One of the most significant shopping events is drawing near, and retail chain giants such as Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and many more are choosing to close its doors this holiday. It’s a complete turnaround of the major trends we’ve seen in recent years.
As claimed by the National Retail Federation (NRF), “A record of nearly 190 million US consumers shopped from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday in the year 2019 with an increase in spending by up to 16 percent.”
With fewer door-buster deals on the horizon, there’s a high possibility that online sales will start early and extend beyond the weekend. In fact, in a survey conducted by Shopkick, 34% of U.S. shoppers indicated that they would make their holiday purchases before Thanksgiving.
The marketability of Thanksgiving weekend shopping continues even as earlier NRF surveys found that 56 percent said they had already started as of the first week of November.
NRF President and CEO, Matthew Shay stated, “Americans continue to start their holiday shopping earlier in the year, and Thanksgiving is still a critical weekend for millions.”
”With the condensed holiday season, consumers are feeling the pressure to get their shopping done in time. Even those who typically wait until the last minute to purchase gifts turned out in record numbers all weekend long.”
The ‘Golden Hours’ for Thanksgiving 2020 will inevitably be more significant than ever…
Don’t Sleep on eCommerce’s Greatest Window of Opportunity!
Here are 7 tips to help you prepare for the shopping frenzy of the upcoming holiday:
- Optimize your checkout page
The traffic for Holiday Sales 2020 is expected to be huge. Simplify your checkout process and make it more desirable for every online shopper by making your checkout interactive & responsive.
Create a seamless checkout experience by only having one checkout page, enabling guest checkouts, and offering several payment options.
Comparing multiple checkout pages vs a single page on a mobile device is a game-changer. Having all of your checkout-related forms on a single page makes the process easier and quicker for customers. Don’t take the risk of giving your customers time to leave your site and ensure consistent customer satisfaction.
It’s also recommended to develop trust and security by displaying trust signals using custom trust badges and testimonials from happy customers.
2. Audit your email segmentation strategy
Don’t take the cookie-cutter approach when it comes to email marketing. Sending bulk emails or haphazardly targeting your paid promotions will only result in a “one-size-fits-none” output.
Ensure your segments are measurable, actionable, and operate within the workflow you currently have for email.
For top-of-funnel (TOFu) subscribers, segment them according to demographics, lead scoring, and engagement. Middle-of-funnel (MOFu) subscribers should be segmented based on interest & behaviour, RFM analysis, and product recommendations. Finally, segment bottom-of-funnel (BOFu) subscribers based on purchase history, cart abandonment & cart value.
3. Map out your email marketing calendar
Start building momentum by developing a content strategy leading up to one of the most important holidays, Thanksgiving. Try using a countdown to build anticipation leading up to the sale.
Creating your email marketing calendar and mapping it out in advance saves you loads of time. This way, you’ll know exactly what, when, and how your content will fit into your overall email marketing strategy.
4. Automate email marketing campaigns
Schedule email sequences and set up email campaigns to nurture your leads and continue communication even after the holidays.
By utilizing automated email features, you can grab your customers’ attention beforehand and get the word out early on your holiday promotions that will increase conversions when you need them the most.
Some email sequences you can send to your audience include a strong welcome series, confirmation messages, seasonal greetings, early bird offers, Thanksgiving promotions, gift card promos, abandon cart emails, last-minute offers, and product reviews.
5. Create FOMO
FOMO or Fear of Missing Out is the ultimate psychological trigger that your audience can’t stop themselves from responding to. It also instills urgency to act fast immediately and increase sales as well as engagement.
FOMO can also draw sales from people who might abandon a shopping cart and not return to complete the sale.
Use terms such as “a few hours left” or “Cash-on-delivery available.” Highlight missed opportunities with limited editions and ends tonight. You can even utilize a timer to show urgency and make customers feel like they are losing a big deal. If the stock is running low on an item, let your customers know about it to grab their last chance before it sells out.
6. Offer free shipping
As a competitive necessity, this tactic is super beneficial as it has shown multiple psychological benefits to customers and increases spending.
You can start running a basic A/B split test and determine how much free shipping can cost you. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way of transporting items to customers, try ground shipping only offers.
Setting a minimum order value and offering an affordable flat rate for all sales when offering free shipping services is also beneficial by lessening the number of orders as customers buy a lot in one go
Reduce your costs further by only providing a free shipping offer for specific items. This way, you remove low margin goods, restrict free shipping to high volume items and remove heavy items that carry high shipping costs from your free shipping offers.
7. Last but not least, measure the success of your holiday campaign
Once the Thanksgiving holiday is in the books, the holidays still aren’t quite over. This is the perfect time to measure the performance of your promotions and campaigns.
Measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you understand your overall performance. This data group helps evaluate your website’s performance, customer journeys, and what content or products are performing best.
Here are a few KPIs to consider: Sales, Average order value (AOV), Conversion rate, Shopping cart abandonment rate, New vs. Returning Traffic, Site speed, Bounce rate, Traffic source, Mobile site traffic, Daypart monitoring, and Product affinity.
Once you’ve gathered and evaluated all of the necessary data, adjust your efforts accordingly.
If you notice that customers are engaging more with specific advertisements, increase them. If a majority of your site traffic is coming from a single source, continue your efforts to focus on this source and double down on what’s currently working.
Preparing your eCommerce business for the holiday shopping season is a tedious task that takes time and effort. It may bring difficulties, but investing in the cultivation of existing prospects will surely be profitable for your eCommerce business.
With these 7 actionable tips we’ve shown, you have the step-by-step approach to take your holiday readiness to a whole new level and welcome jolly shoppers everywhere with ease.