Three strategies to make the most out of Black Friday 2024

Every year, Black Friday gets bigger. In the United States (US), more than 87 million people shopped online during the Black Friday weekend in 2023 – up 4% from 2022. Across the world, that increase was 10%.

Black Friday traditionally falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US. However, these days, it’s common for retailers to discount products throughout the whole of November. 

Online discounts will inevitably bring an increase in website traffic, so you’ll more than likely have a virtual waiting room solution (like ours) in place to prevent crashes. Are you making the most of it? 

Here are three strategies for three types of retailers. 

Big Box Retailers: The Discount Catalogue

If your company is spending a lot on advertising, especially television advertising, it will see big spikes in traffic. Conservative estimates suggest that a 15-second advert can cause a web traffic spike of up to 223% within two minutes, but our experience is that this can be much higher. Spikes can also occur following press coverage or at certain times of the day.

A waiting room solution in place will prevent the website from crashing and, consequently, missed sales. However, a waiting room is also a good opportunity to keep prospective consumers engaged even when they can’t immediately make a purchase. 

One way to do this is to link your best deals on the waiting room page. Not only does this keep visitors occupied, but it encourages them to wait for these deals. CrowdHandler’s customisable waiting rooms are ideal for this. 

Niche Retailers and Luxury Brands: Doorbuster Flash Sales

For smaller, more niche retailers, the Black Friday season is a great opportunity to engage fans and loyal customers. One way to do this is with a “doorbuster” sale. 

A doorbuster sale is a limited-time, limited-stock sale where you sell small volumes of goods at a heavy discount. With doorbusters, CrowdHandler doesn’t just help to handle the increase in traffic – it’s an essential part of the process. 

CrowdHandler helps companies build hype for the sale by allowing them to design branded waiting rooms with countdown timers. Moreover, it can show visitors how many other people are also waiting, as well as stock availability to manage expectations. 

Since flash sales normally run on limited stock, not everyone will secure the deal. So, to keep things fair for your customers, CrowdHandler protects against bots by randomly assigning visitors a place in the queue after the pre-scheduled waiting period. 

Last year, BÉIS ran sixteen flash sales over the four-day Black Friday period using Crowdhandler to coordinate and control these drops. 

Mid-Sized E-Retailers: The Insurance Policy

If you’re a mid-sized e-retailer, you might be running discounts over the whole Black Friday period. Moreover, this is likely a big part of your annual sales, and you can’t afford for your website to go down. We’ve seen some of our users’ baseline traffic double across the whole Black Friday month. 

Here, CrowdHandler’s “catch-all” waiting rooms are ideal. Customers won’t see these waiting rooms, but they will monitor all incoming traffic. When traffic reaches a certain point, these rooms trigger with a simple message, such as: 

“Our Black Friday offers are attracting lots of traffic. Please be patient.”

It’s not ideal, but it’s better than your website going down. Our catch-all waiting rooms take less than 30 minutes to set up and allow your company to keep processing orders during busy periods. 

Crowdhandler

Ensuring your website can handle Black Friday is key to protecting your sales and reputation. Whether you're a big box retailer preparing for major spikes, a niche brand leveraging flash sales, or a mid-sized e-retailer needing a reliable safety net, CrowdHandler can help keep your customers engaged and your site running smoothly. 

Don’t leave your Black Friday success to chance – optimise your strategy with CrowdHandler and make the most of this vital sales period.

To see how CrowdHandler can strengthen your Black Friday strategy, sign up for free.