Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the biggest shopping events of the year. This means that you need to optimize your online store and avoid making mistakes that could cost your business potential sales. Below are some common mistakes that Shopify stores make when running promotions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

• Just offering discounts. We all know that a good discount is attractive; however, there are other effective sales promotion strategies that your business can take advantage of. You can offer packages, free gifts, BOGOs (buy one, get one for free), and of course, free shipping. The more value you add to your customers, the more likely they are to buy from you and not from your competitors.
• Not recovering abandoned carts. According to Shopify, "approximately 60-80% of online shopping carts are abandoned before a customer completes a sale." This means that your sales numbers may be only one-third of what they could be. Consider implementing retargeting ads to drive warm leads back to your offer and products.
• Not optimizing your online store. Having an optimized store is a crucial step. This means having optimized images, making sure you have SEO-friendly product descriptions and having a growth marketing strategy, which turns out to be our next point.
• No growth marketing strategy. A good plan is the foundation of a successful business. You should be documenting the processes, protocols, and procedures implemented in your business. Monitor what is working and consider 80/20'ing your time into areas of your business that generate the most results.
• Lack of accessibility. You can be sure that your store visitors will have all sorts of questions, and you must be prepared to answer them quickly; otherwise, you run the risk of losing potential customers to your competition. One way to be accessible 24/7 is to set up a chat for your online store. Some of this will be used by your customer support team and some of this work can be automated via chatbots.
• Not guaranteeing online shoppers their safety. Sometimes, online shoppers may not buy from you because they don't trust you and don't know if the platform you're using is secure.

What issues have you run into when running promotions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Comment below and let us know!