Soon, it’s going to be the busiest time of the year for eCommerce stores – Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM)! And you’re probably getting your own BFCM wishlists ready.
You might have planned the most attractive deals and offers for your Shopify store BFCM sale, but…
…so have your competitors.
Your customers are their customers too. And there’s only so much your customers will buy and spend during one season of BFCM.
This is where you can play your long-term cards. Don’t just focus on the five days of the BFCM sale. Think long-term. Then, work backwards.
Here’s what you need to do: Capture what your customers wish to buy in the future. In short, get them to create wishlists!
Why wishlists for BFCM?
Five days! That’s how long the BFCM sales last. And you’ll agree, it’s not easy to maximize sales during this period if you don’t have a plan in place.
That’s where wishlists come into play – before and after BFCM. Also, for the remaining 360 days of the year.
Wishlists can help you strategize a long-term plan for your BFCM sale – one that begins much in advance. The benefits of wishlist strategy can be reaped during BFCM as well as after the sale ends. And that’s why you need to plan a wishlist strategy around your BFCM sale.
Must-implement game plan to get your store visitors to create BFCM wishlists
Start early to capture shoppers’ interest
Every eCommerce store is going to offer deals with full throttle for their BFCM sale. The key for you is to get a head start by starting much earlier.
Nudge shoppers to start creating BFCM wishlists before the sale begins. Because these sales offer great discounts, shoppers tend to start searching for good deals much in advance. This is when you need to come up in their online search. Plan email campaigns, etc. Show them your BFCM products and deals.
Next, you need to secure these sales by offering them the wishlist feature. Wishlists will allow shoppers to save the items that they like and might want to buy during the sale.
But how does saving products in the wishlist help? Well, during the BFCM sale period, these shoppers simply need to go to the wishlist and buy the products. They do not have to go through your site all over again.
The earlier you offer them this feature, the better for you. They can choose the products they like at ease and be sure about what they want. That way, the chances of card abandonment on your site will reduce considerably.
Offer an exclusive BFCM deal to motivate shoppers to create wishlists
What if a brand is giving an exclusive discount, a gift, or lower shipping rates simply for buying products from the wishlist? Wouldn’t you want to make use of this great opportunity?
By offering an incentive for creating wishlists and buying from it, you will be motivating your shoppers to not just save the items they like, but also ensure they return to the wishlist and buy from it.
When shoppers know that they would be receiving an exclusive discount or a gift on items added to their wishlist, they’re more likely to add more items to their list. Meaning, increased AOV.
For your Shopify store, this is a great way to know which items you should discount. Items saved in wishlists give you a glimpse into the shoppers’ purchase interest. These are also products that stand a chance to generate more sales.
Offer store credits for creating wishlists
Store credits motivate customers to explore more and hence, engage more with your brand. And motivation is a powerful psychological factor that plays a huge role in getting customers to shop.
When you offer store credits to your customers, they feel good about it and feel like doing something good for you in return. It’s a sure-fire way to get them to reciprocate by making a purchase from your store.
Here are a few actions for which you could give store credits:
- Offer store credits for signing-up for a customer account page
- Offer store credits for creating a wishlist
- Allow them to redeem these store credits during the BFCM sale
- Give them an additional discount on the item/s purchased from the wishlist
- Encourage them to increase their store credits by making purchases from the BFCM sale
Here’s an example of how Asos makes it exciting for its customers to shop more to reach new levels of their loyalty program. Similarly, you can create exciting messaging and offers to entice your customers to add items to their wishlist to earn more store credits.
Make it easy for your site visitors to create wishlists
BFCM is a busy time for customers. The internet is raining deals, and shoppers don’t want to miss out on any of them. They’re in a hurry to check out all the deals.
Now, in between this frenzy, if you ask your site visitors to register on your site by filling a long sign-up form, it might backfire. They might feel annoyed and leave your site.
Shoppers won’t be able to create wish lists if they don’t sign up. That’s why you have to make the sign-up process quick and easy for them. How do you do that?
Offer social sign-up.
The social sign-up feature will enable your site visitors to sign up via their social media accounts. You can use the Flits app add-on Social Login feature on your Shopify store.
There are many benefits of social login:
- It allows shoppers to sign-up via their social accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, among others – in just a few clicks
- Social logins also help keep fake profiles at bay. This means only genuine shoppers will sign up, which in turn can increase the probability of more sales
- Social login makes the login process faster and easier to add products to the wishlist section
- Shoppers can easily login and go back to their wishlist to make purchases in just a few clicks
Still doubting if you need the social login feature on your Shopify store? Well, 65% of shoppers prefer sites that sign them in automatically via their social credentials.
Be where your customers are – promote BFCM on social media
70% of shoppers browse products on Facebook and Instagram before making a purchase. On average, people spend almost three hours on social media, every day. There are many ways in which you can make use of your social media to get shoppers to create wishlists.
Here are some ways you could try:
- You could run a special pre-BFCM campaign to encourage shoppers to add items to wishlists for the BFCM sale
- Offer extra discounts for shopping from wishlists during the BFCM sale. Share posts that highlight this
- Promote your wishlist feature by telling shoppers the benefits of adding items to wishlists – it saves their time, makes purchasing items in future easier, they can share wishlists with their friends, etc.
Leverage all communication platforms to reach out to customers
52% of eCommerce stores have omni-channel capabilities. If you’re a Shopify store owner or marketer using multiple platforms to engage your customers – that’s great! Because you can use all your communication channels to motivate shoppers to create wishlists.
You can run campaigns on different channels such as email, web push, Facebook Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, and social media to tell shoppers the benefits of creating wishlists.
Some of the benefits that you can highlight in your messaging are:
- Shoppers can take their time, browse products at leisure and add them to their wishlist much before the BFCM sale
- When the BFCM sale begins, all they have to do is go to the wishlist section and buy the products
- Creating a wishlist enables shoppers to purchase items that they might not be able to buy now but may want to purchase it at a later date
- They might be able to get extra discounts if they make purchases from their wishlists during the BFCM sale
- They might be able to get store credits or free gifts if they buy from their wishlists during the BFCM sale
Promote wishlist in order confirmation emails
When your customers make purchases, you most probably might be reaching out to them with an order confirmation email. This is also an opportunity to entice them to add items to their wishlists for future purchases.
Since they’ve just made a purchase, they might not buy more at the moment. But if they add items to their wishlists, they can easily go back to those items and buy them in the future.
Make your email messaging exciting for them to create their wishlists. You can do so by offering them discounts or store credits for the items purchased off their wishlists. This will increase the chances of customers creating wishlists.
Below is an example of how one brand does it. You can come up with your own messaging.
Enable shoppers to add an out-of-stock item to their wishlist
It’s possible that certain items get sold out fast on your site. It’s common for items to get sold-out during the BFCM period. And if you are going to restock them during the five days of BFCM or after that, you can use the wishlist feature.
Enable customers to add the stocked-out item to their wishlists. Then, once the item is restocked, you can notify them about it. Or, customers can also keep checking the wishlist section if the item is available.
This is also a great way to boost engagement with your customers for the long-term. You could use data from the wishlist section to understand customer interests. This data can also help you understand which products to offer on discount to improve sales.
Display product recommendations to get more items in the wishlist
The BFCM sale time is limited and deals are great. With so much going on, you want to make it easier for shoppers to discover new products and what’s in store in the BFCM sale.
Another way to encourage your customers to create wishlists is to share product recommendations. You can use your different communication platforms to do so. Encourage your subscribers to add products from those recommendations to their wishlists.
For example:
- When customers browse your BFCM landing page or your website, display product recommendations
- The ‘thank you’ page is another place where you can share product recommendations and nudge customers to add them to their wishlists
- Tell shoppers via live chat or a web push pop-ups that they could add the items they like to their wishlists and buy them during the BFCM sale to avail discounts
See how Amazon shares product recommendations and gives an option to add them to the wishlist. Simple and effective, isn’t it?
Display information about wishlists on you dedicated BFCM landing page
Many brands do this and you should too – create a dedicated BFCM page. Some brands have this page through the year, while some launch it a few weeks before BFCM.
Having a dedicated BFCM page has many benefits:
- You can share information about discounts and deals
- Promote wishlist feature on the page
- Display product recommendations from the BFCM sale
- Share BFCM flash sale deals information
- Have a countdown timer to create excitement
You can use this page to entice your site visitors to add items to the wishlist. Tell shoppers the advantages of creating wishlists. Promote different offers related to the wishlist feature. For example, give shoppers extra discounts on items purchased off the wishlist, or give them a gift.
And now, some wishlist best practices
- Make the idea of creating and adding to wishlists exciting for shoppers
- Allow customers to share their wishlists with friends and family
- Make it easy for shoppers to buy products from their wishlists, to make it easier and faster for them
- Create campaigns around wishlists and BFCM by offering discounts, freebies, store credits, etc, to make it more exciting for customers
Wrap up – play the long-term game with wishlists this BFCM!
BFCM sales often result in one-time transactions for stores. Shoppers make purchases without signing up and are gone forever. You never know how to reach out to these customers again.
But not if you have a wishlist feature and get shoppers to utilize it. By nudging customers to add items to the wishlist, you can capture their data and reach out to them with relevant, personalized communication.
Get Flits add-on wishlist feature to enhance customer experience during BFCM.
