As the holiday shopping season approaches, which usually runs from November 1st to December 31st, the question arises: how can you make the most of this period? Its peak will reach during the so-called Cyber ​​Five, or Cyber ​​Week, that it can generate 16.9% from all holiday season earnings.

Let's look at strategies that will help you get through this busy time and maintain a steady stream of conversions in the future.

Related: Increase Your Ecommerce Sales – 8 Proven Strategies for the Holiday Season

1. Maintain healthy margins while customers save

Rather than offering blanket discounts, a tiered discount system that increases based on cart value encourages larger purchases. Offering different levels of discounts motivates customers spend more to maximize their savings, which increases average order value (AOV).

For example, offer 10% off a $50 order, 20% off a $100 order, etc. By prioritizing upsell opportunities, selling high-margin products reduces the effect on overall profits. For example, show customers complementary items to increase the total value of the order, such as adding a phone case to a smartphone to reach $500 and unlock a 15% discount. This spreads the discount across all products, balancing costs while customers enjoy the savings.

Another approach is to sell high-margin packages with small discounts. Offer complementary or related items to the main product so that the customer reaches a certain order value to receive a discount. Consumers realize they're getting a deal, but higher-margin products help balance the cost. Last but not least, use your own buyer behavior data to provide real-time incentives. For example, you can set up a custom popup that appears after a user views certain products, suggesting orders over $100 to receive a 20% off coupon for their next purchase. This keeps current margins reasonable while encouraging repeat purchases.

2. Hurry up with exclusive offers beyond early access

Providing early access to BFCM may encourage registrations, grow your subscriber list and lower customer acquisition costs. Greater value from early access motivates a prospect to convert to a customer when the sale begins and maintains customer loyalty. You have a favorable situation:

• Customers are more likely to get the items they want without encountering “sold out”.
• You will distribute traffic to your website.
• Your brand benefits from increased engagement, which can turn into loyalty.

Early access is a strong draw on its own, but you can further incentivize signups with additional perks. The average cart abandonment rate is 82%with 62% of consumers citing high shipping costs as the main reason for this. The higher the value of the order, the less willing people are to pay for delivery: 19% will not pay for an order of €15, 27% for €50 and 35% for €150. A strategically timed pop-up that offers free shipping on orders over a certain threshold, displayed when a shopper is about to check out, can be both cost-effective and highly attractive to customers.

In addition, offering early Black Friday access to your most active customers or loyal members strengthens relationships with your highest lifetime value audience. A sense of exclusivity and urgency will encourage your customers to take advantage of a 'not for everyone' offer as soon as possible. An example of this approach is the LEGO or Sephora Insiders programs.

Related: How to attract higher quality customers

3. Gamified shopping: excite visitors and drive more conversions

Gamification adds interactivity and a sense of reward to the purchase process, increasing engagement and encouraging visitors to spend more time on your site. Earning discounts, collecting loyalty program points or participating in challenges improve conversion rates, increase AOV and reduce cart abandonment.

Gamification is about adding game-like elements to the traditional buying process. A common example of e-commerce gamification is a pop-up wheel of fortune. Claspo data shows that the Spin the Wheel popup has a 41% higher conversion rate than countdown timer popups. You can assign different incentives to wheel sectors, such as discounts, free shippinggift or festive packaging. With an advanced reward management system, you can set winning probabilities for each incentive – for example, 55% for a 10% discount, 30% for a gift and 15% for free shipping – allowing you to manage your pool to price effectively within the budget.

This interactive element keeps shoppers engaged, while the uncertainty of the reward increases the excitement of their inner winners. As an advanced tactic, behavioral data can be used to trigger pop-ups only when needed, when users are about to exit or leave the cart, motivating them to complete the purchase with a special discount.

Related: 7 Ways to Increase Customer Retention Through Email Gamification

4. Flash offers and countdown thrills: create FOMO

Black Friday is already a limited-time event, but you can turn on the FOMO with flash sales. The very limited time of such promotions creates a sense of urgency and scarcity among consumers, prompting them to make them instant purchase decisions. This approach is effective for generating excitement around high-demand products and clearing seasonal inventory.

Flash sales trigger FOMO, which is a strong psychological motivator and prompts browsers to make immediate purchase decisions. Timed promotions or hourly flash sales encourage consumers to check your site throughout the day to catch the latest deals. Also, you can introduce a mystery flash sale by keeping the assortment under wraps, which is especially powerful during BF when shoppers expect limited-time or exclusive deals.

Before the sale, encourage visitors to leave their email to be notified first, and during the event, display a pop-up window with a timer to notify them of the ongoing promotion and countdown to its end. Our clients have found that timer pop-ups and attractive offers can increase conversion by 112%. As an advanced tactic, A/B testing can be used to identify the most effective times for flash sales based on customer engagement data.

5. Put the user experience first

with 48% of consumers thoroughly researching products before purchasing and 62% from consumers saying they are more likely to buy a product after seeing it, access to information is essential. Enhance product pages with user-generated content, such as customer images or videos from reviews and social media. In particular, this type of content is often missing across multiple sites, so there is potential for growth and conversions.

Another way to do it improve user experience is using pop-ups, especially for new visitors. For example, if your Black Friday deals are limited to specific products, a pop-up or banner to inform users of the promotion ensures that shoppers don't miss out. One of found our customers that pop-ups promoting sale items increased cart additions by 15% and increased sales by 19%.

Essential Last Minute Tactics

Small actions taken early can yield big results, and the impact will be felt throughout the holiday season. Ideally, Black Friday preparations would have started in the summer, but there's still some time to get things moving. Data from Google shows that by December, shoppers complete less than half of their planned holiday shopping, meaning there's still room to capture additional sales, even after BFCM. Capture first-time buyers with early bird access, retarget buyers who showed interest but didn't convert with gamification, and engage returning visitors with exclusive offers.