You may already have a steady stream of sales throughout the year, but Black Friday is the biggest shopping event, so why not take full advantage of it? If this sounds good, but you’re unsure how to get started, don’t worry! This 2024 Black Friday guide will show you everything you need to know as a POD seller to maximize your sales.
Below, you’ll find all the resources you need to create amazing promos, deals, and marketing strategies that your customers (and potential customers) won’t be able to resist. Ready to get started? 🔥🖤🤑
What You'll Find in This Black Friday Guide
Why Black Friday Matters for Print-on-Demand Sellers
Black Friday and Cyber Monday make up the year’s biggest shopping weekend. While in-store deals often lead to crowded, chaotic scenes, the best part is that these deals are no longer limited to brick-and-mortar stores.
Online sales have exploded, bringing in massive revenue for large and small retailers. Each year, more shoppers skip in-store madness and opt to shop online, creating a golden opportunity for print-on-demand (POD) sellers like you. ✨
- Certain industries may be more popular than others, but as a POD seller, you’re in a great position.
- Shoppers are looking for customized, unique items and amazing discounts—and Black Friday is the perfect time to achieve these tasks.
- Most POD platforms also run Black Friday deals, such as free shipping or percentage-off discounts. Be sure to check with your favorite platform to see what promotions they’ll be offering this year so you can factor that into your planning.
🚀 Fun Fact: While this is a Black Friday guide, it actually helps for the entire five-day holiday weekend, from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. So why not take full advantage of the whole stretch? ✨
Black Friday Statistics for 2024
Let’s dive into some interesting numbers that should inspire you to plan your Black Friday strategy ASAP!
- 75% of respondents in a Drive Research survey said they're willing to shop online for Black Friday.
- 43% of consumers made purchases online, which is higher than in physical stores.
- 51.1% of purchases were made via mobile devices, compared to 48.9% on desktops.
- Repeat purchases on Black Friday saw a 180% increase compared to 2022.
- Early promotions sent via email attract more consumers than last-minute deals.
- Black Friday is the most popular holiday weekend event in-store and online.
- 2023 Black Friday sales hit $9.8 billion, compared to $9.12 billion in 2022.
- The top gift categories include clothing, accessories, toys, gift cards, books, video games, other media, and personal care & beauty items.
- Nearly 33% of consumers prefer to purchase early in the morning.
- 36% of shoppers believe Christmas decorations should go up right after Halloween.
✏️ Sources: National Retail Federation, Black Friday Statistics, Drive Research, and Wisernotify.
The Ultimate 2024 Black Friday Guide Every POD Seller Needs
Now, let’s take a look at some essential steps and actionable strategies you should follow in this ultimate Black Friday guide to ensure success and make the most of the holiday shopping season.
🎯 1. Learn From Previous Years
The first step in this Black Friday guide is crucial, and it’s best not to skip it!
If you’ve been selling your designs on print-on-demand platforms for a while, you’ve likely experienced Black Friday sales before. So, now’s the perfect time to reflect on what worked last year and make your sales even better this time around!
✨ What to Do
- Events like Black Friday require some preparation, so we highly recommend you analyze what strategies worked and what was missing or needs improvement.
- Also, explore trends from past years to better understand consumer behavior, shopping patterns, and popular shopping devices. This will help you improve and fine-tune your approach for this year and make smarter decisions for your marketing plan, including what merchandise to focus on.
- Identify top-selling holiday products and trending designs to guide this year’s focus. But always look for room for improvement!
- Also, If certain designs were a hit (like Christmas graphics or cozy hoodies), consider creating similar products that align with those trends.
✏️ 2. Plan Your Black Friday Deals
Planning is key, whether it’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Week, or any other special occasion on your calendar!
After completing the first step of this Black Friday guide, it’s time to dive into the planning phase. While it might sound daunting, we promise it’ll be easy if you follow these recommendations. (And yes, we understand the temptation to run a simple hoodie sale with the same discount across your entire store, but while this approach is easy, it may not be very exciting or enticing for your customers!).
✨ What to Do
- Create flash sales or limited-time offers to keep the excitement going all day long. Running out of ideas or want to check other options? Then, read our 2024 Black Friday promotions to get a clearer idea.
- Black Friday naturally brings excitement, and you want to capitalize on that. However, instead of offering discounts just for the sake of it, focus on targeting your discounts to best-selling or slow-moving products. This approach will help maximize the impact of your print-on-demand sales.
- Offer discounts on complementary products, such as matching blankets and pajamas. This way, you can sell two products simultaneously while giving customers the perception that they’re getting more value for their money, which is true.
🤓 3. Discover What Your Customers Want
As a POD seller, it’s easy to think your designs will do all the selling for you. While attractive designs are important, you must ensure customers can find them. Pay attention to current trends and what people are actively looking for!
✨ What to Do
- T-shirts might be a popular choice, but also a saturated market. Consider other trending items, like blankets or embroidered hats, for 2024. If you have a solid foundation in a particular product—like coffee mugs; stick with it and offer a variety of designs and personalizations to stand out. It’s all about balance!
- Define what your customers are interested in buying during this time of year and prepare discounts accordingly.
- If this is your first Black Friday or you want to complement your offerings, research what’s popular and in high demand.
- If you’re creating dazzling designs, showcasing them with the proper mockups is essential.
- Research which items have higher conversion rates, and experiment with different professional and natural models to make your designs shine. At Placeit, we offer a special collection of holiday and Christmas mockups for all your needs. Remember, a blurry or pixelated design won’t impress anyone. With Placeit, you can rest assured that your designs will always look great!
- Ensure your shop follows SEO guidelines to make it easier for shoppers to find you.
- Use relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and tags.
- Create descriptive titles that include keywords.
- Don’t skip the description—it’s your chance to use more keywords and make your products stand out! ✍️
🤑 Improve your Black Friday sales with this Etsy SEO guide 2024 edition.
🚀 4. Enhance Your Site Performance
Black Friday is just around the corner, and you want your site to shine for the big event, as this might be your primary tool to make some print-on-demand sales. Well, here’s how to make sure your site is fully prepared. ✨
✨ What to Do
- Make your Black Friday offers easy to find and highly visible. People are naturally curious and surely will be interested in browsing your online store.
- Set up a dedicated page with all your Black Friday deals in one place. Here’s our Cyber Monday collection of curated designs. But you can expect some surprises later in our home. 😉
- Make sure all these elements are evident, descriptive, and updated for Black Friday.
- Optimize product descriptions for SEO to help potential customers find your deals easily.
- Ensure everything is in the right place, from the search bar working correctly to the checkout process. The key is making it simple, quick, and easy for your shoppers to add items to their carts.
- A fast-loading site is crucial for converting visitors into buyers. So be sure to check these technicalities with your hosting provider to avoid your site crashing on Black Friday (which can lead to losing traffic and, therefore, sales, and you can’t afford it on the most popular Friday of the year).
- Before going live, test all changes to ensure a smooth experience.
✨ 5. Optimize for Mobile
Following the previous step of this Black Friday guide, we have pending optimizations for mobile. Mobile shopping is HUGE, especially during Black Friday! According to the NRF (National Retail Federation), nearly half of all consumers use mobile devices to shop, so ensuring your site looks and functions well on mobile is crucial.
😊 Heads up: Most of the heavy lifting is handled if you’re selling through a POD platform. But if you’re managing your own site, here are some essential steps to make sure it’s mobile-friendly:
✨ What to Do
- Ensure headings, text, and CTAs are readable on smaller screens.
- Optimize images, fonts, and logos for mobile without losing quality or layout and ensure they look proportioned and are not cut off.
- Fast loading times are a must; slow pages, on the contrary, can lead to missed sales!
- Double-check that everything works smoothly on mobile, especially during checkout.
⚡ Fun fact: A mobile-optimized site not only boosts user experience but can also improve SEO rankings.
👀 6. Build Anticipation
We’re nearing the end of this Black Friday guide, but we have some extra tips to consider for 2024.
Well, there you have it! You were probably expecting something, right? That’s the power of anticipation. This element is hands down crucial in the eCommerce world, especially during major events like Black Friday. Your customers are likely excited about what you’ll be launching for 2024. Here are our top tips for implementing this strategy:
✨ What to Do
- Add a countdown timer or header strip on your website to announce that big offers are coming! Also, the countdown should be set to show the hours left until the promotions start.
- Promote this message across all your social media channels, blog, and email newsletters. Consider giving sneak peeks or hints about the exciting offers that are on the way!
📣 7. Get the Word Out on Your Sales
How will you make sales if no one knows about your Black Friday promos? Letting your customers and potential shoppers in on your deals is essential for boosting your sales! The best way to do this is by creating campaigns on multiple fronts to get noticed.
✨ What to Do
- Send well-timed emails to your loyal customers by showcasing your newest designs and best deals (including early or VIP access or special discounts). Just be careful not to send many emails (which can lead to unsubscribes); instead, keep those inboxes happy with the relevant information that can increase your shop’s traffic.
- If you don’t have a big budget, you can rely on organic content. For instance, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are great for sharing quick, engaging promos, content (like your new products), inspo, and news! With Placeit’s Black Friday templates, you create eye-catching social media designs and videos for all your platforms in no time.
⭐ Pro Tip: We recommend creating unique codes or coupons for each of your digital channels. This way, when you see sales, you’ll know which channels they originated from, allowing you to focus on boosting the most effective ones in your future campaigns.
🔥 8. Extend Your Sale
Your Black Friday deals don’t have to be limited to just one day! While this event traditionally happens on the Friday after Thanksgiving, you can easily combine these offers with the most profitable holiday shopping weekend promotions (from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday) to create an entire weekend of excitement.
✨ What to Do
- Begin offering deals in the days leading up to Black Friday to build hype. 🌟
- You can also take full advantage of the entire holiday shopping weekend, which includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, or even extending into Cyber Week! By offering different promotions for each day, you’ll attract more customers.
- Make sure to be clear and well-defined with your dates! Specify when promotions start and end, and include this information in all your communications so shoppers are well-informed.
✨ Pro Tip: Consider adding a countdown on your site! This can remind customers that they only have a few hours left to get your incredible Black Friday deals.
💖 9. Keep Them Coming Back for More
New customers are fantastic, but do you know what’s even better? Turning those new customers into loyal fans! Black Friday is just one day (or weekend) out of the year, but it can help you reach tons of new shoppers. The goal is to stay on their radar long after Black Friday, so they keep coming back for more!
✨ What to Do
- To achieve this, consider offering a special deal online after your Black Friday purchase. If you collect email addresses from your customers, you can send them promotions as they arise, discounts for referring friends, coupons, holiday gifts, and more. This can help convert them into loyal customers as the months pass.
- Provide the best experience possible! Focus on easy navigation, ensuring they can find all the products they want, offering fantastic customer service, and providing fast shipping. This will make sure they’re happy with their purchase and more likely to return for other important holidays. So, be sure to plan ahead and pay attention to every detail so nothing gets missed!
Wrapping up This Black Friday Guide
And that’s a wrap! We’ve officially come to the end of this Black Friday guide, which will be your ally on your way to boosting your sales. Don’t forget to track your efforts so you can repeat what worked and improve on anything that didn’t go as planned for the next year.
Remember that Placeit by Envato is constantly updating its library to bring you all the trendy designs and professional mockups you need for Black Friday and any other event on your calendar. ✨📆🤑
👉🏻 Check out these tutorials to make the most out of your Placeit subscription and to customize all Black Friday Templates you need for your 2024 campaign.
