7 Tips About Ecommerce Holiday Season You Can't Afford To Miss

With the 2015 holiday season crawling our calendars, eCommerce business retailers who want to make a killing on Black Friday are busy getting all set for a flood of holiday shoppers.

Do you know that the National Retail Association estimates online sales to elevate 7% to 10% this year, and eCommerce companies are hoping they will be able to merchandise on what will be called the big-time growth year for the industry since 2011? Of course, success depends on every single aspect from upgrading your website to optimizing order fulfillment to improving marketing, you have so much to do if you expect to thrive during the holiday season. Let’s take a sneak peek at 7 ways to foster you make a fortune this year.

Mobile optimization is crucial

Mobile eCommerce grew by 28% in 2014—more than 2 times the 13% growth rate of desktop eCommerce. With over 50% of all online shopping happening via tablets and smartphones, you are unquestionably going to lose customers if your website isn’t mobile-friendly this holiday season. You still have got time to implement responsive design and to create responsive emails too.

Keep checkout easy

The average online shopping cart abandonment rate is approximately 69%.  You can avoid this disaster from happening in this holiday season by making the checkout process a cakewalk, short, intuitive and secure. You can do this by enabling guest checkout which eliminates the compulsion for a user to create an account, display a progress bar, ask for necessary personal information only, provide multiple payment options, use auto-filling fields wherever possible, and strengthen trust using security badges.

Personalization helps

Personalizing your online experience and content for every individual user according to his/her history of behaviors, transactions and interests can help you tremendously in increasing sales this holiday season. You can make use of your user data by finding your high-CLV (customer lifetime value) customers so you can divide your email list and plan a more personalized, targeted campaigns. Moreover, landing page is highly important to assist the user land on the product offer page.

Ensure the web pages load faster

During the demanding holiday season, having snaillike loading product pages will certainly provoke users to abandon your site. Remember that 40% of visitors will leave if the web page does not load within 3 seconds, and 79% of your buyers won’t return if they are disappointed with your site’s load time. You can fight this by implementing traffic management and other optimizing tools to keep you posted about the downtime and slow performance.

Social media integration

Integrate social sharing buttons to your product pages is a simple and smart way to make your products reach your customers’ followers via social media platforms. Making your products shareable on sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ fundamentally turns your happy customers into salespeople that their social circles rely on. Engage prospects and customers on social media platforms and promote your exclusive offers for the holiday season.

Content marketing matters

A lot of online merchants undervalue the benefits that content marketing provides to entice more qualified prospects and convert more customers. Include in your content write-ups such as tips, gift guides, and effective content to position your website as a reliable resource for holiday shopping and industry leader. Moreover, to build customers’ trust, regularly add high-quality content to your website that attracts Google’s attention so you can augment visibility as well.

Proffer free shipping

Do you know that shipping was the main reason for shopping cart abandonment last holiday season? According to a recent study, free shipping continues to stimulate purchasing decisions on eCommerce websites. Approximately 60% of buyers are ready to add more products to their cart to avail free shipping, over 80% are ready to wait for an extra two days for delivery if shipping is offered free, and virtually 70% require free return shipping to complete the purchase.

To sum up

It’s the right time to go mobile, get social and equip your eCommerce business for the 2015 holiday season. This year promises to be a biggie for holiday sales if you have dedicated the proper time and resources to delight your customers and outstrip your competitors. Follow the aforementioned tips to make sure you are generating higher revenues when the holiday shopping season closes instead of counting the mistakes you should be rectified for next year.

Are you looking for eCommerce help to be successful in this holiday season and for years to come? Speak with a specialist to learn more about implementing a dynamic eCommerce solution that simplifies your total operation and double your business.


Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/technoinfonet/2015-10-12/7-tips-about-ecommerce-holiday-season-you-cant-afford-miss

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