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chalkrevelations · 4 years ago

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Back, finally, with Word of Honor, Episode 11, which involved a lot of waving my hands around over precious button Zhang Chengling and his concern about whatever ridiculous argument between his Murder Dads left his shifu in a snit and must be solved right this minute. I really think if he could’ve just pushed their heads together like two Ken dolls to make them kiss and make up, he would have. Didi, I could eat you up with a spoon, although not in the creepy way that Du Pusa threatens. I promise.

First, though, due diligence: Spoilers, possibly likely for the entire show, not just this ep, so scroll away and come back later if you are still, at this point in the game, trying to watch the whole 36.5 eps unspoiled. Also, this is hella long. Strap in. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

First thing I actually want to do is point out a couple of scenes that I found particularly striking for various reasons. The first one is not quite the opening scene - which is super-brief and involves Yueyang’s prep for the Heroes Conference, Gao Shan (AKA Chengling’s bully-in-chief) being smug about Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance (oh boy, are you in for a surprise, you little schmuck), and Gao Chong’s extreme weariness at the idea of Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance. Gao Chong is very tired, y’all. It’s been a long 20 years. There’s also a ginormous sword on display, like Yueyang is now having a dick-measuring contest with who they think is the disciple of the Changming Sword Immortal (and oh boy, are you guys in for another surprise. I’m not sure what part of “immortal” y’all don’t understand). But I digress - as I said, this is a very brief scene, and then we cut back to Luo Mansion, where we left Ghost Valley and Lunatic Wen at the end of the last ep. Everyone is gone except for Wen Kexing, who’s still plotting, Beauty Ghost, who’s trying to stay tf out of this current shitshow as much as possible (good luck with that), and Tragicomic Ghost, who is totally and completely Done With This Shit. She berates WKX for acting crazy, he gets snappy back – I feel like their relationship is maybe a little bit fraught at this point – and Beauty Ghost attempts to soothe the waters, leading to an eyeroll from Tragicomic Ghost with a directive to stand the hell up and stop being scared of this idiot child throwing his weight around. WKX dismisses Tragicomic Ghost so he can plan a Very Secret Mission for Beauty Ghost in secret. WKX is … he is super-tired at this point. Painfully, achingly tired. I would almost say weary. We can see it in Gong Jun’s face. It’s a nice subtle bit of acting, and it definitely says something about WKX’s relationship with these women that he’s willing and able to show it in front of them, even as he’s still throwing his weight around.

Anyway, Liu Qianqiao proves her smarts by showing her hand just enough for WKX and us to see that she’s seen through the Lunatic Wen act to the utility of chokin’ out a dude as a warning, to try keeping Changing Ghost in line (good luck with that), but she also assures all of us that she only wants to serve the Ghost Valley Master and has no agenda of her own. WKX assures her that he has everything under control (Uh … huh. OK, my dude) and tells her he has a task for her, before detouring into a quiz about her disguise technique (learned from Qin Huaizhang, Zhou Zishu’s shifu at Siji Manor, and this is probably a tipoff that the Very Secret Mission will involve disguising herself), about Siji Manor, and about why she never visited there. We get some interesting vague hints about her past, including the fact that she met Qin Huaizhang when she was “little” and he took pity on her “disfigurement,” according to both the Youku and Netflix English subs. @coralcoloratura pulled out 童年时 (tóngnián shí) from the Chinese subs for me, which does mean “childhood.” Given that the going story is Yu Qiufeng’s wife threw acid in LQQ’s face over their affair, this opens up some questions about how old LQQ actually was when all that happened. Viki subs, per @janedrewfinally, add that she says she treated Qin Huaizhang to a meal, so she couldn’t have been too young. But Qin Huaizhang dies when ZZS is just 16, and LQQ can’t be any older than ZZS, and is likely younger (good lord, I just checked actor ages, and Ke Naiyu is 7 years younger than ZZH, so that’s probably not a good age gap to port over to the show, because just. No.). All this leads me to place LQQ at somewhere between Zhang Chengling’s age and Gu Xiang’s age (at most) when this whole tragic backstory happened, which is still pretty freakin’ young, and I can see why she would consider herself a child, at least metaphorically, in terms of naïvete, if not literally. I don’t know how much exploration has been done about this, on the fannish side of things, but it seems like an area rich for exploration. Also, I CANNOT TELL YOU how much I now want to read the AU of WKX and LQQ both actually being brought to Siji Manor at various times by Qin Huaizhang and staying there. I suspect that with those two shidi backing him, ZZS might never have had to go to Prince Jin in the first place. (Clearly this makes some things problematic, including A-Xiang, but I keep thinking about ZZS, WKX and LQQ growing up together … And anyway, I’m ALSO willing to read the AU(s) where WKX’s storyline stays the same, but LQQ does come to Siji Manor – both the AU where she and ZZS together manage to save the sect, and the AU where she goes with them to Jin, and the kind of weapon she could be for ZZS there, as he runs Tian Chuang. Who’s writing all this? Anyone? Anyone?) Anyway, when WKX asks why she didn’t visit Siji Manor, LQQ tells WKX that she’s a ghost now and doesn’t want to think about the living world anymore, which is probably a way of saying she wishes she had gone there and doesn’t want to talk about her many and varied bad decisions back in the day; it also acts as an unknowing reinforcement of that bright line WKX is desperately trying to maintain for himself between the world of ghosts and the world of humans. Plus it gives him the chance to speak the very portentous line that “Yes, we’re ghosts, and ghosts disappear in the light,” pulling the theme of light back in, again and giving us all kinds of foreshadowing. Cut away as he leans in to whisper her mission to her.

The other really striking scene, for me, happens near the end of the ep, when Gao Chong visits the shrine room, with the memorial tablets of his various brothers and friends. This hit me not just because of Hei Zi’s acting (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but also because this is a scene that reflects both backward and forward in the show - back to ZZS in Ep 1 and forward to the two scenes that Zhao Jing will have in this same room – as well as giving us all sorts of subtle clues about relationships throughout the show. So first of all, we see, in a shot that will mean more the deeper we get into the show, tablets for Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao (or, “his wife,” as the Youku subs call her, and this is me, rolling my eyes), who were apparently close enough to Gao Chong that he keeps memorial tablets for them on his home altar - which helps explain why WKX is so incensed that none of these Five Lakes Alliance assholes helped his parents when they were turned out of the Healer’s Valley, although that’s not something we would have known yet on a first watch through the show. Gao Chong lights some incense and apologizes to the tablet of Zhang Yusen for letting Zhang Chengling get kidnapped. He talks about waiting 20 years to learn the truth – which is kind of cryptic, but probably means the truth about who poisoned his sword before the spar with Rong Xuan, which we hear about in a later scene this ep – and gets a little bit salty about the fact that it doesn’t matter if everyone else doesn’t believe him, but why didn’t Zhang Yusen believe him? Again, I’m assuming this is about Gao Chong’s protestations that he’s not the one who put poison on his sword. We also learn in this same ep – from Chengling – that Zhang Yusen’s break with the Five Lakes Alliance seems to have at least started that far back, and that Yusen would have been at Mount Qingya to stand with Rong Xuan against his other Alliance brothers, if Yusen’s shifu hadn’t broken his legs so that he couldn’t travel there. (Yusen clearly had some strong feelings about this, if that’s what it took to get him to sit still for it. Also, it makes me wonder how Ye Baiyi’s feelings about Chengling might change if he ever learned that Chengling’s father intended to defend and stand with a guy who Ye Baiyi considered his own child, as well as his disciple.)

Gao Chong then proceeds to have a little crisis of faith – he’s very tired, y’all, it’s been a long 20 years – and talks about how no one understands him, and he’s old, and everyone’s dead. He also yells at Rong Xuan’s tablet, calling Rong Xuan da-ge but also saying he’s sorry he ever met him, but then there’s this brief little moment after, when he seems a little bit shocked at himself for saying it out loud, which reminds me, honestly, of the moment in CQL (we’ve all seen The Untamed, right, I don’t have to put spoiler warnings for it, right?) when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are in the Yunmeng Jiang memorial hall and Wei Wuxian talks about Yu Ziyuan’s punishments back in the day, then pats his own mouth and says “My fault, my fault, my fault” before bowing to her tablet. Like, yes, their relationship was multiple levels of fucked-up, and his reaction is not out of place given some of his continuing neuroses, but also, this is just not a thing you do, speaking ill of the dead to their faces. I’m sure Gao Chong does regret ever meeting Rong Xuan, and the way that led to the building of the Armory and the Five Lakes Alliance to guard it, and the position that ultimately put Gao Chong in - not to mention that if he never met Rong Xuan he never would have accidentally killed him. But you can’t say things like that OUT LOUD to the MEMORIAL TABLET. Then contrast this to Zhao Jing, who literally takes a piss on the tablet in one of the later episodes. Because he’s the worst. And THEN, Gao Chong kneels and talks to the tablets of Zhang Yusen and Lu Taichong, his dead Five Lakes Alliance brothers, saying they must have met again in the netherworld, and that they’re probably swearing about him right now, and this is the point when I sit straight up and exclaim, out loud, “Fuck. Me. This is Zhou Zishu’s breakdown at the mirror in Episode 1.” When he talks to Jiuxiao about how Jiuxiao and Jing’An must have met again in the afterlife by now and are probably discussing what an awful shixiong ZZS is, right? And then Gao Chong even laughs bitterly like ZZS, and cries like ZZS, and I just. OK. FINE, show. I’ll try to go a little easier on Gao Chong, because you’re clearly linking him to ZZS, here, and I’m willing to forgive ZZS for anything. I suppose I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t try to extend just a little bit of the same grace to Gao Chong.

So, that’s a lot of verbiage, and I haven’t even gotten to Wenzhou yet, but trust me, I have some things to say about them. While WKX has been terrorizing the troops, ZZS left Han Ying’s place and immediately started drinking again, because that continues to be the best way – in combo with his Nails – he knows to kill himself by increments, but so sad, he’s run out of wine as he wanders the marketplace, alone and zhiji-less. Inside Yueyang, Chengling finds a note purporting to be from “Xu,” instructing him to meet at the North Gate that night, and like the little idiot they keep calling him (he really is too pure for this world), he takes it at face value. On his way that night, he runs into Gao Shan, who inadvertently almost saves him by interrupting his sneaking around to try to bully him back to his room. Something something food as bonding, because the lie Zhang Chengling comes up with is that he’s hungry (he’s not eating Yueyang’s food, and it’s not nourishing him), and he’s on his way to find something to eat (because he and his Murder Dads are in a mutually nourishing relationship, and that’s who he wants to be with). Also, no, he would prefer going to find something to eat for himself and not eating whatever Gao Shan will bring back to Chengling’s room. (A little bit, I’m sad there’s never any place to fit in some canon-complicit long-form enemies to failboats to lovers fic for these two. I have to admit, I would read it. Someone should do something with the tension between them, although I don’t really want it to be anything that will make Best Boy permanently sad.) Anyway, A-Xiang shows up just as Gao Shan is about to frog-march Chengling back to his room, and Gao Shan never sees her coming before he’s knocked out on the ground. A-Xiang is confused about the note but nevertheless helps Chengling get to where he’s supposed to meet “Xu,” whereupon she gets beat up and gets her didi took by the Scorpions. (There’s an interesting moment here where Pretty Arhat is fighting with A-Xiang and asks what her relationship is to Beauty Ghost, which whaaaaaat? THERE’S some backstory I need more on. I’m assuming this is based on A-Xiang’s hand-to-hand fighting style, which I think is the only thing Pretty Arhat has seen at this point, and exactly WHEN has she gotten so familiar with Beauty Ghost’s fighting style? Also, I like the apparent nod to Beauty Ghost’s influence in raising A-Xiang (and we’ll see more of this).) Meanwhile, ZZS has been inexorably drawn to the place he left his child disciple child and is moping right outside of Yueyang, so he sees Pretty Arhat fly away with Chengling. Murder Dad 1 springs into action.

Yueyang disciples run around like ants whose hill has been kicked over, looking for Chengling in town, and two of them encounter Wen Kexing, out for a midnight stroll in a fetching pastel blue and green combo. They ask him about seeing a guy. With a pipa. Or maybe without a pipa. So maybe just a guy. Wen Kexing correctly deduces they’re asking about Phantom Musician Qin Song, who covered Pretty Arhat’s getaway by incapacitating everyone with his magic music. YY disciples are excited and tell WKX yes, this dude was involved in kidnapping Zhang Chengling! Y’all. WKX’s face when he hears that. He is not happy. Almost immediately, he spots Qin Song on a rooftop. Murder Dad 2 springs into action.

So, WKX the Ghost Valley Master finds Qin Song, asks him where Chengling is, crushes his playing hand, threatens to break every single bone in his body one at a time (meanwhile dropping the tidbit that he learned the number of bones in the human body from his dad), and tells him a little story about a time when – apparently – he asked another guy the same question (about WHO? has A-Xiang been kidnapped in the past, because that’s about the only other person I can imagine him being like this about?) and only had to break 80 bones before he got an answer. Meanwhile, ZZS actually finds Chengling, in the Scorpion lair where Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat have variously been molesting him (srsly, I feel like I should probably say something to a trusted adult Murder Dad), torturing him with unpleasant magic pixie dust, smacking him around (he loses a tooth, y’all), and waterboarding him. During all this, Pretty Arhat says she’s yet to meet a man who can stand up to waterboarding, and I’m kind of reminded of WKX’s scene threatening Qin Song, and I don’t know if that’s on purpose or not. Chengling literally spits in her face and proclaims that he’s the son of Zhang Yusen, none of whose sons are cowards, and about then, ZZS busts down the door like he’s WKX (by throwing Monster Jiang through it), tells the Scorpions he’s their daddy, and gets into a big fucking fight with all three of them. He flags a little bit somewhere in here as he starts having some Nail pangs (which, yeah, it must be getting about midnight, which is when that’s supposed to happen) and spits some blood, but he reassures Chengling and then tells the Scorpions no one can stop him from killing who he wants and getting what he wants (OK, Wei Wuxian …). Then he shoots some projectiles from some little contraption up his sleeve that we get a quick look at that I did not remember AT ALL from my first watch of the show but is literally like the gun hanging over the mantel in the first act. Huh. Anyway, he kills Monster Jiang, and Du Pusa (who didn’t give a shit about Monster Jiang OR Qin Song earlier), wants to capture him alive, supposedly so she can get revenge for them by teaching him how it feels “to want to die more than live.” Joke’s on you, lady – too late! That’s literally his constant state of being!

About this time, Qin Song comes flying through the doors – or what’s left of them – gasping his last breath as WKX makes his dramatic entrance. Chengling not only calls him “Wen-shu” but also has already figured out exactly how to manipulate Murder Dad 2 and tells him that in addition to kidnapping him, they also hurt ZZS. WKX is predictably murderous, and Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat run away and hide behind the skirts of Xie Wang’s robes as the Zombie Drug Man Army approaches. WKX tells ZZS to take Chengling and leave, ZZS refuses, and Xie Wang LITERALLY SAYS “IN LIFE AND DEATH YOU WILL NEVER PART. WHAT A TOUCHING MOMENT.” and I am DYING. Also, this will not be the last time ZZS/WKX will exhibit what Xie’er wants from his Awful Yifu. Anyway, Xie’er calls ZZS “Leader Zhou,” then tells WKX that he’ll tell them who he (Xie Wang) is if WKX tells them all who he is first. ZZS is Very Done with all of this and smoke bombs the Scorpions to escape. Xie’er shows he actually does know who both of them are – even though each of them doesn’t know everything about the other’s identity yet, and won’t for a while – by telling Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat that they’re the leader of Tian Chuang and the leader of the Ghost Valley and wondering “How did these two devils end up together?” Like calls to like, I guess.

OK, this is getting super-long, so I’m going to attempt to wrap up with the actual Wenzhou material. We cut to Murder Dads and Chengling sitting in the forest, around a campfire, and Chengling is in heaven, back with his family. He’s super-emotional, and ZZS is all, come on, be a man, don’t cry (OK, crybaby). WKX gives some campfire-cooked rabbit? maybe? to ZZS, who starts a precedent by passing it to Chengling. Please, A-Xu. WKX wants to feed his laopo, will you eat something, ffs? Chengling, still emotional, tells them that he knows they’re the only ones who are sincerely kind to him, that Five Lakes Alliance has all kinds of agendas and none of them care about him, and nobody has asked him what he wants. (I know, bb, they were awful.) ZZS asks what he wants, and Chengling says he wants to learn martial arts, to get revenge, and to not be a useless child anymore. Oh god, the cut to WKX here. His face, y’all. He is not cool with the fact that Chengling thinks he can’t be a child anymore, and probably with whatever role he (WKX) had in it. He is so sad. It’s killing me. However, it’s not as if WKX has lost his edge, and he also pounces, asking Chengling if something happened that made him suspicious of the Alliance. Chengling spills that his dad already didn’t trust them and also told him not to trust anyone ever, but he trusts his Murder Dads! This kid, I tell you. He tells them that his dad hid the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor in his stomach and starts getting ready to cut it out for them before ZZS stops him. He tells them Yusen gave him a letter for the Changming Sword Immortal detailing Rong Xuan’s injury (and we get our first iteration of the story of the battle between the Five Lakes Alliance brothers and Rong Xuan, the poison on the sword, and how that turned Rong Xuan evil). Per Chengling, the original argument was about the Combined Six Cultivation Method. Also per Chengling, the Alliance bothers should have been responsible for Rong Xuan after that, but no one stood up for him – I mean, Zhang Yusen would have, but his legs were broken. We learn that the poisoned sword that injured Rong Xuan belonged to Gao Chong. ZZS looks taken aback, but this all just CONFIRMS WKX’s SUSPICIONS.

Cut away for another scene. Cut back. ZZS has suddenly remembered that he’s pissed off and that someone (else, not him) is sleeping on the couch tonight. Earlier, they were sat in order of Chengling, ZZS, WKX. Now Chengling has been put between them. WKX asks for wine, A-Xu is being passive-aggressive and ignoring him before finally handing the wine gourd to Chengling to pass to WKX. He won’t even look at WKX. It is hilarious, particularly as he only remembered he was mad after they’d all eaten dinner, which WKX cooked, and the pair of them made sure their child was OK. Chengling wants to know if they fought and tells them there’s nothing confidants can’t resolve. He’s in full puppy mode. He tells WKX to hurry up and comfort ZZS, because you know he looks tough on the surface but he’s got the softest heart! Didn’t you teach me that tough women can’t resist clingy men? ZZS’s indignant little face at this is a picture. Chengling offers to apologize for WKX. WKX’s face is all fondness for Chengling, except for the eyebrows, which are doing the Tragic Sadness Eyebrows at ZZS. ZZS is all, OK, fine, although he immediately changes the subject and starts talking about the kidnapping attempt. He tells Chengling that the world is dangerous right now, and the safest place for him is Yueyang Sect. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? Chengling sadly nods. My little dude, c’mon. ZZS’s Nails are bothering him and WKX takes the chance to feed him qi, which ZZS accepts – might I note - without complaint. WKX waxes rhapsodic about A-Xu’s shoulder blades, and says he once saw a dead body with beautiful shoulder blades. Smashcut to a flashback of two people who we don’t yet know are Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao dead on the ground. Although this takes place immediately after the scene of Gao Chong at the altar, when the first tablets we see are Zhen Ruyu’s and Gu Maiomiao’s, we also don’t know yet to connect those names to these bodies. Tricksy, show. We see Zhen Yan place his hand on Gu Miaomiao’s back, and WKX’s voiceover talks about how he could tell she was a beauty despite the blood everywhere. ZZS interrupts this morbid tale to say they should let the past stay in the past, and then tells WKX, “My condolences,” even though WKX hasn’t actually mentioned anywhere in the story about this dead body that it was even anyone he knew, let alone someone he was related to. Because A-Xu isn’t stupid. Immediately after this - after saying they should leave the past in the past - ZZS asks WKX who he is. WKX goes into his Philanthropist Wen evasion spiel. ZZS shakes his head, visibly steels himself, and apparently comes to the decision to model the behavior he’s trying to encourage by coming clean about his real name, his relationship to Siji Manor, all of his bad decisions, his choking guilt over the deaths of all the Siji Manor disciples, and his reign of state-sanctioned terror as founder and leader of Tian Chuang. Notably, the very first word Chengling speaks to ZZS after hearing this rundown of supposed and actual crimes is to call him “Shifu” again to get his attention before asking for more info about the Scorpions. THIS CHILD. MY HEART.

ZZS tells them both, “I spent half my life alone, doing things I didn’t want to do and killing people I didn’t want to kill,” and I literally want to reach into the screen and shake WKX, because OMG LAO WEN. You are reflections of each other, and he’s baring his soul, and you’re going to continue to be so afraid that he’s not going to accept every part of you that it’s going to be episodes and episodes before you open up, and even then, only after he figures it out on his own. :hands: To make things even more OBVIOUS, ZZS then asks Chengling if he still wants ZZS to be his shifu after learning all of this, and Chengling doesn’t even hesitate, he says “Of course,” and ZZS and I are both about to cry. UGH. Zhang Zhehan, your face. It’s killing me. This is a man seeing the hope of resurrection for the sect he was convinced he had ground into dust. ZZS and Chengling are both so busy being emotional at each other that WKX has to take matters into his own hands, encouraging Chengling to bow, and we get a real bow to shifu this time, in a scene that once again mirrors the later scene when Zhen Yan makes his bow to Qin Huaizhang to become a Siji Manor disciple.

ZZS tells Chengling, all right, then. You are the first disciple of the sixth generation. (SHIXIONG. NO PRESSURE.)

End ep.

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #beauty ghost #liu qianqiao #gao chong #gao shan #du pusa #pretty arhat #qin song #gu xiang #xie wang #tragicomic ghost #luo fumeng #qin huaizhang #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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onlinemarketinghelp · 6 years ago

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Cyber Monday Marketing: Is Your Store Ready For Ecommerce’s Biggest Day? https://ift.tt/2reaKC6

As an online business owner, Cyber Monday is one of the most exciting and busiest days of the year for your store – and that all comes from having an amazing Cyber Monday marketing plan.

Often coupled together with Black Friday, the two days mark the beginning of the end-of-year shopping season and a weekend where consumers are ready to part with serious cash.

In fact, in the US, the most money spent online in 2018 – $6 billion – was on Cyber Monday.

With that sort of money on offer, you’d be silly not to sit down and form a Cyber Monday marketing game plan of your own.

If you’re wondering what exactly you should focus on and how you should prepare your store, join us as we pass on some Cyber Monday tips and tricks to help you cash in on this holiday spending spree.

What is Cyber Monday and When is It?

While Black Friday shopping has been around since the early 50s, Cyber Monday – as you might guess – is a far more recent addition to the shopping calendar.

Taking place on the Monday following Thanksgiving, this year, Cyber Monday is on December 2, 2019 – the latest possible date for it to fall.

Cyber Monday made its debut on November 28, 2005. The name was coined by Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation and former Shop.org exec Scott Silverman, and its purpose was to encourage consumers to buy online.

Although it was a fairly recent introduction, Cyber Monday was quickly embraced by consumers and has become the biggest day of the year for online sales. Cyber Monday online sales have grown from $486 million in 2005 to $6 billion in 2018, thanks to the growing adoption of online shopping and technological advances – such as smartphones.

Is Cyber Monday Different From Black Friday?

Although Cyber Monday is inextricably linked with Black Friday and they’re both focused on encouraging consumers to shop, there are differences between the two.

Black Friday has traditionally been a day for brick and mortar stores – particularly big retailers – to have huge sales. The day has become associated with people going to extremes to score deals, including camping out to be first in line. The crowds on Black Friday can be so intense that every year people get injured – or even killed – in the rush to grab a deal.

On the other side of things, we have Cyber Monday where everything is done online, rather than in a shopping mall or store. Although big retailers also have Cyber Monday campaigns, this is a day when smaller online stores have the opportunity to compete for shoppers’ attention as well.

Where Should I Focus My Cyber Monday Marketing?

While Cyber Monday is undoubtedly linked to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday – as is Black Friday – it has become a worldwide shopping holiday.

After its 2005 debut in the U.S., online retailers around the world have steadily built Cyber Monday marketing campaigns into their yearly plans. France and Canada embraced the day in 2008, the United Kingdom got on board in 2009, and in 2010, Germany and New Zealand joined in.

The internationalization of Cyber Monday has happened to a far greater extent – and much faster – than Black Friday, making it a unique opportunity to hold a sale in any market.

As a Dropshipper, is It Worth Doing Cyber Monday Marketing?

Because Cyber Monday has been adopted globally, it’s a fantastic day to target shoppers anywhere in the world. People want to spend money on this day and as a dropshipper, you’d be silly not to try and get them to spend that money on your products.

In 2017, dropshippers Albert Liu and Jacky Chou made $5,460 in sales over the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend with their home decor store. And almost half of their sales were made on Cyber Monday alone.

As I mentioned earlier, Cyber Monday offers small online stores the opportunity to get in on the action that was, for so long, the domain of major retailers. Black Friday might be the day for big, dominant brands, but on Cyber Monday anyone can shine – as long as they have a killer marketing plan.

Getting Your Store Ready for Cyber Monday

Alright, you’ve realized you’d be a fool to miss out on Cyber Monday, but you may be wondering where to start. Here are a few Cyber Monday tips to get you on your way.

Get Your Collections and Product Pages Primed

Now is the time to update and proofread all your product and landing pages – don’t let one little typo ruin everything! If you think your product descriptions are a little lackluster, or you just don’t know how you could improve them, look at your competitors and see if there is anything there you could learn from how they do it.

Make Sure Your Site Loads Fast

Ever left a website in a fit of rage because it took so long to load? I have. In this age of super-fast internet, we’re used to getting what we want instantly and a slow website does nothing to offer a pleasant shopping experience. To make sure your website is fast, run a few website speed tests and optimize it as needed.

Do Test Orders

You don’t want any issues on the day, so the best way to make sure everything runs smoothly is by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes. Run through a few test orders on your store just to make sure everything is working as it should.

This is especially important if you’re trying a new supplier or adding any new products. The last thing you want is one tiny detail – like the wrong shipping settings – throwing your whole Cyber Monday plan into chaos.

Get Your Apps Sorted

In an ideal world, every visitor to your store would make a purchase, but we know that’s certainly not the reality. Luckily, there are a lot of apps you can install that can help increase your conversion rate.

Take your time to browse through the Shopify app store and find what might work for you – there are a bunch of awesome apps to choose from. A countdown timer app could add a sense of urgency, while a cross-selling or upsell app might increase your average order value. Ultimately the apps that will work for your store will depend on what you sell and the vibe you’re going for. Be sure to do some research and find what works for you.

Check Everything on Mobile

While historically more sales have been made on desktop than mobile on Cyber Monday, the first interaction a visitor will have with your store is often on their phone. To make sure your store in the best possible shape, check what your store looks like on mobile. Here are a few things to keep an eye out for:

Easy navigation: Make sure your menu is clear and that any apps you’ve installed don’t overwhelm your screen or make it difficult and annoying to navigate.

Beautiful images: Check what your pictures look like and fix any that are poor quality or look strange. People will want to zoom in up close, so the last thing you want is a pixelated image.

Great text: Be sure that your text looks good on screen. Think about where sentences end and whether you need more or less text in your product descriptions.

Own Your Cyber Monday Marketing

With your store shipshape, it’s time to get your marketing sorted. And take note: This is something to start preparing sooner rather than later, so you don’t have a last-minute rush to get it all done. Here are a few tips for Cyber Monday marketing.

Know Who You Want to Target and on Which Devices

Facebook and Instagram ads are fabulous ways to make sales, but they can be especially expensive over this weekend. Make sure you get the most bang for your buck by being prepared and knowing your audience. Dive into your Facebook analytics and explore things such as age, gender, and location breakdowns, then use that information to make specific advertising material.

You should also decide what type of ads you want to use – video, images, or a mixture of both. Whichever you decide, make sure they’re engaging and high-quality. If you can’t think of any great ideas, check your competitors for inspiration.

It’s also worth thinking about which devices your ads will appear on. It may be smarter to advertise more expensive items – or items with a lot of options to choose from – on desktop because shoppers have more to consider before buying. However, if you sell products that are impulse purchases, they could be more suited to mobile advertising.

Craft Your Best Cyber Monday Emails

If you have a large mailing list, you should make use of this. After all, these people already know your store and brand so will take less convincing than new customers.

Decide on an email campaign you think will work best – this might be a one-off email on Cyber Monday revealing your big sale, or it could be a series of emails reminding your subscribers of your store and hinting at an upcoming sale in the weeks prior. Whatever you do, it will ensure your store is kept in mind when Cyber Monday rolls around and complement your

When writing your emails, be sure to think of engaging subject lines – the best Cyber Monday emails are those that stand out from the crowd. When it comes to the body of the email, don’t overthink it. Keep things clear, concise, and conversational and you’ll be onto a winner.

Capture the Buzz Early

Cyber Monday is not only a great one-off day to snag an amazing online deal, but it’s also the beginning of the wider holiday shopping season. People know what Cyber Monday means and there’s a lot of shopping and seasonal excitement in the air in the lead-up. Ideally, you want to try and capture this excitement – and you don’t have to wait until Cyber Monday to do it.

People start hunting for deals well before Cyber Monday, so don’t be afraid to launch email and ad campaigns ahead of the actual day itself. You could try tactics like offering mini-deals in the days leading up to Cyber Monday, before your big sales day on Monday. It’s great for sales and for ensuring customers keep your brand in mind.

Or maybe you could come out swinging and start your Cyber Monday sales before Thanksgiving. People are already prepared to start shopping, so why not get a jump on everyone else and swoop early.

Offer Creative Deals

When thinking about a great Cyber Monday promotion your mind probably jumps to slashing prices with hefty percentage-off deals. But there are other ways you can entice shoppers.

Offering a gift with every purchase could be the added extra that’s enough to draw people in, or in the same vein, a buy-one-get-one-free deal.

Alternatively, people love limited-edition products. Stocking an item with a limited amount available is a great idea – especially if you include a stock counter on the product page to increase the feeling of scarcity.

In fact, with shoppers being so aware of the madness that the shopping season brings, the products you sell don’t even necessarily need to be good. For example, for Black Friday 2014 the game Cards Against Humanity sold 30,000 limited-edition boxes of bull poop – marketed as “Bull**** by Cards against Humanity” – as an anti-Black Friday stunt. $180,000 worth of sales and $6000 in profit, all from the sale of poo.

As it turns out, Cards Against Humanity ended up donating the profits from the stunt to charity, which is a great idea in itself – even without the poop.

People are increasingly looking for businesses to lead the charge with philanthropic and charitable endeavors. Creating a special campaign surrounding a charity or cause could be a great Cyber Monday marketing decision – especially if it complements your products or niche.

Follow Up

Just because someone didn’t purchase on their first visit to your store on Cyber Monday, doesn’t mean you just give up on them. Think of it like a “no man left behind” situation and do your best to recover those sales.

Firstly, you should definitely have retargeting ads ready to go on Facebook. After all, if someone showed interest in your store on Cyber Monday, there’s a great chance they’ll still be interested in what you have to offer a couple of days later. Perhaps you could include a special deal on the retargeting ads that will entice shoppers, even after Cyber Monday.

One of the easiest ways to recover sales is with abandoned cart emails. You probably have these turned on already (or at least, you should), but consider spicing them up for Cyber Monday with an additional deal or offer to motivate them to purchase.

And while we’re talking about email, why not send out a post-Cyber Monday email as well? As mentioned earlier, Cyber Monday is the start of the holiday spending season so people are still very much prepared to spend in the days and weeks following it – try and capitalize on this with a special last chance deal.

Heck, you could even take things a step further and turn Cyber Monday into Cyber Week. Forget one day of deals, turn up the volume and run ads and emails offering unbeatable deals for a seven day period. This could be a great way to attract customers and make your store stick out from the crowd.

Your Cyber Monday Strategy Summed Up

With Cyber Monday rapidly approaching, don’t get panicked – get organized!

Make sure your store is prepared for traffic from all devices and looks the best that it can. Meanwhile, get creative with your campaigns and make your advertisements stand out from the crowd.

And remember, while Cyber Monday could be a massive day for your store, it’s also the start of the holiday spending season. So even if your campaigns don’t go to plan, you still have a whole month of big spending activity ahead of you.

Want to Learn More?

How You Can Use Holiday Shopping to Generate Sales

15 Creative Black Friday Marketing Ideas for 2019

How to Spy on Your Competitors’ Facebook and Instagram Ads

21 Facebook Ads Experts Share Their Winning Strategies

The post Cyber Monday Marketing: Is Your Store Ready For Ecommerce’s Biggest Day? appeared first on Oberlo.

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