The holidays are just around the corner and this is the time of the year when people are most enthusiastic about shopping. They flock to online stores during this time for last minute shopping. During the holiday season, customers are finicky; there will be several thousand abandoned carts, and many competitors offering great discounts and deals. Your goal should be to get the maximum sales during this season, and here’s how you can achieve it.
1. Experience
One of the worst things about holiday season shopping is the customer experience. There are sudden inventory clashes, website overloads, out-of-stock products, etc. If your e-commerce system isn’t designed to handle a large amount of crowds, the customer experience would be bad and that can damage your company’s reputation. The best way to avoid this is to brace for the upcoming storm and start preparing. Keep your inventory in check, make sure that the website content is upgraded, check the condition of the servers, or inform your hosting service about the expected surge in traffic.
2. Customer Service
During the holiday season, it’s vital for your customer service to be sharp and ready. You want to provide your customers with prompt service and make sure that they have a good experience. You need to display your customer service numbers prominently so that they notice it immediately. It would be a good idea to enable live chat option with representative manning it 24/7. That way, you customers have access to assistance quickly. They won’t have to navigate through the voice system and this would lighten the load.
3. Think of Quick Conversions
Usually, marketers encourage you to guide the customer gently through the conversion funnel. You must avoid everything that smacks of pressure and give the customer some breathing room. This works in normal situations because in many cases, the visitors might not have the intention to make a purchase. The same can’t be said for holiday shoppers. They have the intent to make a purchase and you’re on a strict timeframe. You need to aim for quick conversions and nudge your customers along.
4. Promotional Offers
You need to market your promotional offers vigorously. That means, you don’t just display the offers prominently on your website, but also send emails to your registered customers. During the holiday season, it’s permissible to send more emails to your customers. Your promotional offers need higher visibility. Most of your customers will shop; it’s only a matter of hitting them with the right offer at the right time.
5. Optimize for Mobile Shopping
People are becoming increasingly comfortable with mobile shopping so you need to be ready for customers that would use that platform. Whether it’s through your business’ app or through the mobile phone’s browser, you need to make sure that your customers have a smooth overall experience. You can check whether your website is optimized for mobile viewing by running it through Google’s mobile friendliness test. That would give you an accurate idea.
By ensuring that you’re ready for the holiday rush, you can give your customers the best experience and make sure that you earn good revenue.
