Any festival or holiday season is marked by frenzied shopping; after all, there are gifts to be given to friends and family, items for sprucing up and decorating the home, food, new clothes, etc. Christmas & Newyear shopping is one of the biggest shopping seasons globally. Even with the pandemic on, the Christmas & new year sales crossed $750 billion in 2020 in the US alone.
Now that Christmas is around the corner, the holiday season is in full swing. As an eCommerce business, you need to be well-prepared for it. If you are not, the increased demand could put undue pressure on your business and create problems. This could be late deliveries, product stockouts, inability to handle customer emails, calls and chats, and so on.
But hey – we’ve got you covered. Follow this Holiday eCommerce website checklist to be ready!
1. Prepare For a Longer Holiday Season
Thanks to online shopping, patterns have changed; you need to be ready for an extended holiday season as people find it more convenient to buy online and avoid crowded stores. Many would like to buy early enough to avoid shipping delays or stock-out possibilities. Therefore, it makes sense to start preparing a little early on. You need to offer multiple choices to increase customer retention and gain new ones too.
2. Ensure Adequate Stock
It’s absolutely essential that you procure or produce more than your usual level of stocks to meet the demands of the Holiday season sale. Study data from the past couple of seasons to get an idea of how much your demand is going to spike from the normal, and what kind of products are more in demand in this season. This will help you to be prepared with adequate stock, and not miss sales. The products which sell more in this season should be stocked more. Make a thorough list of product and holiday product SKUs to make ordering and stocking easier. Announce shipment times – especially if you expect slower times – in advance so that customers know when to order and how long they need to wait.
3. Collaborate With Suppliers
Maintain good relationships with your vendors and impress upon them the need to deliver higher quantity of products you need in shorter times. When you have vendors who are ready to work with you help you meet your demand, you can focus on other value adding business activities. Here’s some more information and tips on getting ready for the festive season.
4. Prepare your Staff
It is absolutely important for your employees to be prepared for the busy Holiday sale period. Train them on remaining calm and helping customers find what they want. You may need to hire additional workers on a temporary basis, and train them on using your systems, customer handling, packing, shipment, deadlines, product details, holiday offers, and so on. Ideally, you should do this well in advance, before the madness begins. It will be a hard time for your staff, so make sure you appreciate their efforts and motivate them with little acts of kindness. Verify schedules to ensure that critical activities will be handled by one of your employees at all times.
5. Transparent Returns Policy
Declare beforehand what your returns policy is so that customers know when they need to return for exchange products, and can order accordingly. Be very clear about what products can be returned, and the process – forms, photos, time limit, and so on. This way, those who are gifting won’t be caught unawares on Christmas morning if they need something replaced. Make sure the info on your website is up-to-date. Codilar provides e-commerce development services where we help with updating and maintenance of your website too.
6. Social Media
Social media is crucial for customer engagement; therefore, you should promote your Christmas & new year sale offers on the social platforms you are active on, well in advance. This helps you get your message out early, letting customers plan their gifts in time. When more brands use this technique, it helps spread the new year cheer widely. You can run pay-per-click ads, contests, polls, and events, which are more interactive than simple posts. By engaging with consumers and getting their feedback, you can improve your offerings. Such campaigns can be pretty effective in encouraging impulse purchases.
7. Embrace Festive Spirit
How do you find a physical store in the Holiday season? It’s very Christmassy: Christmas trees, full-blown decorations, fake snow, Christmas carols or songs playing on the speakers, and of course Santa walking around. You can do the same online to bring the festive spirit alive and put shoppers in a Christmas shopping mood. The necessary changes to be made to your website to create an immersive experience will take time, so get in touch with your e-commerce development services provider and work out how to deliver a festive shopping experience and drive more traffic.
8. Special Offers
Keep customers interested and create a FOMO feel with tactics like festive season freebies, limited-time discounts, limited stock items, special offers for early customers, and so on. Everyone loves discounts and freebies, and the apprehension of missing out on great offers will spur purchases. You can also offer gift cards. These make great gifting options as it gives the receiver the opportunity to purchase something of their choice. You can offer virtual gift cards which can be emailed, and these are perfect for the last-minute shoppers. It’s a quick and easy way to get cash quickly for your business. Offering product bundles is a great way to upsell and cross-sell. Create readymade gift hampers, or you can even allow shoppers to create custom hampers as per their budget – with you recommending the right mix of course, once the customer has chosen the first item. You can also offer these ideas: Christmas-themed products like sweaters, socks, blankets, etc. in red and green colors, subscriptions, personal engraving, and so on. eCommerce conversion rate optimization strategies like these can be very effective when implemented right.
9. Evaluate Your Holiday Marketing Campaign
Assess the efficacy of your current marketing campaign before the start of the holiday season so that everything is perfect once the Holiday shopping begins. Analyze your marketing strategy in the previous year. If it was successful, note down the methods that helped boost your revenue, and reuse them this year. If your campaign failed, examine why. Make changes to your strategy to fix the shortcomings. Analyze this: Are you offering customers the right kind of discounts, product bundles, or special offers (it could be extra loyalty points, gift cards, etc.)? Do such campaigns appeal to your target audience? What methods are more successful in converting more visitors? Obviously, you need to create and analyze customer personas to understand buying patterns, navigation habits, and what products will be most in demand. Without understanding this, you can execute campaigns endlessly without getting the desired results. You will also need to have multiple categories to engage your customers and offer them more choice, and help you in cross-selling and upselling. Check out more holiday marketing ideas here.
10. Track Important Metrics
This is not just part of the Christmas preparation but has to be done on a regular basis throughout the year. However, tracking and analyzing data is critical in the run-up to the holiday season. Google Analytics is free to use, and it gives you access to several reporting options, from the time visitors spend on your website, to the page most visited, to the conversion rates, and more.
11. Streamline the Delivery Process
Delivery is a vital part of your E-commerce sale process, and you must streamline it. Offer customers a few choices but not too many, as that could lead to chaos. With limited but popular choices, customers can make informed decisions for their requirements, and you can lower the possibility of errors. Research on ideal shipping choices based on customer location, cost, convenience of your target audience, and the shipping deadlines your customers expect. You can offer both free shipping which could be slower and paid, expedited shipping for those who want their products quickly. If you ship internationally, you will have to dig deeper.
12. Test Everything Beforehand
Now the time has come to test everything – site functionality, blogs and videos you’ve added, fix broken links, payment gateway issues, and more. Once the holiday season begins, you will simply not have the time. In a nutshell, you need to assess your:
- Checkout process
- Payment options
- Discount codes
- Mobile display/responsiveness
- Site navigation
- Shipping calculators
- Landing page links
- CTAs
Final Thoughts
As an online merchant, you should be able to fulfil consumer requirements and deliver superior purchase experiences at all touchpoints. By planning early, you should be able to navigate the tumultuous waters of Christmas Newyear shopping and make the most of the sales opportunities it presents. We hope that this checklist helps you have a successful Holiday sale.
If you have any more ideas, do let us know in the comments below.
