How to Prepare for Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday started life as the online sibling of Black Friday, and for many small sellers it is now the bigger of the two. People who held off over the weekend, or who simply prefer shopping from their sofa, come looking for deals online.

Because it is purely digital, the whole event lives or dies on your website. A great offer behind a slow, clunky site converts no one. Here is how to get the online side right.

Stress-test your website beforehand

Cyber Monday brings a concentrated spike of online traffic. Check now that your site loads quickly, that the checkout works smoothly on mobile, and that your hosting can cope with more visitors than usual.

Walk through a full test purchase yourself a few days before. Buy something, apply a discount code, reach the payment screen. It is the only reliable way to catch a broken step before a paying customer does.

Make the offer obvious and easy

Cyber Monday shoppers are scanning fast. Put the offer front and centre on your homepage, use clear discount codes or automatic price drops, and remove any friction such as forced account creation that makes people abandon their basket.

Reassure on the boring details too: delivery costs, dispatch times and your returns policy. Shoppers buying gifts want to know it will arrive in time and can be sent back if it does not fit.

Tell people in advance

The best Cyber Monday results come from warming up your audience first. Email your list a day or two early, post a teaser on social, and let people know exactly when the deals go live so they come back at the right moment.

A short follow-up on the day — “a few hours left” — captures the procrastinators. Most online sellers find that a single reminder email outperforms days of advance promotion.