5 Mistakes That Ruin Your Black Friday in Chile

I've seen incredible Black Fridays and I've seen disasters. The difference is almost never the product or the discount -- it's the execution. These are the mistakes I see repeated most often in Chilean stores and how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: Inflating prices before the discount

Chilean consumers have caught on. They use browser extensions that track prices, check old screenshots, and call out inflated prices on social media. SERNAC (Chile's consumer protection agency) is watching too.

Solution: Apply real discounts on prices that have been published for at least 30 days. If your margin doesn't allow a 40% discount, offer an honest 15%. Trust is worth more than a big percentage.

Mistake 2: Not preparing your site for traffic

On Black Friday your traffic can multiply by 5x or 10x. If your store can't handle it, you lose sales and you lose the marketing investment you made to bring those people in.

Solution:

• Contact your hosting provider and ask about traffic limits
• If you use Shopify, this problem is solved -- the infrastructure scales automatically
• Disable unnecessary apps or plugins that could slow down load times
• Run load tests the week before

Mistake 3: Discounting your ENTIRE catalog

Putting everything at 20% off is the lazy strategy. It dilutes your margin, confuses the customer, and creates no urgency.

Solution: Select 10 to 20 star products with the best discounts. The rest can have a smaller discount or none at all. This creates "anchor" products that attract traffic and cross-sells.

Mistake 4: Forgetting about mobile

70-75% of your Black Friday traffic will come from phones. If your mobile checkout has friction -- tiny buttons, long forms, slow checkout -- you're losing most of your sales.

Quick mobile checklist:

• Complete a full purchase from your phone
• Check that banners are readable on a small screen
• Confirm that add-to-cart and checkout buttons are easy to tap
• Test on the slowest connection you can (basic 4G)

Mistake 5: Having no post-Black Friday plan

You acquired 500 new customers. Now what? If you don't have a plan to turn them into repeat buyers, Black Friday was just an expensive sales spike.

Solution:

• Set up a thank-you email that arrives 3 days after delivery
• Offer a coupon for their next purchase (valid through Christmas)
• Add these customers to your email marketing list with a welcome sequence
• Request reviews at 7 days -- social proof helps you all year long

The golden rule

Black Friday isn't a day. It's a campaign that starts weeks before and ends weeks after. The stores that understand this are the ones that truly grow.

If you still have time to fix any of these mistakes, do it this week. Every detail counts when volume multiplies.