1. Test the Limits of Your Customers’ Website Performance

The surge of online shopping during Black Friday and throughout Cyber Week can overwhelm websites that aren’t equipped to handle large traffic volumes. ISVs and VARs should advise merchants to load-test their websites to simulate peak seasonal levels. If the website fails to perform, discuss these options with your clients and even offer your services to correct issues.

• Identify and correct bottlenecks like slow code or features that hinder performance.
• Scale system resources to accommodate an influx of users.
• Use a CDN (content delivery network) to boost website speed.
• Improve server size to handle more users.
  
  

Some of your clients who operate brick-and-mortar retail stores may be looking for help to build an ecommerce presence this holiday season. Advise them on how to adapt their websites with plugins like Magento or WooCommerce or iframes that allow them to add HTML content so they can sell online. Hosted payments pages can enable merchants to accept online payments quickly and securely without complex integration and expanding their PCI scope. Be ready to help merchants choose the best option for their businesses and provide the support they need to execute their plans.

2. Prepare for More In-store Traffic

In addition to making sure your clients can handle more Black Friday traffic on their websites, also make sure they can keep lines short and customers happy in-store. Talk to your customers about their mobile point of sale (mPOS) capabilities. Sales associates with tablets or mobile devices can assist clients in the aisles, completing checkout or finding must-have holiday gift items in their inventory for home delivery or shipment to the store, capturing that revenue.

3. Create a Single View of Sales and Inventory Across Channels

According to Harvard Business Review, 7 out of 10 consumers use multiple channels throughout their entire purchasing journey. Additionally, data from eMarketer reveals that 72 percent of consumers use their smartphones while in a physical store to compare product prices at other nearby merchants. Your Black Friday checklist should include equipping retailers with tools to deliver a single, accurate view of inventory and pricing across all channels to prevent overselling and losing sales due to out-of-stock items.

4. Help Merchants Accept All Forms of Payment

Offering flexible payment choices is critical for delivering a competitive customer experience. Beyond the traditional payment methods of cash, check, and credit and debit cards, ensure that your merchants can accept alternative payment methods. This includes digital wallets and contactless payments. Digital wallets are projected to account for half of all POS transactions by 2027, so equipping merchants to accept them across shopping platforms will keep them well-positioned within the market. Plus, PYMNTS and AWS report that consumers using digital wallets spend 31 percent more than non-users. This difference could help retailers build a little more revenue this holiday shopping season.
 

5. Streamline Processes to Offer Promotions and Discounts

A Black Friday checklist wouldn’t be complete without giving your customers a way to optimize marketing, promotions, and discounts across multiple channels. Two of the best tools within a merchant’s arsenal are omnichannel gift cards and loyalty rewards programs. Demand for gift cards, both physical and digital, is always in demand in Q4. Keep in mind that beyond purchasing cards as gifts, consumers will be motivated by gift cards as an incentive. A promotion that includes giving customers a gift card for purchasing certain items or when the sale totals a certain amount is a win-win. Customers will help move inventory, and they’ll return to use the gift card later. Help your customers deliver the right offers at the right time by ensuring your customers are equipped with marketing automation tools that use POS data to segment buyers into targeted lists.

6. Prepare for Returns Management and Fraud Prevention

The increased sales of the holiday season often, unfortunately, lead to higher returns and a rise in retail fraud attempts. A Black Friday checklist should include solutions to mitigate fraud and streamline returns processes. Help your clients anticipate returns without paper receipts, giving them ways to look up an electronic copy of the sale and authenticate the return. Also, ensure your customers are using fraud prevention best practices, including:

• Adopt return policies that require authentication for online transactions.
• Mitigate chargeback fraud by verifying higher-than-average transactions or flagging unusual activity.
• Leverage AI-enabled solutions to analyze data across multiple databases to catch and flag transaction anomalies.
• Enable gift card fraud prevention by deploying solutions that require online PINs and allow maximum value limits.
• Train merchants on mitigating losses with low-tech policies like prohibiting no-sales that open the drawer without a sale or unauthorized discounts or refunds.