Did you know that in 2022, holiday sales are expected to reach $1.3 trillion, a 3.3% increase over 2021?

From small businesses to enterprise powerhouses, online stores rely on holidays to kick off the perfect sales season. During this time, retailers make a significant portion of their yearly revenue. And if you are an eCommerce store owner, you need to prepare your business to get more revenue too!

Whether shoppers want to treat themselves to Black Friday deals or to find gifts for their loved ones, shopping online is convenient and often affordable. And with a significant portion of holiday shopping taking place online, your eCommerce store needs to perform at its best.

A successful holiday sales strategy includes a combination of strong customer experience, smart conversion tactics, and streamlined internal processes. In this article, we’ll discuss some strategies your eCommerce business can use to build customer trust and gain better revenue this holiday season. 

Holiday Shopping 2022 Predictions For Marketers!

A data-powered forecasting report from PWC highlights key holiday shopping predictions, and marketers would do well to take notes. Among the important takeaways:

• 35% of shoppers plan to spend more than they did last year
• Consumers plan to spend an average of $1,430 on gifts, travel, and entertainment
• 48% of millennials expect to spend more this holiday season than they did in 2021
• 57% of people look forward to online shopping this holiday season

Quick Tips To Boost Your Holiday Sales

Research says, one in five online users do all their Christmas purchases online, and only 16% of shoppers purchase gifts personally in-store and without any support from eCommerce websites.

Employ these 5 helpful strategies to leverage your customers’ festive enthusiasm and sell more this holiday season:

1. Ensure a Seamless Mobile Experience

Over the past few years, mobile e-commerce has grown at an unprecedented rate. During the holiday season, smartphones are the biggest driving force behind shopping. According to WebFX, over 50% of people say that they are less likely to engage with websites with a poor mobile experience.

Source: marketingcharts.com

As more shoppers browse your store on mobile devices, make sure your store is optimized for both desktop and mobile. Here’s how you can do it:

• Run campaigns suitable for all devices and have an adaptive design to attract users to your online store.
• Enable dynamic page serving to enhance website speed.
• Pop-ups and sidebars should be removed for mobile users as they cause friction.
• Add digital wallets to speed up the checkout process.
• Create a personalized shopping experience.

2. Ramp up Your Email Marketing Game

Before Thanksgiving even arrives, everyone’s mind is already filled with thoughts of the holidays. And your customers find out about upcoming sales mainly through email marketing, so don’t forget to focus on it. Effective email strategies play a critical role in bringing users to your online store, so, it is essential to create your marketing accordingly.

Consumers are more likely to abandon their carts during the holiday season as they search for deals, shop around, or forget about their earlier intentions to shop with your brand. To get their attention back, you can:

• Offer free shipping to speed up the decision-making process.
• Add a small discount on products left in the cart.
• Promise a coupon code for the next purchase.
• Offer a freebie on every purchase made.
• Pitch a subscription offer.

3. More and More Discounts!

“49% of shoppers expect brands to always send personalized promotions in line with their preferences.”

Holiday purchases are heavily influenced by promotions and discounts. Take advantage of that mood and offer personalized coupons to your loyal customers. One thing you can always do is – use your creativity to prepare eye-catching email templates focusing on discounts to insist your customers visit your website.

Source: sleeknote.com

You can follow the following tricks to reduce cart abandonment by offering better deals:

• Place your discount CTA strategically to grab user attention.
• Send offers over recently browsed, saved, or placed in the cart products.
• Provide hyper-personalized local deals using the location data.
• Offer tiered discounts for repeat purchases.
• Add personalized gifts, freebies, and BOGO deals on specific website products.

4. Improve Customer Service & Support

Providing solutions to your customers’ problems during the holiday season is an effective way to win them over. However, maintaining good service levels during the hectic sales season can be quite challenging. While ensuring timely delivery, ensuring product stock, and smoothly running website operations, you might sometimes miss some urgent customer issues.

Source: Outgrow

From planning ahead to scaling your customer support experience, here’s what all your store needs:

• Create and regularly update self-help pages with resolutions to the most frequently raised queries.
• Add a chatbot to guide users toward the right answers and provide basic help.
• Hire a few team members to efficiently handle live chat, social media questions, email queries, urgent issues, and more.

5. Run Effective Social Media Campaigns

With the rise of applications such as Instagram Shopping, Facebook Marketplace, and TikTok, social media has become an independent conduit for online shopping. Millennials are hooked on online shopping. So, how do you bridge the gap between purchase and inspiration without spending a lot?

The answer is simple – by building your social media audience list a few months prior to the holiday season.

So, when the holiday season kicks in, you won’t be burning money on running generic ads to disinterested users or people who are unfamiliar with your brand. Because your efforts will be directed to fill your sales funnel with brand-aware and interested prospects.

• Run Facebook and Instagram ads targeting a specific set of users.
• Remarketing ads to past customers.
• Shoppable Facebook and Instagram posts.
• Time-sensitive promo codes to create urgency.

Get The Most Out of This Holiday Season!

Your eCommerce business’s sales during the holiday season can make or break its overall performance, so taking advantage of them is crucial to its success. How can you ensure your website and campaigns are ready to make the most of the season? Consider marketing strategies that have already been tested and continue to be relevant in your current shopping environment.

Later, move on to the five mentioned strategies to get your customers’ attention and keep them coming to your eCommerce store. Offer discounts, focus on timely delivery of products, improve customer service, and aim at improving the website experience. These are just a few steps towards a successful holiday season.

Connect with the three acres team to know more about how you can set up your online store on Shopify and gain profits above the margins in just a few clicks!