The busiest shopping season brings many challenges for store owners. Buyers start to choose their presents, and many do it at the last moment. However, online merchants need to start implementing their results-driven initiatives in advance. How can you prepare for the holiday season?
Some brands post exciting holiday-related content; some tweak their stores to accommodate the increased traffic. For example, they optimize their stores with various techniques depending on the used CMS.
The main goal is to help visitors find the desired product as soon as possible. If you’re an eCommerce store owner, you can introduce an enhanced Magento search function (or that of another platform) to help users find gifts by typing keywords in the on-site search bar.
What else is on the holiday marketing plan? This post contains concise holiday eCommerce suggestions to help you achieve your business objectives and develop a successful holiday marketing strategy.
7 Ways eCommerce Stores Can Increase Holiday Sales
1. Introduce Gift Finder Sections
Even the thought of picking a gift may be a stressful situation. You don’t have enough time but still want to give a thoughtful present rather than another notebook. And that’s a chance for online retailers to assist their customers with seamless shopping.
The website should be user-friendly and easy to navigate to the needed section faster. You don’t want your customers to have a hard time converting and lose them during the Christmas season and afterward, do you?
As the gift section is the most important destination during the holiday season, you need to make it as prominent as possible. Make the products even more accessible. Add clickable banners and photos to the site or a new holiday category tab to the navigation menu, such as:
● Black Friday deals;
● Christmas collections;
● New Year sales;
● and other promotions.
Below you can see how Christian Louboutin assists visitors in finding what they’re looking for. The website has a gift category close to the central home page button.
The content of this section varies depending on the purpose. For example, you could find gift ideas for moms, but now there are Christmas selections too. You can proceed to the needed collection, including:
● ideas for him/her;
● stocking fillers;
● leather goods;
● and so on.
2. Encourage Early-Bird Purchases
What has panic buying taught us? Firstly, that an eCommerce website can get overloaded with traffic and orders during the busy holiday season. This often causes chaos, mix-ups, frustration, and downtime.
Secondly, that a sense of urgency or scarcity can encourage customers to purchase right now. The holiday season brings big price cuts that occur only once a year, and knowledgeable shoppers know how to find the greatest offers.
As the number of orders peaks shortly before the holidays, everyone understands that this can cause long delays. As a result, you risk not delivering the gift on time. Your clients don’t want to spoil the holiday experience, do they?
Therefore, it’s worth unloading the store and reassuring customers that everything will come on time. Motivate shoppers to visit your online store and purchase in advance as another eCommerce holiday planning tip. You can give a bonus for this, such as a free engraving or a free postcard for early purchases.
Below you can see a Victoria’s Secret example. It explains why you should take care of your orders before it’s too late. The reason is that you may not receive the needed product in time due to supply chain and product delays during the busy season.
It’s not just about making money over the holidays. It’s also about building loyalty to buy during the off-season. Make sure that you care about your buyers, and they’re at the forefront of any holiday marketing decisions you make.
3. Boost Your Chatbots & Virtual Assistants
Being a retailer during holidays means always being involved. And it requires a constant input from your team members.
It doesn’t matter how big the store is. You’ll need a quick-response team to address any problems that arise on your site, in your holiday ads, or elsewhere.
It’s not enough to just improve the site speed, equip it with advanced on-search solutions, or create more holiday-related content. A major holiday challenge is to accommodate extra visitors and orders. If force majeure occurs, you will also need to react quickly.
How can you handle all these delivery, order status, or store work hours inquiries? Prepare your customer support, shipping, and other teams.
Consider implementing chatbots as one more holiday selling eCommerce tip. They will cover the hours when your team members are unavailable and answer repetitive questions. So you save on hiring more employees, reduce burnout, and eliminate human mistakes.
Check out how NARS customized their virtual assistant in the screenshot below. The robot helps visitors choose a present for their relatives and friends in quiz format, which improves customer service.
4. Share Inspiring Holiday Collections with the Help of Influencer Marketing
The next eCommerce holiday marketing tip covers creating special collections. You can launch a product to inspire holiday shoppers to be the first to get it. Or the only ones.
Invite celebrities or influencers to promote your collections on social media and the website. Note that they differ in terms of engagement. According to Statista, the most engaging bloggers are those with less than 15,000 followers.
So it won’t take millions of dollars to benefit from influencer marketing. You can choose a local blogger with several thousand followers to reach out to your target clients. There are some crucial recommendations if you opt for influencer marketing:
● look at the engagement rates rather than the number of followers;
●select the correct influencer on the platform where your target audience is the most active;
● consider how you will motivate them to promote your brand (it may be a fee, discount, or free stuff in exchange for a mention).
Below is an example of how Levi’s has kicked off the holiday season with curated looks from Hailey Bieber. The model shares her view on how to dress for the holidays. So you can pick a ready-made collection and dress like the celebrity.
5. Promote Additional Services
With so many holiday discounts, it’s never been more vital to offer something extra. It should bring visitors to your online store and distinguish you from the competition.
Getting consumers to the website is only half the battle. Cart abandonment, along with returns, can make the holidays a difficult time for stores trying to stay up with changing customer behaviors.
How can you communicate the advantages of shopping with you? Provide additional services.
For example, NYX allows visitors to apply a product before purchasing it with the help of virtual try-on. These online fitting rooms reduce return cases and help clients visualize how the product looks on them.
Another customer-winning trick and a holiday eCommerce tip the brand uses is a free 1:1 personal consultation with a beauty expert. You can contact them via video chat and ask for advice on any look. Isn’t it fantastic to access the Holiday Hotline and talk to an advisor whom the world-renowned company trusts?
6. Add Gift Hint Functionality
Any holiday is often accompanied by the question, “What do you want as a present?” Unfortunately, people don’t always ask directly about it.
How can you point at the desired thing without appearing pushy? Some retailers, such as Pandora, allow you to find a present and send a hint by email to a gifter. This holiday eCommerce tip allows clever online stores to assist customers in choosing a present for themselves and share it subtly.
7. Help Customers with Gift Wrapping
The gifts are chosen and well on their way to you or your giftee. How do you wrap them? Do you need to buy paper, boxes, and ribbons and do it yourself? While some like the gift as it is in the branded box, many like to make it unforgettable.
That’s where merchants can help clients personalize their presents. Gift wrapping is a popular service and a holiday marketing tip for online and offline stores.
You don’t just save clients time and effort with such professional services. You build customer loyalty because of the help during a hectic season. Loyal buyers promote your business year-round, and that’s as a result of proper assistance during the holidays.
How can you make the most of branded gift wrapping? Launch a promotional campaign on social media and encourage customers to share their photos with gifts and tag your brand.
Let’s look at how eCommerce giants suggest gift wrapping. Below is an example of the Calvin Klein online store, which offers three gift options:
● get a gift in a box for $5;
● include a free note;
● hide the price tag.
Conclusion
Christmas time is almost here. We decorate our Christmas trees and buy gifts for our relatives and friends. And every year the number of holiday purchases only grows. In 2021, Christmas sales are expected to increase by 8.5% to 10.5% in November and December, totaling $843.4 billion to $859 billion.
To ensure that your holiday specials benefit your prospects and enhance total sales, use a variety of approaches, such as:
● streamline selection with gift finders;
● encourage people to buy in advance;
● boost your customer service with chatbots;
● employ influencers to share their holiday picks;
● provide value with additional services;
● add a gift hint feature;
● suggest gift wrapping.
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