Black Friday is over. Now what?

Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. 👋 

We'll send you weekly emails, every Wednesday, trying our best to deliver great value to your inbox.

In this newsletter, you'll find:

💠 Record-high Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales for Shopify merchants

💠 What can DTC brands focus on before the year ends?

💠 Last-Minute Checklist for BFCM and the Holiday Sale

Record-high Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales for Shopify merchants

Shopify merchants achieved a groundbreaking $9.3 billion in sales during Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.

Marking a 24% YoY increase 👏

Here are some key BFCM insights:

👉 Hottest product categories: apparel and accessories, health and beauty, and home and garden.

👉 Average order value: $108.12.

👉 Top selling countries: U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and Germany.

👉 Top-selling cities: Los Angeles, New York, and London.

👉 Shop Pay experienced a 60% YoY increase in sales.

👉 17,500+ entrepreneurs made their first sale on Shopify.

👉 Over 55,000 merchants achieved their highest-selling day ever on the platform.

I hope everyone reading this did great on BFCM too!

What can DTC brands focus on before the year ends?

If you think the year is over. Think again.

Even though the peak season is indeed over for many brands, there are still some things you can leverage before the year ends.

Let's go through a few of them:

🎁 HOLIDAY SALE:

Typically, when BFCM is over, many advertisers lower their ad spend.

Which causes advertising costs to go down.

That creates an opportunity for many brands to offer their audience the last chance to get some good deals before the year is over.

📈 ANALYZE 2023:

This is as good a time as any for analyzing what happened in 2023.

I'd suggest looking at the following:

👉 Top/worst-selling months VS 2022

👉 Top/worst-selling products

👉 Top/worst-performing customer acquisition & retention channels

👉 KPIs: AOV, CAC, LTV, New vs Returning Customers, Avg. orders/yr per customer, revenue, and profit margins

👉 Go through the positive and negative reviews

👉 Identify your top customers and try to find common patterns

🎯 PLAN Q1:

Based on your analysis of 2023, define your goals for Q1.

Or even for the entire year.

I firmly believe that to get specific answers, we need to ask the right questions.

Sounds easy, but it's not.

Here are some ideas:

👉 What goals would you like to achieve?

👉 What products would you like to launch/discontinue?

👉 Where are the main bottlenecks that are preventing your business from growing?

👉 What channels are helping you the most?

👉 What feedback have you received from customers, and how can you incorporate it into your strategies for improvement?

👉 Are there any recurring customer issues that need to be addressed?

👉 What are your competitors doing successfully, and how can you adapt or differentiate to stay ahead?

Of course, the list is endless, but I believe these are very important aspects to consider when planning ahead.

Last-Minute Checklist for Black Friday and the Holiday Sale

Black Friday is over, and this episode aired on that same day.

However, there are many opportunities to capitalize on before the year ends.

And this checklist might still be useful for that too.

In this episode of The DTC Insider podcast, we discussed:

👉 Last-minute things to check before BFCM.

👉 How you can leverage this even after BFCM is over

🎧 Tune in to our latest episode: https://thedtcinsider.com/

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