Last year, retailers faced major challenges due to increased demand, rising costs throughout the supply chain, and the possibility of an economic downturn.
Cost-conscious shoppers anticipate that, in light of continuous inflation, merchants will provide thoughtfully thought-out discounts and change their return policies this year. Thus, how can online retailers modify their holiday schedules appropriately?
This article will go over several Holiday sales tips you can employ this Christmas season to satisfy business KPIs while taking advantage of the decreasing client demand.
5 Holiday Sales Tips & Strategies for Ecommerce
This year, a winning holiday e-commerce sales plan will combine a potent dose of generative AI, astute conversion strategies, and an excellent customer experience.
Here are five suggestions and developments that we believe will provide responsive retailers a competitive edge in 2024.
1: Start planning for increased sales this month
As early as September, retailers need to be ready to satisfy customer requests. In a recent survey, nearly half of American shoppers stated they would start buying as soon as October.
Furthermore, less than 14% of consumers say they will start their holiday shopping at the last minute.
The typical holiday strain on all ecommerce systems, including marketing, supply chain, billing, CRM, and human resources, is compounded by all of this.
Making your plans ahead of time is the greatest approach to fortify these systems and guarantee that you’re prepared to face the holiday season head-on.
This season, incorporate the following advice into your holiday e-commerce strategy:
- Give a summary of your key performance indicators (KPIs) and seasonal sales targets.
- Get the support of your entire team for the holiday vision and action plan by being upfront and straightforward in communicating requirements and goals.
- Establish a thorough process for organizing the holidays that includes backup plans in case something goes wrong.
- Estimate your revenue by looking at past holiday purchasing trends and current customer demand. With expenses and prices rising this year, what can we expect to change?
- Instead of concentrating on item-specific promotions, concentrate on category-based sales since certain items might not be in stock. For instance, if a specific console is backordered, video game merchants shouldn’t advertise that brand. Alternatively, they could endorse video game platforms as a whole or individual games on different systems.
2: Make it easier for customers to discover attractive products
The holiday season is a time of fierce rivalry, price-cutting deals, and creative conversion-focused marketing tactics.
Retailers that want to stand out and make their holiday ecommerce sales goals must provide better product discovery and more personalization because everyone is vying for the customer’s attention.
Limit the products that clients see on your e-commerce site to those that are both relevant and appealing to them in order to eliminate any obstacles from their online shopping experience.
Not just us are saying this. Consumers want this specifically, according to study.
Seventy-five percent of customers want firms to make their online and in-store experiences as simple as possible.
Additionally, 69% of customers anticipate that merchants will deliver more individualized offerings in addition to cost-effective and good discounts throughout this holiday season.
Imagine, for example, that a frugal holiday buyer visits your website’s in the sale section to see the newest technology offers for their nephew.
They eventually do a search after looking at a number of JBL portable speakers.
Because the buyer demonstrated interest, JBL speakers will show up in autocomplete and higher up on search results pages owing to an AI-powered product discovery engine that continuously learns from every single customer contact.
Click-stream data is gathered in proportion to the user’s interaction with your website.
Throughout their whole product discovery process, these data feeds algorithms to offer more personalized product recommendations.
Reach your holiday sales target by utilizing this hyper-personalization and strategic merchandising approach to boost key performance indicators (KPIs) including average order value (AOV), conversions, and inventory velocity.
Additionally, Holiday sales tips and your e-commerce staff can delegate most of the manual guesswork needed to provide a more engaging experience for your consumers.
3: Ensure an Omni channel presence
Customers demand options that allow them to purchase whenever and however they want, more than ever. Some of these options include speed, convenience, mode of shopping, and pickup.
Hybrid experiences like Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPIS), which offer a happy medium between in-store and online buying, are one way an omni channel strategy can be implemented at scale.
BOPIS made up to 25% of total e-commerce sales for certain retailers in the previous year. In particular, BOPIS provides more client convenience over the holidays. Additionally, it lowers shipping and return expenses for retailers.
Additionally, BOPIS raises the possibility of in-store up sells to optimize income and the quantity of client interactions (emails indicating that an order is available for pickup and order confirmation, for example) that provide additional opportunity for promotion.
Additionally, offline data can provide deeper customization and enhance the omni channel customer journey.
Offline data such as loyalty cards, in-person transactions, and important demographics like age, income, and education can all influence the way a customer interacts with a business.
4: Leverage generative AI to enrich product data
A multitude of sources, including suppliers, PLMs, PIMs, and even spreadsheets, can provide product data.
Retailers are not assured that the data is accurate or full across all of these. Time-pressed merchandising teams are left to fill in the voids before the influx of shoppers who want to finish their holiday shopping early arrives.
Large language models (LLMs) and generative AI mean that brands don’t have to go it alone.
They are able to instantly improve product data, including classifications and qualities.
This frees up merchandising teams’ time to work on more strategic projects by decreasing the amount of manual, error-prone work they have to do.
Holiday shoppers can also locate the ideal presents more quickly. Do you wish to use any holiday insights from previous years to improve the outcomes even further?
You may combine your domain knowledge with AI-powered recommendations for maximum business performance with the help of the intuitive dashboard.
5: Find ways to work around back-ordered items
Even if this year’s American consumers anticipate receiving their goods immediately, you can still make a good impression on them even if you have a large backlog of stuff.
First, confirm that the product pages on your website appropriately represent the most recent back-order estimates and that your website is up to date.
Finding an item that is purportedly in stock and then receiving an error notice at checkout is the most annoying thing that can happen to a customer.
After that, you can think of inventive ways to entertain clients while they wait for back-ordered items to be shipped.
Here are some ideas for maintaining goodwill during this holiday season while adding a personal touch:
- Instead of giving them the actual thing, print special “it’s on its way” cards for them to give to relatives and friends to unwrap on the holiday.
- Provide rewards to clients who are willing to wait, such as free expedited shipping when the item is available or a bill delay until the item ships.
- Offer free gifts or discounts to customers as a way to say “thank you” for their business.
- Update your customers on your creative status via email.
Winning at Holiday E-commerce Sales Strategies
Some winning holiday sales tips are given: The brands that can adjust to shifting consumer demands and unique obstacles will be the ones that thrive during the holidays and in the near future.
The primary differentiators for premium retailers are careful planning, personalization, an omnichannel consumer experience, generative AI, and well-targeted merchandising tactics.
Predictions indicate that businesses that use these Christmas ecommerce tips will have better endings than others.
General ECommerce Marketing Tactics For The Holidays
During the holidays, eCommerce and marketing tactics remain the same; they simply shift to better suit the demands of the consumer base.
To make the most of the peak sales season, you should therefore think about a more comprehensive eCommerce campaign strategy in addition to the specialized eCommerce marketing strategy advice.
Overarching guidelines for a comprehensive holiday eCommerce campaign strategy:
- Recruit and Stock Up: Are the best-selling items in stock in your franchise online store? Do you have enough personnel to fill the reservations you have coming up? Adapt to the growing demand to prevent impeding your marketing and e-commerce plans. This also entails offering dependable customer support.
- Understand Your Client: Do your customers have similar product preferences? Are new services required? Do they use the same social media sites? A successful eCommerce marketing plan is around having a current understanding of your target demographic, as what worked last year may not work again.
- Make It Particular: During a busy shopping season, you will need to use next-level eCommerce marketing strategies to stand out; generic messaging will not do. Marketing tactics for eCommerce that work are data-driven and customized based on the stage of the customer’s purchase experience.
