With the holiday season fast approaching, there’s no better time than now to optimize your online store for a higher conversion rate. Last year, U.S. consumers spent $53.3 billion in online holiday sales, up from $46.55 billion in 2013. Analysts predict this year’s holiday season will have even higher sales.
So, what steps can you take to prepare your e-commerce store for the upcoming holidays?
Create a Promotional Calender
There’s no better way to optimize e-commerce sales than by creating a promotional calendar. Basically, this is a schedule of each and every promotion that your store offers. For instance, you may offer customers a flat 10% off promotion one week, a free shipping offer the next, and a buy-one-get-one-free offer the following week. As noted by the folks at Shopify, there’s a holiday nearly every week in November and December, so take advantage of this by offering special holiday promotions and discounts.
Optimize Server for Increased Load
Don’t underestimate the increased traffic that your website will receive during the holidays. E-commerce storeowners who fail to adjust their servers for the increased load may suffer from outages – and this can cost you big bucks when it happens during the holidays. Check your web-hosting plan to ensure it’s capable of handling large amounts of traffic. If too many people attempt to visit your online store at once, it could overload the server, forcing your site to go offline.
Plan Your Return Policy
With increased sales during the holidays, you’ll also be getting more returns. Make sure your e-commerce store has a clear, easy-to-follow return policy; otherwise, you’ll be getting countless calls from disgruntled customers asking how to return items. Many e-commerce stores will automatically send customers a return authorization number (RAN), which is used to track the return.
Embrace Email Marketing
Don’t get me wrong, email should be an integral component of every brand’s online marketing campaign, but it’s particularly beneficial when used during the holiday season. Consumers are more likely to check their emails during this time of year, simply because they are on the lookout for special deals and promotions. If you want to capture a piece of this pie, you should send your subscribers new deals via email on a weekly basis.
PPC Marketing
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing platforms like Google Adwords, Bing Ads, and Facebook Ads can yield huge profits for e-commerce stores. They allow storeowners to target users based on search keywords. If you operate an e-commerce store that sells model trains, for instance, you may want to target keywords like “buy model trains,” buy train set,” “where to buy model train,” etc. If you’re not taking advantage of Google Shopping, now is the time. Many Ecommerce stores are converting well into the double digits on shopping campaigns.
If you’re looking for more helpful tips to optimize your online business you may want to check out a couple of our previous posts:
https://www.pixelproductionsinc.com/3-tips-optimize-online-business-holiday-shopping-frenzy/
https://www.pixelproductionsinc.com/be-a-holiday-hit-with-social-media-marketing/
Photo credit: Gayle Nicholson via Flickr Creative Commons
