Preparing your business for BFCM 2022 on SFN
BFCM and the holiday shopping season are the busiest time of year for shipping carriers and many businesses. Preparing your business for BFCM typically involves activities such as:
- Ordering inventory from suppliers in time for BFCM
- Determining and implementing sales and marketing strategies
- Setting correct customer expectations
Whether BFCM and the holiday shopping season is your businesses busiest time of year or not, the high volume of activity across fulfillment and shipping networks have an impact on your business that you should prepare for. Review the information on this page to understand what actions you might need to take to prepare your business for BFCM and the holiday shopping season.
On this page
Order inventory from your suppliers for BFCM
To ensure that SFN has time to process and distribute your inventory across the network, it's important to order inventory from your suppliers early. Because carrier networks often experience delays during the BFCM and holiday season, it's important to ensure that SFN has enough inventory available to fulfill orders without waiting for new inventory to arrive.
Enable back orders for your products
By default, products that you sell on your Shopify store stop being available for customers to purchase when the inventory reaches 0. If you are confident in your supply chain to replenish your inventory, then consider enabling products to continue selling when out of stock.
If you enable customers to purchase items after they're out of stock, then consider updating your product page to inform the customer that the product is on back-order and when they can expect to receive the product.
Hide out of stock products
To help highlight products that you have available to sell, you can configure your Shopify store to hide products that have 0 available inventory. By default, products that have no available inventory are still accessible on your store, but customers can't purchase them unless you've enabled back orders.
Hiding out of stock inventory can help your customers find products that you have available to sell, and prevent them from finding products that they're not able to purchase.
Learn more about hiding out-of-stock products.
Review your store's return and refund policy
During BFCM and the holiday shopping season, products are often purchased as gifts. Because products that are purchased as gifts typically take longer to be given to the person receiving the gift, it can help increase your customer trust by providing a longer return eligibility period. Review your store return policy and consider making changes that provide your customers additional options during BFCM and the holiday season.
Learn more about adding and editing store policies.
Review your store's shipping policy
Your shipping policy should be easy to navigate, clearly outline all required information, and be transparent with customers. Update your shipping policy with the following considerations:
- Order processing and cut-off times and are clearly communicated. For example, if an order is placed after 12 pm, then the order won't be processed until the next business day.
- Delivery dates are realistic. For example, SFN doesn't guarantee delivery within two days. Instead, for domestic orders, deliveries are made from three to five days.
- Domestic and international shipping options and speeds are displayed. For example, for international shipping, you display a list of countries that you ship to as well as the estimated delivery timelines. SFN offers fast international shipping of 5 to 7 days, and slow international shipping of 7 to 21 days.
- Information about returns, changes, and cancellations should be clear and easy to find.
- Potential service interruptions are addressed. For example, on your shipping policy page, you can include information about approximately how much longer shipping will take, as well as explain the reasons why shipping is delayed to your customers.
Consider also making changes to where shipping details appear, so that they're available where customers will need them. For example, important shipping details could appear on your website banner or product page.