Hello Marketers! It’s Ishani here – host of Your Marketing Podcast. We interrupt our normal broadcasting to bring you a special announcement. No, seriously, we are taking a pause for a brief second on our current Series – How to Start a Successful eCommerce Business in Less than 30 Days, to talk about 2020 Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

For e-Commerce businesses, the holiday season is huge! Most eCommerce business owners see the largest spikes in revenue from October through December, and with good reason: It’s really a mega shopping holiday! During the holiday season, a majority of eCommerce stores will double and even sometimes triple what they make for the rest of the year, combined. It’s pretty gnarly when you think about it. 

But this year is special, 2020 has been a wild ride for everyone. So should we throw-away the holiday season? I think not!  To get the most out of 2020 (even with COVID), you’ll need a good plan for great sales.

Let’s do a round up of what others in the industry are saying regarding preparing for the 2020 eCommerce holiday shopping season. Hopefully, we can recover some of the loss businesses had to endure during earlier days of COVID.

Earlier Holiday Shopping Season

    First thing’s first, experts are predicting the holiday season is going to start earlier than previous years. Here’s why:

An increase in online shoppers – More individuals are shopping online now more than ever before. Because most want to mitigate COVID exposure and also because many brick-and-mortar stores were closed, which has forced more people to shop online. We know this because eCommerce sales are up 55% year over year for the first seven months of the year due to the pandemic. I know personally I have experienced delays in shipping and also out of stock items. And So smart shoppers are going to order earlier to ensure they get their gifts on time.Being stuck indoors has been, well, depressing. Pinterest is already seeing increases in searches for holiday decorations. Everyone is ready to spread some cheer even if it’s 6-feet away from everybody else. So they are predicting people will be spending more to make this holiday season even grander!

So what does this mean for you? 

Start preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday now. Literally, now now. don’t wait any longer. The latest estimates from Adobe put 2020’s online sales matching 2019 levels by October 5th — that’s well before the holiday season.

Here’s what you should do:

Make sure you have inventory to support an influx. It would be horrible if you got traffic but they weren’t able to purchase. Make sure you are all stocked up or, at least, able to order more inventory in a timely manner.Start running advertising now. You don’t have to do huge sales or anything like that, but maybe start testing out different ad copy and promotions with your email list to get those early-birds in.Put together a gift guide on your website, like “gifts under $25”, “gifts for her”, etc. You can even make themes like “Stay-at-home gifts” etc. Since more people are shopping online, it’s key to give them a little push into what to buy for others. Make it enticing so they “buy.” Now.

This leads me right into the next BFCM prediction, #2, – items that are COVID-friendly might outperform your best-sellers. Crazy right? But everyone wants to give a gift that impresses and is usable right now. You may want to plan now to add more “COVID-friendly” items to your product lines. Items that skyrocketed in popularity since the Coronavirus outbreak include pajamas or loungewear, alcohol, skincare, electronics, fitness equipment, and furniture. Basically, fun stuff to do at home.

If you’re unable to add to your product line in time, then think about your messaging. Can you change your angle? Maybe use “at-home” language? Or “stocking stuffer”? Be creative and try to relate to the situation of your cus