Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales are an opportunity for eCommerce businesses to end the year on a stunning note. According to a report published by NRF, more than 155 million American buyers made online purchases during the BFCM sale in 2021.

And this year, the numbers are expected to be much higher considering how businesses have shifted during and post-pandemic. The revenue of eCommerce businesses increased from $3.3 trillion in 2019 to $4.3 trillion in 2020. The expected number for 2022 is around $5.5 trillion, creating a massive opportunity for eCommerce businesses to generate more revenue.

But with the number of online stores growing rapidly, this year will be more challenging for eCommerce stores to capture customers’ attention and convert them. One sure-shot way to grab customers’ attention is by giving them great deals and rewards — this evergreen strategy never fails.

Offering store credits to your customers for BFCM sales will generate more revenue and help you improve your online store’s retention rate. It can also help you provide a better customer experience and encourage your existing customers to bring more buyers.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how to use Shopify store credits in your BFCM sales strategy to sell more. Without any further ado, let’s jump into it.

How to Use Store Credits Before the BFCM Sale

For eCommerce businesses, a sale never starts on the exact event day. It starts well in advance. Leading to BFCM sales, you need to focus on building a customer database to give a personalized experience to your customers. Here’s how you can use Shopify store credits to grab your customers’ attention and secure some sales.

Give BFCM Credits

Customers start exploring their gift options weeks before the BFCM sale. This is the time when they’re a little hesitant about buying something because they know a sale is coming and they’ll get a better deal.

You can offer them store credits during this period to break through the resistance and generate sales. However, sometimes even gifting store credits is not enough to guarantee a sale. So during the time leading to BFCM, you can run campaigns where you offer more store credits than the usual number to make the offer more enticing for the customers.

You must also ensure that there’s a limit on the number of store credits a customer can use for a particular product. Otherwise, you’ll be making losses. For example, if a customer has store credits equivalent to $40, they should not be allowed to use it all on a $40 product. It should be something more than that for you to generate profits.

Nudge Micro-Conversions

As we mentioned, people start finding their BFCM shopping store well in advance. Many new customers will be visiting your store, giving you a perfect opportunity to collect more data.

While exploring the store, these visitors sometimes impulsively buy products from your store using the guest checkout option. You miss out on the data that could’ve helped you reach out to them later to engage them and make them buy again from you.

You can target such visitors with a pop-up that says — Sign Up and Get Store Credits Worth $50 and Access to Exclusive Deals! These pop-ups will lure them into opening an account in your store, giving you their data.

You can use this data to reach out to these customers when the BFCM sale has started. If your content is able to build FOMO in the customers, they’ll surely visit again in the quest for good deals. And because they already trust you for the good experience, they’ll make the purchase.

Ask Customers to Place Pre-Orders on BFCM Deals

As an eCommerce business, there’s no harm in trying to secure some pre-sale orders. You can ask your customers to place pre-orders for the products they like in your store. You can give them extra credit points for placing a pre-order, making the deal more convincing.

Allow customers to spend these credits during the BFCM sale, so they don’t feel cheated about the deal. However, there have to be some limitations. You should not allow them to use these credits on products that already come with a massive discount (the definition of massive discount varies across businesses and industries).

And because more than 92% of customers believe that store credits help them make a purchase decision, you will surely get a lot of pre-orders, making your BFCM sales successful even before it started.

How to Use Store Credits During the BFCM Sale

Let Them Avail Earned Credits Easily

If it’s not seamless for your customers to spend store credits, there’s no point in giving it to them. Its whole value lies in how easy and effective it is to earn and spend store credits.

You can get repeat purchases from your customers by giving them a double deal on some discounted products. These double deals allow them to apply their store credits to get an extra discount. However, the additional doesn’t have to be equal to the number of store credits they have.

For example, if a product has a 15% discount during the BFCM sale and customers have store credits worth another 15 percent. Then you don’t have to give a total of 30% off on the product. Because they are using it on a product that’s already discounted, you can offer them another 5-10% off on the deal. This will make the order profitable for both you and your customers.

Offer Credits on Purchase Completion to Nudge Another Purchase

During the BFCM sales, offer store credits after every order to turn the one-time buyers into repeat customers. The more credits a customer earns, the more they’ll shop from you. According to a stat mentioned on Forbes, 84% of the customers visit the eCommerce store again to spend their store credits.

However, you can’t give store credits to a single customer purchase after purchase. Once customers have earned a specific amount of credits or credits on a certain number of purchases, filter them out. Doing this will ensure the maximum number of people earn store credits in moderation.

Offer Store Credits to Upsell

Upselling is a marketing technique that businesses across the globe use to sell an alternative product of higher value compared to the value of the original product that customers want to buy. By upselling, you not only increase your order value, but your customers get a better product too.

However, it’s not like customers just come to your store wanting to purchase the costliest item. They’ll surely be more inclined towards the cheaper alternative (the product they liked initially). But store credits change the complete picture.

During the BFCM sale, you can offer your customers additional credits if they buy a product of higher value. And if the product of higher value is relevant and you’re generous with the store credit offer, then customers will definitely go for it.

Offer Store Credits to Cross-Sell

BFCM brings one of the opportunities for you to cross-sell products. Most of the products are on sale during this time. Therefore it gets easier for you to convince your customers to buy more.

What’s cross-selling? So, if a customer is buying a smartphone from your store, encouraging them to buy additional related products like back-cover, screen-protector, and earphones is cross-selling. But just like upselling, customers might not be willing to buy the bundle if it doesn’t come with additional benefits.

So again, you can offer them a generous amount of store credits to make the offer more profitable for them. Using a Shopify store credits app like Flits, you can make store credits a variable that changes with respect to the bill value. The more items a customer purchases, the more store credits (up to the limit you’ve set).

Offer Credits on Purchase Sharing

Selling is not the only thing you should focus on during the BFCM sales. After all, there’s only so much you can earn from a limited number of customers. Therefore, you should ask the buyers to share about the purchase on their social media accounts in return for store credits.

It’ll help you reach more people, And because it has come from a customer, not the brand, it’ll work as social proof. The viewers who’ll see these posts will trust you from the start because someone they know also trusts your business. The more shares you get, the more new customers you can acquire.

Offer Credits on Referral

Did you know that referred customers have a 37% higher retention rate than normal customers? Yes, it is true. And they also increase your profit margins by 25% because their average order value is higher than the average customers.

But people are busy during BFCM. Not every customer is going to refer. With a referral store credit strategy, you can convince more customers to refer a product or your store to their family, friends, and acquaintances.

Here’s how it works. You can ask your buyers to refer to the store in return for double store credits, and because they are getting something in return, they’ll do it happily. And then you can also give some credits to the referred customer too, to ensure that their first purchase experience is awesome.

Offer Credit to Drop Reviews and Ratings

A report published by Neilsen says that more than 90% of eCommerce customers find it easy to trust non-paid recommendations compared to marketing campaigns. Moreover, 97% of Shopify customers claim that reviews and ratings are one of the most impactful factors in their purchase decision.

You cannot ignore getting reviews during the massive BFCM sale, where you have customers in abundance. As soon as they finish the purchase, ask them to leave a review about their experience. In return, they get store credits. It’s a win-win!

How to Use Store Credits After the BFCM Sale

The period after the BFCM sales runs slowly for eCommerce businesses. Customers have already spent a lot during the Black Friday sale. But you can’t just disappear. Otherwise, the customers will forget how good the sale was. You can keep offering them some amount of store credits in return for micro-conversions.

Offer Credits to Get More Reviews

Reviews keep the product selling. After BFCM, customers might not have anything to shop for, but they know they’re gonna shop sooner or later. You can offer your customers store credits for leaving a review on your store.

Because the sale is over, the right time to reach out to them is when the product is delivered. This allows customers to share their reviews about the quality of the product. And the credits you offer them will ensure that they return again.

Offer Credits for Feedback

Customers are quite busy during the BFCM, and there’s a high chance that they’ve missed leaving feedback while the sale was running. You can contact them again, promising store credits if they leave feedback about their overall shopping experience with you.

Here are some copies to use in your feedback requests:

• Enjoyed the BFCM sale? Please share your experience with us!
• Share your feedback about the BFCM to help us make it even bigger next season.

Offer Credits on Left Over Items from the Sale

After the BFCM sale is over, you might still have some products from the sale left in abundance. Though the sale is over, you can still email customers a list of leftover items and offer a bounteous amount of store credits on them.

You can make this deal time-sensitive to create urgency. And where there’s urgency, there are more sales.

Offer Credits on Product Recommendations

Okay, so now the sale is over. And leftover products, too, are gone. Do you stop selling now? Never. Store credits in not just the BFCM sale. You can share product recommendations with your customers based on their previous purchases or trending products and offer store credits on these recommendations.

Now, customers can use the credits they earned during BFCM to get this product. And they’ll be earning again from it. It will be too good a deal for them to say no.

Boost Sales and Increase Repeat BFCM Purchases Using Store Credits

The preparation for the BFCM sales needs to start well in advance to capture the details and interest of more customers. During the BFCM sales, you can use store credits to make the deals more interesting. And when the sale is over — it’s never over. There are still plenty of opportunities to sell and get reviews.

The sooner you start, the more profits you’ll be making out of this BFCM sale. To get started soon, you can use an app like Flits. It helps you strengthen your relationship with customers by using their next-gen reward programs.

Install Flits today to use store credits in all the ways mentioned above!