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The holiday season is here, and with it, your chance to make a huge chunk of your yearly sales. But are you ready?
Do you have the best discounts to attract those in a celebratory mood to go on a shopping spree?
Is your server ready to handle the heavy traffic?
Are you ready to keep up with the sales of last year’s holiday season, or do you want to go beyond it?
These are the questions that you must answer right now and quickly. Because the closer the holidays come, the harder it will become for you to manage. But don’t worry; this article is here for you with the recipe for how to prepare your eCommerce website for the holiday season, whether that’s through crafty website updates or through the help of a professional marketing agency.
Analyze the Results of Last Year
Analyze the result of last year’s holiday. The inflation rate is high, and you need to consider everything from your financials to customer-drawing strategies to maximize your profits.
Therefore, step into the archives and assess the campaigns that you ran last year. Were they successful? If so, to what degree – what was the highest traffic for your eCommerce website? What were the keywords in which your eCommerce ranked, and what was the CTR?
But don’t only assess yourself. Pay close attention to your competitors as well. Find out what they were up to and how much they succeeded with their campaigns.
Answering these questions will give you a good starting point to start strategizing this year’s holiday season marketing campaign.
Get your Inventory Ready
Black Friday sales in the physical world aren’t so different from the virtual. Put the right discount on the right packages, and customers will flood in. Make sure that your inventory is updated to accommodate all the requests.
Contact your supplier and start stocking your inventory in advance. Go surplus if you have to. Holiday seasons are crowded, and items go off the shelf faster. So, having extra products won’t hurt your bottom line, provided you can get enough customers. The next tip will give you insight into that.
Provide Discounts and Free Shipping
90% of customers consider shopping online when a website offers free shipping. That, and discounts, are the best way to draw in more customers.
Select between regular deals for first-time buyers and special discounts for those who shop with you often. Offering special discounts will motivate your long-time customers to shop more.
Gift vouchers are also great if you want to draw your customers to a particular line of your product. Get in touch with the suppliers and sign as many discount contracts as possible.
Make Sure That Your Website Can Handle Traffic
Getting your website to crash during the holiday season is a good way to lose customers. However, it is common. Even major players like Flipkart and Amazon are susceptible to this issue.
But if you have been running a small-scale eCommerce, the traffic spikes your website may experience might be too much for it to handle. So, get in touch with your website host and find out if you have enough space to handle the traffic.
If crashes do happen – and they likely will – you also need to get your customer support ready to deal with the customers. Create a plan to either hire more temporary staff or optimize the work of your current support agents to handle the high number of complaint tickets.