Santa is on his way. There’s not much time left for you because his sleigh is super fast and the holiday season is approaching. While you are busy checking off your holiday preparation checklist, remember your customers are waiting to check off theirs, in fact, the most important and biggest on the list – holiday shopping!
Holidays are almost here and retailers are probably already prepping up for the season.You may be gearing up too, but this post will help you by giving some tricks and treats.
Jingle bells!Jingle bells! Holidays are on the way!
We are not prepared for the sales,
And are screwed by the way, hey!
If your jingles sound like this, you are in the right place, we have got you covered!
After surveying more than 5,000 US consumers, Deloitte’s 2017 Holiday Retail Survey found, for the first time ever, that people plan to spend a majority of their holiday budget online. Now, that’s some huge potential to tap on.
The holiday season is around the corner and now is the time to strategize your sales & promotions to win big!
6 Quick tips for a happening holiday season
- Exhilarate your customers with enticing email campaigns
What your customers really need is information. Particularly during the holiday season, they are as busy as you are with all the preparations and there is a lot of pressure in getting things ready. So, it would only be meaningful for you to make the shopping all easier and hassle-free for them.
So, this brings us to providing information. That’s right, planning your e-mail campaigns much ahead of the holidays will give you clarity on how to strategize your content and figure out what will and won’t work. There are millions of other businesses hitting the inboxes of your customers trying to bump up their sales during the season. Your chance of being noticed amidst the inbox clutter is low and you can achieve it by carving through it with a subject line that is irresistible.
As much as the subject line is important, personalizing the mail needs attention too. That way, you improve your click and view rates and it is like a ticket to win the patronage of your customers by giving them attention and making them feel important.
The best way to begin the personalization is by segmenting your audience by interests, gender, buying frequency and patterns, geography and purchase history.This branching will help you reach your audience directly, systematically and by adding the element of personal touch.
Addressing your customer by name makes them feel special and it also improves click and read rates.This opens up windows for better interactions and thereby improves your possibilities of sealing deals.
This post by Campaign monitor will come in handy while writing a killer subject line. Apart from this, e-mail campaign for the holidays is pretty much like that of the off-season as you need to take into considerations what has worked in the past for you in both the cases. Review the performance of your campaigns during the last season and figure the scope for improvement.
Prep up your planning and buying teams to have the best content for your campaigns that highlight the crucial selling points – merchandise, shipping details, gifts & offers etc. Feel free to be creative and incorporate fun elements into what you are doing because – it is the holidays, after all.
2. Satisfaction comes with sufficient stock
Needless to say, your online store is going to be flooded with visitors who are going to purchase in huge numbers. It would only make sense for you to have enough stock to meet the demand. There’s nothing more depressing than to see “out of stock” on the screen after fixing on what you want to purchase.
This is something that has to be avoided as it not only results in a wasted ad budget but also you would lose reputation.
All you need to do is order your items in advance by forecasting your demands and needs. Make an agreement with your suppliers for additional deliveries. You can pull a report on the most sold items in the past few months, last holiday season and what the demand has been like to plan your stock accordingly.
As much as it is important to have enough stock, it is critical that you don’t have a massive over-stock because you do not want to enter the new year with huge holiday stock. So, enough stock is not too less and not too much. Just have them ready in the right amounts.
3. Outstanding sales through Omni-presence
According to Google, 85% of online shoppers start a purchase on one device and finish it on another. That being said, being omnipresent is going to multiply your sales as you are giving the user an ultimate shopping experience through your availability on all devices – smartphones, tablets, laptops etc.
Such shoppers spend 3 times more than that of the shoppers that shop from a single channel. These devices are so comfortable and enable customers to shop from anywhere. That’s the significance of omnichannel selling and here’s what you need to do – program your website to intuitively adapt to any device accessing it by making it tap-friendly that is, have error-free links and calls to action.
Websites View on mobile devices are smaller, so try to include more of holiday-themed infographics and videos on your website instead of lengthy texts. Also, on mobiles, you need to ensure smooth navigation by increasing the padding around the menu buttons.
4. Get gift cards onboard
Deck your site with deals and offers because let’s face it, customers are going to thoroughly research on who offers the best deals and hit on the buy button only when they find the best bargain.
64% of holiday shoppers deem gift-cards as the most popular last-minute gift. That’s why you can’t miss out on the gift cards option on your site. Gift cards are a must-have option on your site mainly because holidays are frenzy and these come in handy for indecisive shoppers and for those who are in a rush to buy something.
These are shipped electronically via mails so there is no stress on the customer in regard to the waiting time for the gift to be delivered. You can also have a gift guide on your site that would help your customers make a decision on what to buy.
5. Cheer up customers by optimizing checkouts
The worst thing that could happen to a retailer is losing a sale at the last moment due to a long payment process and because of the site not being user-friendly. As it happens to be about one-third of people abandon the checkout cart due to a complicated checkout process.
Some of the best practices that you can resort to in order to give your customers an excellent checkout experience could be by adding a progress bar that alerts your customer about the steps that follow so that they are ready. For instance, if the next in line is the payment process, the progress bar should show it, so that customers have things ready to make the payment.
Never ask too many questions during the checkout. You must only collect potential details that are critical to completing your sale successfully. Just because you have your customer’s full attention during the checkout, it doesn’t mean that you can show pop-ups or have answers for your marketing and merchandising questions. That would be a big NO!
There is a lot of new customers that would be buying from you around the season. So, you may want to auto-suggest the address and make the process less stressful. You can use a type-ahead address system, that will suggest addresses and narrow down the exact one as the user types.
Never screw-up with the checkout process, it is a key determinant and a stage that helps you retain or lose a customer.
6. Shipping it right
Who doesn’t want their products to be delivered on time? The quicker, the better. Holidays are the time when people gift one another. One important aspect they are looking for while they buy from you is how much do you charge for shipping and how quickly you would deliver it.
At Least 60% of buyers add more products to their cart to qualify for free shipping. Shipping demands are a huge trouble during the season. So, just be prepared and also prepare your customers for the shipping deadlines by making the dates absolutely clear throughout your store. Be upfront about meeting the deliveries and don’t disappoint your customers. Also, highlight product return policies clearly as most of the purchases made would be for gifts at this time of the year.
Apart from just giving shoppers a heads up about shipping details, there is something else you can do along. You should include a coupon that gives a 25% off on next purchase or other such marketing messages. This way, you will have sales post the holiday season and make your customers feel like they are receiving something valuable.
You could also include gift option checkbox in your shipping procedure to understand if it requires gift wrapping and if prices need to be hidden on the receipt. Such options would make your customers love you!
Get set go!
Holidays are the best time of the year – home decorations, cooking, the perfect playlist, wrapping presents and hosting parties! As much as it is fun, it is highly stressful too. These tips should help you dial down the stress a bit.Don’t forget to keep track of what you are doing this season and have a full analysis of what worked well for you after your holiday sales. These should help you plan for Holidays ‘18.
Implement these ideas for Holiday sales 2017 and let us know how it went! Hope you found this post useful and if you have other interesting tips, share it in the comment section below.
Have a fun-filled and profitable holidays!
Cheers,
Team Mobius
Nandhini
Blogger and Community Manager
