Ecommerce is more popular now than ever before. Thanks to technological advances, the rise of the internet age, and the widespread usage of mobile devices, even traditional retailers have jumped in on the action.
For some e-tailers, it can be difficult to outshine their larger competitors, especially the competitors with bigger brands that have a physical stores to supplement their online efforts. Make it easier to gain the upper hand with these five things you can do to come out on top during the holidays.
1. Effective planning & prep
The best thing you can do to take the lead and reap the rewards during the holidays is plan ahead. Gather your data and create your plans ahead of time; the sooner you have a framework of what you want to do and how, the sooner you can start testing to make sure it all runs smoothly when it matters the most. Online visitors will not wait for slow loading pages and have little patience for errors – during the holidays, any patience that might have been there drops to zero.
2. Offers, offers, offers
Offers and promotions targeted to your customers’ needs will set you apart. Plan specific offers before, during, and after the holidays. If you have limited shelf-life items that need to be cleared quickly, think about offering deep discounts or hosting a flash sale with an offer your customers can’t resist. Limited edition products make for great sales opportunities, as do VIP sales or early entrance sales for loyal customers.
Increase email signups and encourage customer retention by offering new customers the chance to “peek behind the curtain” in exchange for joining your email list. By offering them a glimpse of the benefits they’ll receive as a loyal or VIP customer, you’ll encourage them to come back to you again and again.
3. Test, make changes, and test again
Data is your friend. Make sure you have the proper analytics tools in place to ensure you’re collecting, not only data, but the right data and presenting it in a way that makes analysis of it easy & efficient. Once you have data informing your decisions, you can start testing. Make changes to copy, placement, design elements, button appearance & text, etc. and see what happens.
With proper testing & analysis, you’ll be able to optimize each step, and every interaction, for optimal user experience. An unforgettable experience will definitely set you apart during the holiday. You’ll also be able to catch & fix any hang-ups and/or bugs in your checkout process early in order to reduce cart abandonment.
4. Intelligent promotion
Intelligent promotion is more than just offering promotions or offers on your site that resonate with your target audience. You also want to get the word out to people outside of your site to bring them in to see the amazing offers you’ve created. Tap influencers and your brand advocates with whom you’ve created strong relationships to talk about you and share their experiences with their audiences on social media, by word of mouth, by referral, etc. – and reward them for it! Segment your visitors in order to create an entire experience personalized to them. Optimize pages specifically for the holidays and for different segments of your audience.
Run tests on social media to see which times of day get the most interaction. Getting a lot of people to see your post is a good thing, if your goal is to raise awareness. However, the times of day where your audience is more likely to click and interact more deeply with your post may be different for you than when the most people see it. If your goal is action-oriented, then it’s important for you to test your social audience to see what will work best for you.
5. Prepare site for influx
If you’re tapping into your audience, your site will see an influx of traffic during the holidays. It can be difficult sometimes to accurately predict how much that may be – things happen and there’s always the chance something you do will “go viral.” To make sure you’re prepared for whatever happens, meet with your hosting company to review server loads & timing; ensure your site will be live and working quickly during peak times and prepared for unexpected boosts of traffic.
Go over the support process and offerings with them. You want to know what the process is: if something goes wrong, will they be there? What can they do to fix it? Make sure you have backup plans in place in case of emergency. Even if disaster strikes behind the scenes, you want to ensure your customers don’t experience it. A seamless experience during the holidays, from start to finish, will set you apart.
For ecommerce businesses, the customer is the most important part of the equation. Even if your business is strictly B2B, the businesses who interact with you are your customers. Start with your customer and think about their needs, wants, and pain points. Then, think about how you can provide a solution for them and how to become their go-to, helpful resource. Once you know that, the only thing left is to do it.