We all know about Black Friday… but how much have you prepared for Cyber Monday?

Cyber Monday is the internet version of Black Friday, and a day of super sales in the digital world. As online shopping continues to grow, more and more people are looking to Cyber Monday to find deals on their favorite websites.

Don’t miss this chance to boost your online parts business!

Step 1: Decide on a discount, deal, or incentive.

More and more, customers are starting to EXPECT free shipping. And while that’s a scary thought for parts that are expensive to ship, it’s something you have to keep in mind on the big day.

Here are some reliable incentives you can offer:

• Free shipping: An easy way to avoid losing money on free shipping is to require customers to spend a certain amount before they qualify. For example, orders over $100 are shipped for free.

• Discount: There are a ton of different coupon types which you can offer on Cyber Monday, and it’s hard to say what’s the most effective. Since Cyber Monday is only one day out of the year, you can be more free with your discounts. It may mean slimmer margins, but the excitement of an amazing deal will stay on your customer’s mind for weeks or months to come. They’ll remember you next time!

• Free Shipping + Discount: To make a deal even more exciting, offer shipping and a discount together, resulting in something like, “Orders over $100 get 10% off + Free Shipping.” This makes the deal enticing for customers who think free shipping should always be offered online.

• Free gift: Ever thought about giving your customer an early Christmas? Tell your customers that every order over $50 or some other amount will get a free gift. It can be something small—like an air freshener for the car—but it’s still exciting to get something for free. Of course, since Cyber Monday is typically associated with sales, you shouldn’t JUST offer a free gift and deny your customers a chance to save some money. Try coupling this with a small discount!

Tips for setting up your discounts:

• Do the math and make sure you won’t lose money. It might be best to have your Cyber Monday sales only apply to parts that you know you can sell at a decent profit, so offering a discount or free shipping won’t be a risk.
• Make the offer limited time only. After all, Cyber Monday is only one day. It’s fair to have your coupon codes expire on Monday.
• Try offering a flat dollar amount discount. Instead of 10% off, try offering $10 off (or some other amount). Studies have shown that the flat dollar amount can sometimes be more effective, since the value is more clear. There’s no math involved, unlike figuring out what a 10% of 15% discount adds up to.

Step 2: Prepare the Monday logistics.

Without a bit of preparation, the rush of Cyber Monday sales can turn into a nightmare. You might see a massive influx of sales… are you ready to deal with it?

Make sure to dot your i’s and cross your t’s by making sure these details are taken care of:

• Enough inventory for the products you plan on promoting.
• Shipping materials (boxes, tape, packing materials).
• Extra Monday staff to get orders shipped out as soon as possible.
  • Worried you don’t have enough manpower? Read our article on how to ship more auto parts with less staff.
  • Decide if it’s time to invest in shipping management software, which can save your parts team a lot of time and hassle by organizing your orders and automating most of the shipping process.
• A parts eCommerce solution stable enough to handle an increase of customers and orders.

Step 3: Start your marketing.

Customers need to know in advance what you’re planning. If they know ahead of time what to expect during your Cyber Monday sales, they’ll pick YOU when they go to shop.

Cyber Monday is new enough that not all online retailers participate. At the very least, send your customers a promotional email at least a week in advance to let them know that your parts website is planning to offer some fantastic sales.

• Give “sneak peeks” of your offers. Are there specific sales or categories you plan on discounting (like Winter parts and accessories)? Tell customers ahead of time that they can expect to get from you. If they’re planning to buy certain parts or accessories in the near future, letting them know about your plans to discount it will let them know to wait and buy from your parts website.

• If you’re working with a Marketing Agency, increase your ad budget. Even if it’s just for the holiday season, this will give your agency the extra strength it needs to really advertise and promote your parts store with ad campaigns.

• Prepare an Abandoned Cart Recovery email campaign. Abandoned cart recovery emails are an easy and powerful way to save sales that might otherwise be lost! In the RevolutionParts platform, we call this “drift marketing,” but it’s the same thing. When customers prepare their order on Cyber Monday but leave without checking out, this type of setup will automatically email the customer and try to bring them back to complete their purchase.

Tips for creating an Abandoned Cart Recovery email:

Put together a simple template email that will send to customers who “Abandoned’ their order. Tell them that they’re going to miss out on your great Cyber Monday sales! Make sure to include a link back to your parts website.

To set up these emails, work with an email marketing software. Or, if you’re partnered with RevolutionParts, you can use the built-in Drift Marketing feature.

You can also try sending a second follow-up email the next day (Tuesday), with a “sorry you missed out” message. Include a discount code that the customer can use—although make the discount significantly less than what you offered on Monday. You might be able to recapture customers who wanted to buy parts but got distracted or just plain forgot to finish the order before midnight. By offering a “consolation” discount, you can still get a sale out of it.

The best results go to those who plan! Throwing together a last-minute Cyber Monday sale probably won’t see the same level of success as a tactical approach. The holiday season in general will be a fantastic opportunity for your parts website to capture extra sales and improve your bottom line.

And Cyber Monday is only the beginning! If you play your cards right, the entire month of December can lead to an influx of sales as your customers do their holiday shopping. Don’t miss out!