The holiday season is upon us. With it comes a golden opportunity to boost sales and increase revenue. The good news is that jumpstarting your bottom line is much easier than you think. This e-commerce holiday planning guide will provide you with the tools you need to plan your e-commerce holiday sales.
Let’s kick things off by discussing the e-commerce holiday shopping trends you need to know about for 2023. These figures highlight the importance of e-commerce holiday planning so that you can maximize your revenue and profitability.
1. Spending is down. Unfortunately, a pessimistic outlook on the economy has caused consumers to dial back on spending. Consumers are expected to cut back roughly $30 billion. In particular, cutbacks are forecast in non-food spending on items such as footwear and clothing.
2. The holiday shopping season keeps growing. In the past, the holiday shopping season spanned a few days. Now, it spans weeks. Consumers are getting an earlier head start on their holiday shopping in order to cash in on deals and save last-minute rushes.
3. Online sales continue gaining traction. Adobe predicts that online sales will increase by 2.5% this year. That should be no surprise as online shopping continues to gain a foothold around the world.
4. Consumers are looking for a human touch. Despite the growing trend toward e-commerce, consumers are very much inclined to get a human touch. This trend means that retailers need to offer communication channels where consumers can interact with people, not just bots or FAQ sheets.
5. E-commerce sales are expected to hit a new high. Despite reduced spending, e-commerce sales are projected to hit $235.86 billion. That’s a pretty big pie with plenty to go around.
As you can see, there is plenty of reason for optimism, even if overall spending is down. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a good e-commerce holiday planning approach will help you reach your goals. Read on to find out how you can make this possible.
E-commerce holiday readiness is a top priority for online stores around the world. As a result, implementing these top e-commerce holiday planning tips will help you capitalize on the busiest shopping season of the year.
This traffic is the good kind everyone loves. With online sales expected to increase this year, traffic will be at an all-time high. This situation means your site must be prepared to handle the spike in online traffic.
So, what can you do about it?
There are three key considerations:
These simple but powerful actions can keep your site humming along, ready for the barrage of traffic this holiday season.
Please remember that customers want efficient service with a human touch. As a result, user experience should be at the forefront of your e-commerce holiday planning. Here are practical steps you can take to ensure a great user experience:
A good rule of thumb is to make your customers’ experience as simple and enjoyable as possible. So, please do whatever you can to make life as easy as possible for your customers.
Another one of the biggest no-nos in the e-commerce world is inefficient fulfillment. Slow shipping means your customers will have to wait longer than anticipated for their purchases. This situation significantly drags customer experience down.
Here are practical ways you can improve fulfillment:
Please remember that fulfillment can make or break your e-commerce site’s holiday sales. So, please strive to deliver your best efforts.
Ramping up your holiday e-commerce marketing is a crucial step in your overall strategy. Here are some key considerations for your holiday e-commerce marketing strategy:
Above all, having a holiday e-commerce marketing plan is essential. The sooner you have one in place, the sooner you can begin engaging customers. At the end of the day, your holiday e-commerce marketing plan will help boost sales and drive revenue.
Let’s take a look at some brands that have gotten e-commerce holiday sales right.
No Rest for Bridget is a clothing brand specializing in the latest trends. This brand has leveraged holiday e-commerce marketing by creating a gift guide.
What’s so cool about gift guides?
Gift guides are a type of shop-the-look. You can create bundles and packages customers can purchase. The best part is that customers can purchase individual items or the entire package. It’s up to them. Either way, you boost sales.
This idea is great in its simplicity. This brand has built a great look and then added accessories to complement it. Then, enticing customers with free shipping is always a great idea. No Rest for Bridget got holiday e-commerce marketing right with this gift guide.
Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) is a classic. You can’t go wrong with a BOGO offer. Customers love getting freebies. Please bear in mind it doesn’t have to be a straight-up two-for-one deal. Take a look at this example:
As you can see, the customer can choose between a couple of different products, and when they select one, they get another product free of charge. This flexibility means that the customer is more likely to convert, because the deal doesn’t lock them into choosing a specific product.
Promo codes can become a very low-cost way to spur your holiday e-commerce marketing strategy. However, it’s important to be mindful of when to use them. In general, tossing out promo codes left and right defeats their purpose. Instead, use promo codes to reward returning customers or email subscribers. In doing so, you incentivize your loyal customers.
You can use a different discount code to entice new shoppers if you must. Nevertheless, returning customers must get a better deal than new ones.
Let’s take a look at this great idea:
ForBrow uses a special promo code to entice shoppers to save. This strategy is a guaranteed tactic you want to keep in your e-commerce holiday planning. Best of all, it’s a simple way of boosting revenue without costing you a substantial amount.
ForBrow makes the list again due to its clever use of holiday e-commerce marketing. In this ad, the brand announces a major sale. However, customers can only access the sale if they register on their VIP list. This approach works wonders as it helps build subscriber lists.
Let’s take a look at the ad:
This holiday e-commerce marketing idea gets our vote because it leverages FOMO (fear of missing out). Imagine you missed the sale because you didn’t subscribe. That’s something that cannot happen! So, you sign up and get on the list. You ensure your spot by getting in on early VIP access. If you’re planning on running a special sale, ForBrow is a good example.
Tiered discounts are a great way to get customers to spend more to save more. A tiered discount offers a greater discount percentage when customers spend more money. Here’s an example:
As you can see, customers save more when they spend more. You can use a Shopify app for tiered discounts, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how effective they can be, especially for consumable products.
With PickyStory, you have a complete platform for managing your e-commerce holiday promotions. Offer product deals and sales, create bundles to promote upselling, use popups across your store, and take advantage of every feature from slide-cart upsells to shop the look galleries.
PickyStory also makes it easy to sell bundles as single products, which you can promote across all your usual marketing channels. PickyStory’s platform is the perfect partner to bring your e-commerce holiday planning ideas to life.
PickyStory helps e-commerce merchants to collect hidden revenue by selling products together. PickyStory offers a variety of deals like Bundle Products, Combo Products, Bundle Builder, Kits, Looks, and Coupons.
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