As the festive season approaches, eCommerce store owners have the opportunity to capitalize on the holiday season and increase sales and revenue for their businesses. In this article, we will share some tried and tested strategies to help you maximize your sales during this holiday season.
Usually, the holiday season witnesses the most sales in eCommerce. According to a study by Insider Intelligence, holiday sales in the US are expected to reach over $1.3 trillion in 2023. This means you have a great opportunity to get more sales on your eCommerce store.
If you are an eCommerce store owner looking to capitalize during this holiday season, read on to learn some key strategies.
Key Strategies to Increase Sales During This Holiday Season
Below are some proven strategies that will help you increase sales during the holiday season.
Inform Users About the Sale
Your marketing activities should begin at least a week before the sale days. You should inform your customers about the sale. Create small events such as price reveals, count-down banners, etc.
You may see a lower count of sales before the sale days. But it’s okay because your customers are likely holding off for the sale to start. When it does, it will create a lot of excitement and hype in the market.
You may also consider running a social media campaign both before and during the sale. This will boost engagement on your social media profiles and build hype for the sale.
It is also recommended to promote your holiday season sales using newsletter and email marketing campaigns. Depending on the type of products you are selling and the targeted customers, you should plan your marketing campaigns accordingly.
Partner Up with Influencers
It’s 2024, so influencer marketing is really a thing to grab the attention of your customers. You can partner up with influencers and have them endorse your products across their social media platforms.
Identify the influencers within your niche, then reach out to them to propose a partnership for promoting your products. You can request them to post a review of your products or share purchase links with their followers. You can offer a commission for each sale, which will motivate them to promote your products.
If you find that influencer marketing isn’t the right fit for your products, explore the option of affiliate marketing instead. You can enroll in various affiliate marketing networks, such as ShareASale, to connect with potential affiliates.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
During the sale days, you may get to see increased traffic to your website. Many of your site visitors may access your website through their smartphones. So, it is important to optimize your website for mobile devices. Ensure that your website is fully responsive across all devices.
To check if your website is mobile-friendly, you can simply run a test from Google to see if it’s responsive.
If you are using too much of animated videos, gifs, and high-quality images, it could also affect your website’s performance and increase the loading speed. Trust us, you don’t want your customers to see error messages or experience slow loading times, especially when you’re having a big sale during the holiday season.
If you have an app for your website, make sure you have fixed any serious bugs that may affect the purchase experience of your customers. You should also think about upgrading your servers if you’ve had issues with them in the past. During a sale, more people will be visiting your site, and if your servers can’t handle the extra traffic, it could cause problems like timeouts.
Sell Across Multiple Sales Channels
You should consider selling your products across multiple sales channels. Most social media platforms have some sort of eCommerce integration that allows you to sell your products through the platform itself. The good news is you usually don’t have to pay to create your eCommerce business profiles.
However, it’s not a good idea to set up your business on every single social media platform out there. Instead, it’s smarter to study your customers, identify the ideal customer profile, and figure out where they spend their time online. This will help you decide which platform is right for your eCommerce store.
For example, let’s say you are selling motorcycle accessories, so your targeted customers are mostly youngsters and hardcore bikers. So, it is ideal to set up your store on Facebook and Instagram, where the biker communities are mostly active.
If you are a WooCommerce store owner wondering how to set up your store on these popular sales channels, we strongly recommend you try our WooCommerce Product Feed Plugin. It allows you to generate product feeds for multiple platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok shops.
Optimize the Payment Experience
Think of a situation where your customers are all set to buy your product, but when they’re about to pay, they’re confronted with a long questionnaire on your checkout form page. This will definitely make your customers leave your store and look for alternatives.
Most customers prefer not to share too much personal information just to make a purchase. Make sure you only collect information that is necessary for fulfilling the order. You can allow your customers to choose the shipping address as the same as the billing address, so they don’t have to enter it again.
Similarly, avoid unnecessary inputs of information wherever possible to speed up the checkout process. Remember, the faster the checkout process, the lesser the chance of customers leaving the cart.
It is also ideal to provide multiple payment options for your customers. There are many fintech services that provide interest-free EMIs and Pay later options. These flexible payment options can encourage customers to complete their purchases. You may also consider allowing mobile payment options, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc., on your eCommerce store.
Show Banners and Popups
Banners and popups are powerful tools to communicate with your customers. During sale days, you can employ various promotional strategies through banners and popups to engage your audience effectively.
For example, show countdown banners on your shop page to create a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to act quickly. Also, consider setting up popups for abandoned shopping carts offering special discounts to customers who are about to leave without making a purchase. This strategy can help you recover potentially lost sales in your store.
Employ Various Coupon Promotions
Holiday season sale days are the time most eCommerce store owners employ various discount strategies. Apart from giving a price cut to customers, you can use coupon promotions in a creative way.
Here are some useful coupon campaigns you may try during the festive season:
- Early Bird Offer
Encourage your customers to start their holiday shopping early by offering special discounts for a limited time. This will spread out the holiday rush and get you some sales during the beginning of the sale days.
- Run Giveaways and Contest
You could create some engagement with your customers by conducting various contests and giveaways in your store.
For example, consider running a social media promotion where customers follow your social profiles, comment on a post, and have a chance to win a free product. This not only creates excitement but also increases your store engagement and definitely gets you some new visitors to your store.
- Give Exclusive Coupons to Your Loyal Customers
Loyal customers are your best advocates. Reward them with exclusive coupons and make them feel special. So they would continue their loyalty to your business and get you more referrals. There is no marketing strategy that works better than the classic word of mouth.
Share exclusive coupons and give early access to sale days. Also, consider referral rewards and giving personalized gift cards.
- Send Cart Recovery Coupons
Dealing with cart abandonment is really important. When sending emails to customers who abandoned their carts, entice them to complete their purchases by offering exclusive rewards. Ensure that these cart abandonment coupons have a limited-time availability to create a fear of missing out and a sense of urgency.
- Give Discounts to Product Bundles
Showing product recommendations will give you the opportunity for upsells and cross-sells. You may give discounts for purchasing the recommended product bundle.
For example, when a customer looks for a laptop, show headphones and wall adapter as recommended products. Also, offer a discount for purchasing them together. This way, you can increase the average order value in your store during the sale days.
Conclusion
As the holiday season approaches in 2024, eCommerce store owners have a significant opportunity to boost their sales and revenue. By following the strategies we mentioned in this article, you can boost your store sales and make the most revenue this holiday season.
We believe this article has provided you with some information to help you skyrocket sales during this holiday season. If you have any queries, drop them in the comments section.
We also recommend you to read our article on “How to Prepare for Holiday Season Sales for eCommerce Businesses?”
