You're already doing a lot of hard work to get ready for BFCM — but what about those who have your back?
Both Shopify and its large community of theme and app developers — plus third party experts — have invested heavily in getting ready for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday explosion in online shopping.
- All Shopify stores are hosted on the company’s advanced platform that’s designed to achieve 99.9 percent uptime as well as protect you and your customer’s data.
- That means there’s no need to worry about finding and paying for a reliable Web hosting company — or configuring any of the complex server settings that can come with that.
- Shopify’s servers are Level 1 PCI compliant, which means you and your customer’s payment information (and other data) are stored under industry-leading security strategies and best practices.
- Shopify also includes free SSL certificates for all stores, ensuring that the connection between your online store and your customers’ device is encrypted.
- During busy shopping seasons such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online stores can see huge spikes in traffic, which could result in slow performance or even downtime … and while no server setup is ever fully safe from cyber attacks or downtime (even Google goes down from time to time), Shopify has invested heavily in personnel, equipment and software to make sure stores remain “up” even during the busiest shopping seasons.
- Shopify offers a realtime dashboard of various data points once the shopping seam stats.
- During the four day period starting with Black Friday 2017 and ending with Cyber Monday, Shopify processed a combined total of over $1.3 billion in sales.
- At its peak, 2017’s BFCM season saw Shopify’s servers successfully process approximately $1.3 million in orders every minute.
- Shopify’s advanced content delivery network is designed to host tens of millions of optimized product images that are delivered fast to users around the globe.
- Unlike some other hosting solutions, Shopify has no limits on how many images or other files you can upload — or how many times your files and store pages are downloaded by shoppers.
- From a practical standpoint, Shopify’s platform also gives you the power and flexibility to offer unlimited products and process as many orders as you need.
Besides the nerdy server stuff, Shopify has also worked to create resources in a wide variety of areas to help merchants succeed on BFCM.
- Once again, Shopify is offering its “BFCM Toolbox,” a hub of information to help merchants make the best of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, the page is updated as BFCM gets closer with “to do” lists for merchants.
- Shopify’s blog is also regularly updated with more BFCM themed topics.
- In addition to the BFCM-specific material, the Shopify Academy online training is another invaluable resource for Shopify store owners — whether for those just starting out or for more experienced merchants.
- Shopify’s constantly updated and expanded help center is also a key resource for BFCM, as well as during other times of the year.
- The “Live View” feature of Shopify also allows store owners to monitor all of the vital performance indicators during Black Friday and Cyber Monday — and all year round.
In addition to Shopify itself, independent companies that develop themes, apps and custom stores for the platform are also offering pro tips and advice for getting shops BFCM-ready.
- Leading Shopify theme developers Out of the Sandbox and Pixel Union have partnered to offer a free comprehensive holiday prep eBook.
- Out of the Sandbox’s 2017 BFCM blog series “BFCM Prep” remains available online for free and all articles have been updated as needed to reflect new information and trends.
- In addition, Out of the Sandbox released a list of 50 theme-focused tips for BFCM.
- Out of the Sandbox also provides a knowledge base of documentation all year round with valuable tips, tutorials and resources that let you access information on demand — without having to contact support.
- While everyone hopes that your Shopify store will perform at its best during BFCM, if something does go wrong, Out of the Sandbox has created resources with tips for how you can handle emergency issues — even over the weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday when support isn’t open.
