Cyber Monday 2022: 5 Great Ideas for Small Businesses 

Shopping habits have been changing as the years go by. In 2022, the majority of Black Friday shopping is done online. Retailers are responding by hosting some deals that are exclusively online, or focusing on their social media marketing. 

43% of US shoppers would rather pay $20 more to support a small business than saving $20 by buying the same thing from a large retailer, according to Union Bank. This is good news for small businesses. With people already more willing to support small businesses, retailers can really stand to take advantage of the upcoming sales events. This article details some of the ideas that small businesses can implement to increase sales this Cyber Monday. 

Start Promoting Early

Large stores start advertising their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales around the beginning of November, or even before Halloween. A large part of their messaging focuses on gift ideas

While smaller businesses may not have the budget to launch paid  ad campaigns for a full month, they can still step up their advertising game in anticipation of Cyber Monday. This can include posting more about their upcoming sales on their social media, or running giveaways and contests. 

Use relevant hashtags such as #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday to get eyes on your page without paying a penny. This online activity can start as early in November as possible. 

Update Your Website

To prepare for increased online traffic, have a look at your online store to check that you can handle this. You can even enlist an IT specialist to help test your website and make any necessary changes to make sure that it will not crash if too many people try and buy your products at once.

Make sure that your website is also mobile-friendly. If not, you could lose huge amounts of revenue, as millions do their Cyber Monday shopping from their mobile devices. You can test it out on your own phone by trying to navigate your website and making an order. If this process is too slow or difficult, do your best to fix that.

Track Your Inventory Beforehand

Make sure you can support your offer. Holiday sales can end up emptying your stock, so put in the extra work to project quantities as needed. Your record from last year could be a valuable benchmark when estimating your stock needs.

As long as you have enough stock to support your orders, you should be fine. If you run out, be sure you have a plan ready to immediately alert customers and end your sales. 

Make sure to track inventory as accurately as possible. This means using software like MS Excel, which you can also use to do important calculations. Using software reduces the risk of human error in your stock calculations. 

Make Life Easy for Customers to Checkout

Beyond the Cyber Monday discount, try to see if you can make life easier for your customers both old and new when they are checking out. When purchasing online, often it is a lot quicker to buy something as a guest, rather than having to sign up with all your details and verify your email address.

When it comes to payments online, make sure you accept all credit cards or software like Paypal. A very popular thing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is buy now, pay later, a process that allows you to buy items and repay in installments. Any additional options that you can give customers when checking out online will only help to generate more sales.

Participate in Small Business Saturday

Although many shoppers are willing to shop small on Cyber Monday, there is a November shopping event especially for small businesses.

The Saturday before Cyber Monday is known as Small Business Saturday, and was founded by American Express to encourage shoppers to shop small. This event had an 18% increase in sales in 2021 for independent retailers and restaurants. It ended up bringing in $23.3 billion.

The Shop Small website has a directory of small local businesses, as well as a list of online businesses, who are participating in the event by offering discounts. If you try and get featured in the directory, you could see an increase in sales this Small Business Saturday.