the same feeling even for those with less favorable views on it – they feel they cannot afford to ignore it. Forthwith, there has been extensive growth in online sales volumes since 2013. For example, we can see there has been a significant increase in the number of sales ($) for Black Friday & Cyber Monday each year.

Equally important, Black Friday continues into the following week with Cyber Monday on the horizon. This means the whole event is much longer than just one day. It’s a great opportunity for retailers to send post-purchase messages (while using their email subscribers list as the guide) to their inflated customer base after Black Friday, and so on…

By the same token, this means, that online shopping and retailing is an ever-growing entity. In reality, the online shopping event has shown huge growth over the last 8 years and it is set to continue its trajectory. Furthermore, the amount of online buying that takes place shows it’s an opportunity for retailers.

According to the SaleCycle, the best way to forecast future Black Friday events is by looking at past events and analyzing patterns within the data. In their report, SaleCycle provides in-depth data and analysis and we’ll just highlight only the key insights herein. And, as a result, we hope that this guide helps you create a complete strategy for Black Friday.

How Retailers Can Tap Into The Now 2-Week Event Effectively

Notwithstanding, many retailers attempted to front-run the Black Friday weekend by releasing deals, promo codes, and other promotional material in the run-up to the day. Not forgetting, the week after Black Friday also includes longer-running promotions, as well as Cyber Monday. So we found 10.42% more online traffic in the week after than the week before.

For this and more reasons, a majority of online retailers understand that Black Friday online traffic begins to build from the week before. And, as such, understanding this pattern allows retailers to create a complete Black Friday ecommerce strategy. Offering deals earlier gives retailers a chance to persuade some of these customers to buy early.

Similarly, understanding ecommerce trends will allow retailers to prepare effective solutions in busy periods. For example, in the lead-up to Black Friday there is a huge increase in online traffic and browsing, so here would be a great opportunity to introduce a browse abandonment solution or ecommerce countdown timer to turn more browsers into buyers.

Some brands chose to use email marketing to customers well before Black Friday. Some emailed weeks before sales were on to build anticipation, while others emailed early running up to the week of Black Friday. With lots of emails hitting inboxes on Black Friday morning, this is one way to capture customers’ attention. There is also an option to use post-purchase email.

Resource Reference: Email Marketing | A Step-By-Step Web Marketers Guideline

Remember, Black Friday is a time-limited event, and it’s the perfect excuse to inject some urgency into email marketing. You can make use of example emails like upselling and cross-selling or thank you for your order messages — something which, in return, can eventually increase your overall brand loyalty and increase AOV.

Emails can be segmented to deliver the most relevant deals to the right customers. You could target certain deals for new or recent customers, target customers based on their favorite product categories and browsing behavior, target geographically, and more. There is also an opportunity to use replenishment emails after Black Friday is over.

Use all the extra data and customers you have to convert them later down the line, for example, maybe a product they bought can be topped up or a newer version of their purchase is available. Overall, the key to success around Black Friday ecommerce is to plan early, optimize pages and create content around the most valuable (and your target) search terms.

In addition to that: Another yet great idea is to build relationships with industry publishers to gain links and traffic. Perse, by giving them advance notice of deals or voucher codes that they can offer to their readers for example. Retailers can also act more like publishers, creating content for their landing pages, or producing reactive content in the run-up to the big day.

A few more things to do if you want to leap big:

  1. Try to capitalize on early interest (use emails to inform users prior)
  2. Think about your discounting strategy (such as promo codes utilization)
  3. Look at alternative discounting tactics (like vouchers and gift cards)
  4. Use discounts to increase customer order values (bundle similar goods together)
  5. Target certain customer segments with special discounts and product offers
  6. Make sure that you also reward your loyal customers (or even early VIP access)
  7. Be quite selective and only choose certain lines to promote first
  8. Offering free delivery can also be a deal breaker for some customers
  9. Remind shoppers of the items they’ve left behind (tempt them back)

With people shopping around for bargains and comparing offers on different sites, the cart abandonment rate will increase over Black Friday weekend. By using cart abandonment emails, you can remind shoppers of the items they’ve left behind, and tempt them back to complete the purchase. Emails can even be made more persuasive if they act as reminders.

Reminding them of Black Friday promotions, and time-limited sales — is a perfect reason to add some urgency to emails, reminding them when sales end. Just make sure that you execute your strategy well. And by doing so, online retailers can enjoy a huge sales boost, while also acquiring lots of new customers that they can sell and market to in the future.

Plan And Execute Your Content Optimization Strategy Early

As digital online web marketers, we all know that Black Friday drives huge peaks in interest from shoppers searching for deals, making it a massive opportunity for retailers to take advantage of high volumes of search traffic. The search interest around it has been growing year after year, with interest building from mid-October and peaking during the Black Friday weeks.

And, just as stats from PI Datametrics show, the most valuable and heavily searched terms over time used the phrase ‘Black Friday’ and related concepts like deals or sales, as customers actively seek out retailers offering deals around the event. The challenge for retailers is that this is an area of search which publishers have been working on to optimize their own sites.

This means, that some of the most prominent spots on search results pages for high value and high traffic terms around Black Friday are taken by newspaper sites like The Independent and Mirror, as well as blogs like Tech Radar. This highlights the importance of a strong content strategy for retailers. As well as other options like promo partnerships with such sites.

Luckily, most content publishers are able to produce plenty of content around events like Black Friday on time. And many of them use dedicated hub pages, around which they group related content. This level of fresh content around Black Friday, coupled with effective internal linking, means that publishers are highly visible in the SERPs for related search terms.

Resource Reference: SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) Best Practices To Rank High

For retailers, an effective (and long-term) content strategy around Black Friday is the way to compete with publishers. Those retailers which are doing well, including Argos and Amazon, have Black Friday pages that they can use again and again. Some retailers make the mistake of creating temporary landing pages for seasonal events before ditching them.

And then, they’ll start all over again the next time they need the same event promotional materials. A better strategy is to reuse pages, keep the content fresh, and change copy as needed. As an example, Amazon and Argos both have relatively old Black Friday pages, which means that the links they’ve attracted over time have not been wasted.

In nutshell, the key is to realize that search can be a long-term game. Meaning, that all your credible business pages should be kept for the next year. While, at the same time, ensuring that any previous publicity and links generated don’t go to waste.

Consider Mobile Optimisation In Your Planning

On Black Friday, eCommerce websites experience huge peaks in interest from shoppers searching for deals, making it a massive opportunity for retailers to take advantage of high volumes of search traffic. The search interest around Black Friday has been growing year after year, with interest building from mid-October and peaking during the week of Black Friday.

Ecommerce websites should be optimized for mobile of course. But for events like Black Friday, it’s a good idea to focus on the payment process. Whilst, looking at some of the best ways to make payment easier for mobile users. At a time when customers have a strong intent to purchase, it makes perfect sense to guide them through checkout quickly.

As a result, avoiding any friction which could deter them. For this reason, guest checkout is a must, but easy payment methods can also make a big difference. Alternative payments like PayPal, Visa Checkout, and Masterpass reduce address and payment entry to a simple username and password. While digital mobile wallets like Apple Pay make it even easier.

Design Your Ecommerce Website With Good UX In Mind

Around Black Friday, and other major sales events, shoppers are working quickly, as they know some of the products with the best discounts can sell out quickly. This is where a good user experience matters – shoppers need to be able to find what they want quickly, including key product information and details on delivery and returns.

Perhaps, they want to checkout and complete purchases quickly without any hassle. Great User Experience (UX) helps at any time, but during busy periods it can give sites an extra advantage, putting them in a position to convert extra traffic into sales.

Obviously, most retailers would prefer to spread the load over a longer period rather than experience massive traffic volume spikes in a single day. What about post-purchase email examples like thank you confirmations and shipping confirmations? Well, it can increase customer service and retention by creating loyalty and trust. It’s also important to capitalize on options.

Such as asking for customer reviews to gain more marketing material for a later date. Surprisingly, spikes in web traffic and sales put pressure on website performance, of course, but they also create extra pressure on customer services, warehouse staff, and couriers. That said, the best thing is to start spreading Black Friday over a week, so as to ease the pressure.

The Pros Of Black Friday For Retailers:

  • It allows online retailers to earn extra website traffic and product sales
  • This is a great opportunity to clear old inventory/stock before Christmas
  • It’s also a very great way to start acquiring new business customers/lead conversions
  • Such events like this help in driving incremental (unlimited time) product sales
  • It’s also a great method for easier fulfillment of customer orders

The Cons Of Black Friday For Retailers:

  • It demands handling greater numbers of returns at a go
  • At times, there is notable pressure in terms of giving customer discounts
  • It’s quite a crowded and competitive marketplace entity for newcomers
  • You must satisfy your potential customers who are always waiting to get a discount

On one hand, the negative impact on profit margins around Black Friday can be a concern for retailers. On the other hand, more sales are generated around Black Friday, and many online retailers enjoy their busiest days of the year. But, it can also come at the cost of reduced profit margins. It’s, therefore, a vexed question for all online retailers that demands attention.

And, on that note, they need to think carefully about how much they can discount to avoid affecting margins. But, they must also be careful while doing so since they run the risk of losing out to competitors if their deals aren’t enticing enough. All in all, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the days around these sales events represent a massive opportunity for online retailers.

Takeaway Notes:

Historically, Black Friday has yet another connotation, one unrelated to shopping. In 1869 Wall Street financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk attempted to corner the nation’s gold market at the New York Gold Exchange by buying as much of the precious metal as they could. More so, with the intent of sending prices skyrocketing — a very unfortunate move indeed!

On Friday, September 24, intervention by President Ulysses S. Grant caused their plan to fall apart. The stock market instantly plummeted, sending thousands of Americans into bankruptcy. In other words, Black Friday, in U.S. history, began on Sept. 24, 1869, when plummeting gold prices precipitated a securities market panic. And the crash was so consequential.

Keeping in mind, that it was an attempt by financier Jay Gould and railway magnate James Fisk to corner the gold market and drive up the price. The scheme depended on keeping government gold off the market, which the manipulators arranged through political influence. When Pres. Ulysses S. Grant finally became aware of the scheme, he made some key efforts.

Resource Reference: How Halloween Celebrations Can Benefit Web Content Marketers

Chiefly, he ordered $4,000,000 of government gold sold on the market. Unfortunately, this did not go quite as well as planned — since it broke the corner and, in the ensuing panic, the rest of the market as well. In addition, it also hurt the economy and the reputation of the Grant administration greatly as well. So, now you know the goings of Black Friday at large.

In nutshell, Black Friday is one of the busiest and most valuable days for North America and much of Europe. It’s no secret it’s the biggest shopping day, with traffic and sales volume greater than the yearly average. But, it’s a different story in the US previously though — online sales on Cyber Monday reached $10.7 Billion, compared to $8.9 Billion on Black Friday.

That’s it! What’s your take? Do you think that there is something else that we need to add? Well, you are welcome to share your additional thoughts, suggestions, recommendations, opinions, or even contribution questions (for FAQ Answers) in our comments section. You can also Contact Us if you’ll need more personalized help or even customized support from us.

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