Are you ready for Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales?

I would highly urge the merchants and their partners to make sure they are covering the following areas when it comes to Adobe Commerce or Magento Opensource in regard to the preparation for the holiday and sales season to ensure the perfect execution of their business throughout the peak. These suggestions are based on my own years of experience working with Adobe Commerce and Magento Opensource. The advice provided below focuses primarily on improving your application and infrastructure because, as a customer, you may already have planned numerous marketing campaigns to boost your sales.

• Verify that Adobe Commerce or Magento Opensource are updated to the most recent version. There are constant product enhancements published by Adobe. These changes pertain to product features, performance, and security levels. Making sure you are using the most recent version will ensure that you have the greatest version to support your busy selling season. Here is an Adobe Commerce Upgrade Plan Checklist that you can use to ensure a successful upgrade.
• Check your catalog, category, and inventory in stock; wipe out what is no longer required. Even though it won’t have a direct influence, housekeeping is one of the most essential stages for an eCommerce company.
• If for any reason you are unable to update to the most recent version, at the very least make sure you have updated all of the most recent security and performance updates (but an ideal recommendation is to upgrade). Check this link for all the latest patches https://experienceleague.adobe.com/tools/commerce-quality-patches/index.html? lang=en

• Check that you computed your peak based on the concurrent traffic and sales at the time, bearing in mind your historical sales and scale. This calculation will assist you in preparing your cloud infrastructure for scaling during the busiest shopping season. To prepare for the peak period, scale up. It is best to perform a load test to gauge the infrastructural load before making a choice.
• Adobe has updated and published numerous Best Practices guidelines for Magento Opensource and Adobe Commerce. Make sure you have examined all of Adobe’s best practices for your eCommerce business with regard to all aspects of the market and have put into effect everything that makes sense for your company. It is highly advised that you read over these and put into practice everything that makes sense for your company. Here is the link to those best practices https://support.magento.com/hc/en-us/categories/360002582351-Best-Practices-

• Track your APM (App Performance Monitoring) tool in advance of the peak period of the year so you can identify all the slow queries and address them before the surge. This is a more proactive method of enhancing the health of your eCommerce website. Make sure to keep an eye on third-party connections and their response times to prevent performance bottlenecks. From my experience, my personal favorite has always been New Relic.
• When using Adobe Commerce Cloud, make sure the SWAT tool is being monitored. Adobe offers you a ton of advice regarding your code, infrastructure, security, and much more. Make sure you follow their advice to keep your business prepared for peak season. https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/commerce-operations/tools/site-wide-analysis-tool/intro.html? lang=en

• I am aware that marketing will play a significant role in this process. Make sure you are using the best automation tools, such as Adobe Campaign (for your marketing requirements), Target (for personalization and A/B testing) if you are using Adobe Commerce, and Dot Digital if you are using Magento Opensource to improve your marketing strategy.
• To track your visitors and their movements on the website, make sure you are connected with analytics tools like Adobe Analytics for Adobe Commerce and GA for Magento Opensource. It is best to continue keeping an eye on this ahead of time to make sure you are covering potential dropouts and to plan your promotions accordingly. With the help of the Adobe Experience Platform Connector, you can quickly and effectively link Adobe Analytics and Adobe Commerce.

This is not the exhaustive list of all that you need to do rather consider this as a starting point to be prepared for your holiday peak sales season. Following some of these recommendations will certainly help you have a head start with respect to the preparation. These recommendations are aligned with Adobe Commerce and Magento Opensource for now but they suit all the other commerce platforms out there (like the upgrade, patch, and query optimization).

All the best for your peak sales season.