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10 Black Friday Sale Ideas for Small Businesses in 2023

GemPages Team
Black Friday
 ,
Holiday marketing ideas
Updated:
9 minutes read
Black friday small business ideas

Black Friday is a great opportunity for small businesses to earn big profits.

And that’s why this blog post is created specifically for small businesses like yours. 

We understand that small businesses may not have great profit margins and that’s why we have focused on sale ideas that can be helpful to increase your profits.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the Black Friday sale ideas for small businesses along with many tips to help you execute your strategies effectively.

As reported by NRF, 196.7 million consumers shopped during the holiday shopping season—from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

thanksgiving stat

Now, let’s get started!

1. Flash Sale or Deal of the Day

Flash sale is a promotion where discount offers are given for a limited time period such as 24 hours or 48 hours sale.

Since the deals are supposed to be over in a limited time, it creates FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and intrigues customers to complete the purchase before it’s gone.

One of the best ways to keep your customers visiting your store is to keep coming up with new offers. It will entice them to keep checking what new offers are released.

To do this, you may run 24-hour sales every day throughout the BFCM week.

Here’s one of the great examples of a flash sale that was announced by ColourPop Cosmetics:

48-hour flash sale promotion by ColourPop Cosmetics

Pro tip:

Create a special landing page for your flash sale promotion. You can use GemPages to create high-converting landing pages using its AI-powered feature, templates, or drag-and-drop visual editor. Write copy that creates a desire to take advantage of the flash sale and gives customers a sense of urgency.

2. Buy More Save More or Bundle Offers

This is one of the best types of sales promotion for small businesses.

Why? Because it encourages customers to purchase more from your brand in order to save more. Thus, it not only helps increase the average order value (AOV) but also increases your revenue and profits.

In this offer, when customers purchase more items in a single package (bundle), they get more discount on that order as compared to purchasing those items individually.

Create and offer special discounts on bundled products. For example, you can create a bundle package of 5 products that are worth $50 each, meaning a total value of $250. And then, offer the bundle for $210. This way, you can show customers that they can save $40 on the bundle deal. 

Here’s how one of the Shopify-powered brands, Shop Hillywood, promoted its Black Friday campaign with the “Buy more, save more” promotion on X (formerly Twitter). On top of that, the brand also offered a free Hillywood Tote Bag.

Pro tip:

Create bundle offers mindfully and strategically. You need to have a customer-centric approach. Your bundle needs to offer value to customers and don’t bundle random items together. You can review and analyze past data to see what products your customers typically buy together and create bundles accordingly.

And one more thing: make your bundle offers captivating enough to instantly catch visitors’ attention when they land on your pages. Consider using GemPages as your preferred choice, as it offers a user-friendly editor that empowers you to create visually eye-catching product bundle offers with ease. 

3. Sitewide Percentage Discount Sale

This is one of the easiest methods to set up a discount.

By offering a fixed percentage discount on all products on your store, you won’t need to set up different discounts for different products.

However, there’s one catch! This type of sale is not suitable for all businesses. You need to check your profile margins. If your products vary significantly in profit margins, it won’t be a good idea to offer a sitewide discount. You might end up offering more discounts on products with thin margins as well.

Analyze the pricing of all of your products to see what discount can be offered without cutting too much of a margin.

Here’s how Lotus Foods offered a 30% sitewide discount on Black Friday:

sitewide discount

4. Buy One Get One Sale

“Buy one, get one” also known as BOGO or BOGOF (Buy one get one free) is one of the most popular sales promotions in eCommerce.

The word “free” is the key in this method. Customers love it when they get something for free and this offer gives the delight of getting something for free.

Pro tip:

If you don’t have a big profit margin, you may create a different version of this offer, e.g., “Buy Two, Get One Free” or “Buy Three, Get One Free”. This will help you take advantage of this offer without giving away a big portion of your margin. It also helps you increase the AOV.

Here’s a great example of how Fan Ink created multiple offers with different codes for its customers:

buy 1 get 1

5. Cashback Offer

This type of promotion can entice customers to buy your product for cashback savings. It helps increase the conversion rate as customers tend to see the real cashback benefit more intriguing than the % discount.

Here’s how Camera Center promoted its cashback offer:

6. Loyalty Point Rewards Promotion

As a small business owner, you may be looking to give less of a cash discount because it directly reduces your profit margin and you have no guarantee that customers would spend the saved amount with your business only.

However, if you have a loyalty program on your store, you can ensure that the customers would spend their savings with your business only. And thus, it’s a great technique to save profit margin.

Reward your customers with loyalty points instead of cash discounts. To do this, you need to have a loyalty program solution on your eCommerce store. For example, Shopify merchants can install loyalty program apps on their stores.

Here are some loyalty program apps for your Shopify store:

7. Gift Card Promotion

Gift card promotion is also a great strategy for small businesses as it helps you create an enticing offer without offering direct cash discounts.

On top of that, it encourages customers to return back to your store and buy again with the gift card. Most importantly, it makes customers feel special and increases loyalty.

Here’s how DNVR Locker promoted its gift card offer (spend $75 & you get a $15 gift card!) with a short creative and funny video:

8. Early-Bird Discount Promotion

You don’t need to wait until Black Friday to start your promotion.

Early-bird discount promotion means the discounted pricing is given for a certain time period before the event of Black Friday.

For example, this year Black Friday falls on November 24th but you can start your Black Friday promotion from November 10th.

It helps you create a buzz before your competitors and increase the opportunities to increase your sales.

9. Offer Samples as Free Gifts

By offering samples as free gifts, you can encourage customers to try out your new products. This will not only help you bring traffic to your website but also increase your potential for future sales.

You may also offer free gifts along with purchases made for a certain order value. This way, you can encourage customers to shop for more items and increase the AOV.

Here’s an example of how Kylie Baby promoted its Black Friday offer with a 40% sitewide discount on baby essentials along with a free gift on any $70+ order. The brand also made sure to specify the offer end date to create urgency.

10. Referral Discount Promotion

This helps spread the word and increase your sales.

Encourage customers to share a referral code with family members and friends for discounts and reward your customers for successful referrals.

If you’re using Shopify, you can install an app for referrals to ensure smooth transactions. Here are some of the recommended apps:

Tips for Black Friday Promotions for Small Businesses

Here are some quick tips that you should consider during Black Friday:

Don’t Miss Out on Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday® was founded by American Express back in 2010 to encourage customers to shop from small businesses during the holiday season. Since then, this event has been celebrated every year by supporting small businesses.

You can create special social media campaigns and promote them with the two popular hashtags: #SmallBusinessSaturday and #ShopSmall. You may also share some creative ideas about how people can support you in spreading the word about your small business.

Here’s a great example of one such post on Instagram by @thesmallbizangel:

An Instagram post about supporting a small business

When customers visit your website during the Black Friday season, they must feel that they’ve landed on your store for a special occasion. GemPages can help you redesign your homepage, product, and collection pages with its advanced features.

The key features include an AI-powered image-to-layout feature, an easy-to-use visual editor, and a template library with professionally designed templates for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and so on.

GemPages’ templates

Customize your Shopify store pages your way
The powerful page builder empowers you to create store pages that bring unique experiences and convert customers. No coding needed.

Optimize Your Store for Mobile:

Many customers prefer to shop from their mobile devices.

In 2022, 42.4% of Black Friday revenue—about $3.7 billion—for eCommerce businesses came from smartphones and the average conversion rate on mobile increased to 3.3% on Black Friday.

That’s why it’s important to make sure that when customers visit your website through mobile devices, they get the best user experience. Here are some useful resources that might help you:

Mobile Conversion Optimization: 10+ Proven Tactics

8 Tips to Create an Effective Mobile Product Page that Converts

Offer Curbside or In-Store Pickup:

The US-based stores that offered curbside or in-store pickups saw a massive 50% increase in their revenue as compared to the retailers that did not offer such pickup options. 

So, if it’s feasible for you, offer and promote these pickup options during Black Friday. And don’t forget to highlight it in your marketing materials including social media posts.

Offer Free Shipping:

Free shipping is a great strategy to increase conversion rates. When you’re offering free shipping, make sure to utilize it in your promotional campaigns and highlight it on your website as well. 

For example, you can put the free shipping promotion in your announcement bar and trust badges. Create posts about the free shipping offer and share them on social media.

Here’s the detailed guide on How to Do Free Shipping on Shopify.

Run Social Media Marketing Campaigns:

For small businesses, social media is one of the biggest platforms to run marketing campaigns. Get the word out there to your potential customers using social media. 

Here’s a detailed guide to Social Media Campaign Ideas.

And for small businesses, we know you're looking to pinch pennies when it comes to marketing campaigns. It's possible with clever tactics. For instance, use page builders like GemPages to create Black Friday landing pages for your social campaign on your own. No need to spend on a coding team, it saves your budget!

Not ready to commit but still want to kick the tires?
No problem! Get started with GemPages' free plan. Explore wonderful features that can do wonders for your store.

Get Ready to Start Your Black Friday Sales Promotion

Now that you have all the ideas and strategies to implement on Black Friday, start preparing for it as early as possible.

Aim to launch your campaigns well before Black Friday to create excitement and anticipation among your potential and existing buyers.

When implementing your strategies, you need to monitor and analyze the data on a real-time basis to see what’s working the best and channel your efforts there.

FAQs about Black Friday Promotions for Small Businesses

How to prepare for Black Friday for small business?
Small businesses should prepare strategies for Black Friday in advance. Focus on three key aspects: 1. Create compelling offers based on your profit margins, 2. Choose the right channels/platforms to promote your offers, 3. Implement your marketing strategies on those channels/platforms.
For example, fashion and beauty brands can focus on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Is Black Friday good for small businesses?
Yes, Black Friday is a great opportunity for small businesses to increase sales and revenue. In fact, the entire holiday season—from Black Friday to Cyber Monday—is one of the biggest opportunities for small businesses to become profitable.
What sells the most on Black Friday?
According to Amazon—one of the largest eCommerce retailers in the world—the best-selling categories during 2022 were Home, Fashion, Toys, Beauty, and Devices.
How do you attract customers on Black Friday?
To attract customers on Black Friday, you need to implement proper marketing strategies. You can bring traffic to your website via email newsletters, social media marketing campaigns, influencer promotions, and content marketing. Apart from all these, you can also use PPC (Pay-per-Click) ads to drive traffic and conversions.
Topics: 
Black Friday
 ,
Holiday marketing ideas

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