Are you set to earn your highest profits of the year? Historically, eCommerce businesses rake in the most money from September through December. That’s when consumers start making holiday purchases.
You can’t grab a piece of the holiday shopping pie without a bit of extra effort on your part, though. Don’t worry; we have the tips you want to stand out in a crowded and competitive online marketplace.
Shoppers start holiday purchasing early, but you haven’t missed your chance to benefit from the holiday season and meet your sales goals. We’ll help you get your site ready for the rush. In addition, we’ll give you marketing trends and promotional ideas.
Site Readiness
In-person sales never fully recovered from the pandemic. Many shoppers decided that shopping online was just too convenient to give up. It beats fighting the traffic crowd, busy parking lots, and bustling stores (only to leave empty-handed).
Get ready to dress your site in its holiday best with sales landing pages, blogs, videos, and graphics for pay-per-click (PPC) and social media paid advertising. Post your promotional content often.
And do it all in a delicate balancing act of scoring customers, staying profitable, and fulfilling demand to make more money from your online side hustle. Don’t worry–we’re about to walk you through it:
1. Optimize your website for speed.
Users become less likely to stay on your page and buy anything if they have to wait more than a few seconds for your page to load. Use Google’s Page Speed Insights to identify issues and boost the momentum.
Optimize your site’s shopping cart for easier and faster checkout experiences. This includes prominently displaying shipping costs, updating to a mobile-friendly version, and showing customers what’s in the cart.
2. Prepare a mobile-friendly site.
Many consumers purchase right from their mobile devices. Ensure your design, content, and navigation work together to streamline the purchase process from wherever your customer finds you.
3. Fix glitches or bugs.
Navigate your site to find issues that could turn off your customers. Can your site handle a surge of buyers? If not, consider posting your product catalog to a static site that uses cloud storage technology.
4. Safeguard your customers.
Keep your customer’s personal information private. Check the dependability of your payment providers. Their processes should prevent risks to your customer’s financial information. Also, they should be able to handle your increased customer load.
5. Automate shipping notifications.
Customers can be on edge waiting for their holiday orders to come. Ease their minds and reduce the number of shipping questions you answer with automatic order status and tracking updates. Sign up for auto-updates with your shipping company.
6. Up your customer service game.
Test your chatbots or live chat support. They must be able to handle an increase in customer inquiries. Consider paying extra for additional support this time of year if you don’t have a service helping you field customer questions.
7. Perform a financial and inventory check-in.
Be sure you can deliver on the products or discounts you plan to promote. Don’t make promises you can’t keep for free or discounted items.
8. Have a backup plan.
At the very least, know where and how to recover lost data from a second location.
What’s Trending
Knowing a few consumer trends can help you better understand and deliver on what customers want. Regardless of what you sell, consumers crave easy and secure shopping online. If you’ve gone through our checklist above, consider yourself squared away on ease and security.
In 2022, Google saw a 90% increase in the search terms “near me in stock.” Conclusion: Consumers want convenience.
Additionally, they turn to the Internet for buying decisions. 64% of shoppers said they looked to Google for discovery and inspiration with gifts. 67% admitted to purchasing items because of sponsored content on YouTube. Similarly, 53% of Gen Z respondents said they bought something because of sponsored content on short-form video platforms. Conclusion: It pays to advertise.
Consumers seem more conservative with their money in the past few years. They’ll delay paying full price and wait for bargains. Conclusion: Deals drive sales.
Paid social media ads and pay-per-click advertising have an excellent track record for bringing in additional paying customers. Conclusion: Paid advertising may be well worth the money.
The holiday season continues to expand. Conclusion: Consider running promotions through January because holiday shoppers buy presents well into the new year.
Promotional Ideas
Trends depend on your business and product. If this isn’t your first year, look back at your best sellers from last year at this time.
Products: Build promotional and marketing materials around your popular products.
Pricing: Adjust your prices to attract customers. Reevaluate the lowest price (and margins) you can offer your customers.
Need an idea for monetary and non-monetary deals? Here are a few popular ones:
- Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO)
- Buy One, Get One 50% Off
- Free shipping on orders over x amount
- Discount codes and coupons on customer’s next purchase
- Discounts for signing up to your email list
- Social media events (Interactive live-streaming or giveaways)
Lower prices aren’t an option? Perks, like free gift-wrapping, free shipping, or products with holiday pizazz (like Starbucks’ famous red holiday cup), add a personal and unique touch that customers enjoy.
Timing: Check your site’s performance from last year to see daily trends with peak traffic and paying customers (conversions). Activate sales campaigns and deals on days that had the most buyers.
Customers: Dig deep to uncover where your traffic comes from. You’ll learn what referral sites result in the greatest number of conversions (paying customers) and know where to broadcast or publicize your deals.
Get Ready For The Rush
It’s crunch time for retailers! If the holiday season snuck up on you, you aren’t alone. Many new retailers miss running deals their first year because, let’s face it, there’s so much to do.
However, doing something is better than nothing. Do what you can now, and use this guide to get a jump-start on next year’s holidays.