5 Shopify Apps to Help You Boost Sales this Black Friday Cyber Monday

Amanda Calderon, Head of Onboarding and Support

You’re probably racking your brain for ways you can maximize sales this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. After all, they’re two of the biggest days on the shopping calendar.

In 2019, consumers spent $601.75 billion online with US merchants and BFCM 2020 is projected to be the biggest year of sales for ecommerce.

More people than ever will be shopping online this year as a wave of first-time buyers enter the ecommerce space. These consumers aren’t familiar with popular DTC brands, which means there’s new-found pressure to build credibility and optimize the customer experience.

For brands to take advantage of the spending potential of BFCM, they have to be sufficiently prepared. Read on to learn about how these 5 Shopify apps that integrate with Okendo can help set you up for success this BFCM season.

1. Foursixty

Shoppers increasingly seek out user-generated content (UGC) and peer reviews for products before they buy. Collecting a catalog of UGC to display throughout your website is an excellent way to get shoppers interested in your products and convert them when they’re on a product page. Brands that feature user-generated content on their website have seen a 29% increase in conversion rate.

Research also shows that UGC is 35% more memorable than other media and 50% more trusted. This makes user-generated content a crucial asset for brands to build and maintain credibility with new shoppers.

Foursixty lets you create engaging shoppable Instagram & UGC galleries where you can design them to mirror your Instagram feed and integrate UGC to enhance social proof. This is particularly important for clothing brands as the top product category on BFCM. For brands like Born Primitive, UGC has been pivotal in allowing customers to see how items fit on everyday people to encourage customer purchases. Further, you can also include Instagram content & UGC into your email campaigns and strategies to help drive conversion and engagement in your email channel.

Use the app to encourage customers to share why they love your product for a chance to win deeper discounts. This will help you increase engagement with customers and generate excitement around your brand.

2. Smile.io

Consumers are actively looking for new brands to support during the biggest spending season of the year, and optimizing their value to your brand is key to reducing acquisition costs and building brand loyalty.

With so many new shoppers hitting up online stores, the potential to turn one-time customers into loyal advocates is huge.

Smile.io nurtures buyer-brand relationships through an engaging points system and referral schemes. It creates a rewards program that cultivates a community and dramatically increases customer lifetime value.

Start by offering exclusive deals to loyalty program members over the shopping weekend for them to cash in points for extra goodies. You can leverage your growing community to fuel word-of-mouth sales, which remains an important way for consumers to find out about BFCM offers.

3. Gorgias

The number of support tickets increases by 65% during BFCM. Keeping on top of them can be tricky, leading to a loss of brand trust and unsatisfied customers if not managed well. You don’t have much time to impress, and customer service is a crucial part of the sales process on high-energy shopping weekends.

Without a robust support system in place, you could end up missing out on hundreds of sales during BFCM.

Gorgias puts a new spin on customer service by turning helpdesks into profit centers with a human touch. Transparency is key to building trust — which is vital if you want to capture and retain new buyers.

You can leverage support to bolster your holiday marketing efforts, add a live chat to your checkout page, and create automated responses to commonly asked questions.

4. Klaviyo

In 2018, an average of 5,417 emails were sent on Black Friday. And with the competition heating up, it’s crucial that you increase your visibility in shopper’s inboxes to stand a fighting chance.

Not only is email marketing an important part of attracting new buyers during BFCM, but it’s a necessary cog in turning one-time shoppers into long-term fans. Timely discount emails help you compete. In 2019, shoppers placed more than 21 million orders via email and, as the saying goes, you have to be in it to win it.

Klaviyo is an email marketing tool with a suite of powerful features for segmenting subscribers and automating flows to help you deliver the right message at the right time. This helps forge deeper relationships with buyers and encourage more sales. For brands like WAG, segmenting their customers to deliver personalized messaging led to a 300% increase in placed order rate.

Use Klaviyo to share offers and discounts based on previous browsing behavior and purchase history. Then, maintain contact with shoppers post-BFCM, to turn impulse buyers into returning customers.

5. Postscript

In 2019, SMS earned retailers 21% more orders per campaign than email on Black Friday. Indeed almost 100% of SMS messages are opened and read by the end of the day.

This means your brand can get immediate visibility with customers, promoting purchases right at their finger tips. Postscript helps brands run successful SMS campaigns through automation and powerful segmentation allowing them to connect with their customers wherever they are with hyper-focused messaging.

You can expect a lot of abandoned carts on BFCM. Use the tool to recover abandoned cart revenue by including a discount or coupon for customers who complete their purchase.

Leverage BFCM to the max

BFCM presents a huge opportunity for ecommerce brands. The fast-paced nature of the event means it’s important to stay connected with your customers the entire time.

With these powerful Shopify apps, you can stay competitive while building deeper connections with buyers during the biggest shopping holiday of the year. Find out more about how each of these apps integrate with Okendo