Disappointing Black Friday? Why Retailers Need to Plan for 2023 Now

December 1, 2022

by Nicole Sorce

Yes, Black Friday was less than a week ago, and Christmas isn’t even here yet. However, it’s already time for retailers to think about the holiday shopping season for 2023 – especially if revenue numbers aren’t quite where they’d hoped for this time around. Immediately following a disappointing Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or related promotional sales day, tailoring your ecommerce strategy is a must – there’s no time to mope around! Here, Virtucom Group explains several reasons why retailers need to plan ahead for Black Friday 2023 (starting now).

You Just Learned Some Valuable Lessons

Numbers don’t lie. When your Black Friday results aren’t what you had hoped for, it goes without saying that there are some significant gaps in your ecommerce strategy. If your business experienced disappointing outcomes, such as any of the following, it’s time to identify solutions for more success next year:

  • High bounce rate
  • Increasing return rate
  • Shopping cart abandonments
  • Unimpressive organic web traffic
  • Complaints about the online consumer experience
  • Questions about the trustworthiness of your products or brand

It’s What Your Competitors Are Doing

Successful ecommerce doesn’t happen overnight. From our perspective, the most prosperous Black Friday retailers don’t wait until the weeks or months leading up to the shopping event – their planning starts almost a full year in advance of the next big sales day. Plus, these retailers aren’t doing everything on their own. They’re working with content firms like Virtucom Group, who have expertise in search engine optimization (SEO) and can help retailers’ products to outrank competitors on the search engine results page (SERP).

SEO and Content Creation Takes Time

We all have a lot on our plates – we get it. However, if you wait last minute to create your product content, you can’t expect great SEO statistics for your upcoming Black Friday. Driving traffic to your individual product and category pages takes a detailed, strategic approach.

Copying and pasting information from a data feed might sound convenient for populating all of your SKUs. But take it from us – it’s the last thing retailers should ever consider. For one, data feeds are often fraught with inconsistencies and errors, making it harder for your customers to find the products they’re looking for. Plus, SEO thrives on unique, engaging content, and search engines will penalize websites that publish duplicated content. This means that it will take a team of talented copywriters, editors, data specialists, and taxonomists, who are specifically trained to write retail copy designed to outrank the competition.

Plan Ahead for Black Friday 2023 with Virtucom Group

If you don’t have the internal employees to dedicate to ecommerce content creation, don’t worry – you’re not alone. Virtucom Group is here to extend any retailer’s resources, offering partnerships that take care of the content while our clients focus their time and efforts on other important aspects of their business. For more information, contact us today to schedule a consultation.

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