4 Steps to a Merry eCommerce Christmas
Tealeaf research found that 44% of UK shoppers increased the amount of online shopping they did last Christmas. This year should be no different with many shoppers wanting to beat the queues and turn to online shopping. The thing is shoppers are going to be tempted by lots of competing sites offering similar products, so you need to make sure your online store is at the forefront of people’s minds by ensuring convenience.
1. Manage customer expectations
Festive holiday shoppers will want to know when they can expect to have their gifts delivered. Make sure you are displaying deadlines for customers to know their last available chance to buy online for delivery before Christmas. Why not incorporate a countdown timer into your website to create a sense of urgency for the user to buy there and now. If there is anything to learn from last year it is that sometimes those little white flakes we call snow can affect delivery services. Adverse weather conditions are not something you can control but you can certainly inform users of the areas which may experience delayed delivery. Make sure these messages are visible on your site and remind the user again at the check-out.
2. Be systems ready
Tealeaf research found that 45% of those who shopped online encountered website problems whilst doing their Christmas shopping last year, and 32% abandoned purchases as a result. If your site cannot cope with an increase in traffic during the festive season then this can result in a loss of sales. This is not necessarily just on the run up to Christmas, remember many consumers are now spending just as much money online in the New Year as they are in the build-up to Christmas. Don’t give the user an excuse to shop elsewhere and carry out some load testing to see how many users the site can handle before the user experience is jeopardised.
3. Get social
The run-up to Christmas is a great opportunity for online retailers to take advantage of their social media space. The season of gift-giving can be stressful, especially when you do not know what to buy for your loved ones. Use this time to post gift suggestions and advice, driving traffic to your website. Do this in the run-up to Christmas including the final week to capture last minute shoppers and then obviously promote your after Christmas sales. Santa may want to be early this year with lovely presents for your followers such as discount codes for your most popular products. It is important for ecommerce stores to monitor and promote these popular products so be in the know by tracking holiday centric keywords to boost sales.
4. Make gift shopping easy
Make the season of gift-giving an easy one by adding navigational categories for gifts, steering Christmas shoppers in the right direction for wonderful gift ideas. Why not group similar items together to help increase sales. Don’t just leave it up to the customer to find what they are looking for. Make it as simple as possible to find gifts and related products. Test registration, log-in and check-out processes on your website to ensure usability. If they are too cumbersome then shoppers will simply give up and go elsewhere.
How else can you help ensure a merry ecommerce Christmas?
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