Holiday season.
Two words that inflict a range of emotions and flashbacks among various people,
When we were kids, innocent and filled to the brim with excitement over everything and anything that means no school and no homework-
Well, just writing this made us wish someone would turn time and bring back those good old days.
Anyways, moving on,
As we grow up, the season starts becoming more about gift shopping, budget planning for the said gift shopping, maybe some vacation plans for traveling or whatnot. Adulthood, ugh.
If you own a business- or are employed in one- especially the ecommerce ones, oh boy,
Things for sure turn a bit more complicated, eh?
From crashing website and angry customers abandoning their carts because it’s taking too long to load,
To confused online customers, calling your head office to check if their order has been confirmed, when it would deliver if the out of stock item will be restocked soon-
Literal and utter nightmare of any ecommerce store!
But the holiday season is the ideal time for your online store to earn like crazy,
Boost your organic traffic, generate leads left and right, build more customer loyalty and brand awareness, and so much more.
The list and advantages are endless, to be honest.
Five tips for capturing retail during the busiest times of the year
According to Statista, around 1.8 billion people across the globe buy goods online.
A massive proportion of this population is the one that gets particularly active during holiday seasons. This year, the pandemic is further bound to increase online buyers during the holiday season, EVEN MORE.
How do you make sure your store makes the best out of these seasons and capture a higher market share than usual?
Stick with us and check out five ways to prepare your online store for the hectic holiday season. Happy reading!
1. Holiday Decorations to Light up your Store
Wait, before you think this tactic might be a bit 'childish,' oh no, honey.
Regardless of your age and gender, you cannot deny or resist the pull of decorations and holidays. Make your store look nostalgic that takes your customers back to remembering their good times.
For instance,
For Christmas, add in some reds, blues, and whites- may be a crystal themed layout. Similarly, for Halloween, go a bit dark and spooky with the orange and black themes.
You need not change your store's designing a full 180 degrees. Just incorporate a few slight changes as you redesign parts of your store.
As cliché as it might sound- appearance matters, and in the real world, people- including your customers- do judge the book by its cover.
Studies show that 94% of first impressions directly or indirectly revolve around your store's web designing.
So, your holiday web designing needs to follow an essential checklist of some must do's and don'ts. For instance, be sure to include your holiday season special deals and sales on your site.
Also, emphasize the gift packages, so your customers know what to buy, add to cart, and checkout. Let's not give them extra time to change their time, eh?
One more thing, offer personalized Call to Actions. Reflect the wittiness and quirkiness related to the ongoing holiday- make the CTAs more entertaining and eye-catching for your customers.
Customized CTAs are found to convert 42% increased traffic into actual sales compared to the standardized ones.
In short, never forget CTAs. The power they have on your store’s sales is intense. Stats show that adding CTAs boosts your revenues by around 80%. Also, according to HubSpot, anchor text CTAs increase conversion rates by 121%.
See their power? Yeah, mind-boggling!
Lastly, while slight changes are optimal, avoid making drastic changes in your store's navigation system. Imagine your old customers revisiting your site and being confused in finding their way around because of a changed and unfamiliar environment. That is something you NEVER want.
We stress upon this so much because stats highlight the significance:
Almost 80% of online stores fail, one of the reasons being difficult and unfamiliar navigation system.
Imagine losing your loyal consumers to competitors?
Eh, no thanks.
Hence, the bottom-line is:
Funk it up with just a slight chunk of creativity,
Embrace those enthusiastic holiday season vibes while focusing on easy navigation,
And see how much more you attract traffic.
2. Offer Gift Guides and Entice your Customers
Gift guides are such an underrated yet immensely strategical approach to boost sales during holiday seasons. Plus, they help so many of your visitors finally decide on cost-efficient gift ideas.
For instance, during Christmas, post guides about a package of goods that are ideal for Christmas times, maybe some warm Christmas clothes, jewelry, photo frames, suiting kitchen items like decorated mugs, etc.
For Black Friday or Thanksgiving, a range of cosmetics or a bundle of kitchen tools like spatulas, food containers, etc. Name the guides related to the holiday going on to make them more appealing for your consumers.
Experience has shown that around 54% of holiday shoppers need suggestions from the stores when buying gifts.
See- that is what your store needs to capture the attention of your buyers,
Offer them recommendations of your products and make successful transactions.
3. Make your Store Mobile-friendly
Optimize your ecommerce store to be mobile-friendly. This globe we live in is heavily incorporated with technological advancements. Mobiles and smart gadgets are everywhere. 2020 marks around 3. 5 billion smartphone users, a number that is to further increase in coming years!
So, know that most of your online traffic during the holiday season- or in general too- is on your store via their smartphones. Now, if your store isn't mobile-friendly, we suggest you rectify it right away.
According to WebFx, 74% of users are more likely to revisit the mobile-friendlier sites.
So, continue testing the mobile version of your ecommerce store and refrain from making grand changes continuously.
As we pointed out earlier, redesigning your store majorly might leave old customers revisiting your site slightly confused. As a result, they visit your site, are unable to find their required item quickly, and end up leaving your store.
Sure, you can always get new customers, but it's no hidden fact that the cost of acquiring new ones is five times more than retaining the existing customers.
Hence,
Optimize but don't change entirely.
4. Effective Live Chats and Customer Services Will Take You Great Places
During the holiday season, you know your store will have more traffic. Now the question is, how can you turn all that traffic into confirmed sales? One vital step to take is to improve your live chat and customer services.
Prepare your store beforehand.
Be it hiring extra and more productive staff that caters to all the online query submissions,
Or having an efficient team that answers all calls and guides your customers to make the most of their transactions from your store.
How does quick customer service matter THAT much? Let us add in some did-you-know facts:
Every 7 of 10 U.S. buyers claim to spend more money doing business with stores offering fantastic service.
And,
Econsultancy states that 74.78% of online traffic prefers online buying when receiving excellent and effective customer service.
As you clarify and reply to all customers right away using live chats and quick emails, you end up with increased customer retention- another critical element if you want to increase your market share.
And what better opportunity for this than the holiday times, when there is a load of visitors browsing through your ecommerce store?
So, as the next holiday season arrives, we suggest improving your live chat and customer service beyond the next level.
Firstly, see that your online store offers 24/7 support. That way, your visitors will have no issue reaching out to you, getting their questions answered, and buying from you right away.
Again, as we stated earlier, let’s not leave their questions unanswered that may have them buy from your competitors instead, eh?
Live chats, in short, can be your biggest asset in ensuring you offer the fullest customer satisfaction to all your buyers and have them revisit your online store in the future too.
To see that you face no mishaps or downfalls, plan now! Create a detailed and flexible customer service plan to outline all possible challenges you may face and how to overcome them. Compile all the information you think you may need to offer to your consumers.
Within the planning, decide where to keep your contact details like a landline, email address, etc. Also, decide the social media platforms you can offer your customers to reach out to you.
It's also preferable that you include a section for the frequently asked questions to help your buyers clarify their usual questions.
Fantastic customer support experience is crucial-
Especially during the holiday season when the visitors are high, and you want your online store to make the best sales possible.
That all tends to be highly effective at retaining your customers and making them loyal to you.
Stats show that Americans would prefer paying 17% more to buy from businesses with an outstanding customer service reputation. Also, as Nextiva states, 52% of buyers have started making more purchases from businesses from which they experienced a friendly customer service experience.
5. Offer Easy and Clear Return Policies
Yes, we've already established that holiday seasons bring HUGE potential sales and orders made online. This also means greater chances of people wanting to exchange or return their orders because of wrong sizes, apparent defects, etc.
Be mentally prepared to face this no matter how many quality checks you perform or how much you ensure a safe delivery because this is just how it is.
Hence, prevent your store from malfunctioning and having a retail breakdown- not to mention the angry customers and bad customer experience and reviews. God, that is scary!
Stats show that 28% of orders get returned by customers bought during holiday seasons. According to the APPRISS Retail report, fraudulent returns amount to 9% of the total holiday returns.
Alas, your store can’t have a strict return policy either as it drives many customers away.
So how to plan for an ideal return policy for the holiday season?
Try being flexible and, at the same time, develop a bond of trustworthiness with your customers. Assure them of your fair and true trading.
Besides this, adding short notes with details on how customers can make returns or exchanges works amazingly.
Final Thoughts
As we end our heart to heart with you, we hope you've gathered a few pointers and started mind mapping your strategies already.
Start working on your big plans and changes you need to make to be all set up to steal the show the next holiday season.
Trust us; the upcoming years are going to bring high traffic to your ecommerce stores-
With people looking for gifts for their loved ones, they haven't met much during this year.
While preparing your store to cater to the bustling holiday season is, by no means, a small task.
Just follow the pointers we offered you above to help you reach significant milestones. You will see the significant increase with your sales.
