Increasing Ecommerce Sales During the Holidays

Quarter 4, or the holiday season, is an extremely exciting time for all types of stores, especially ecommerce. It’s the season where consumers having buying on their mind, and it doesn’t take very much to get them to spring on the deals that you have going on yourself. However, there are a few things that you’ll definitely want to take into account as you approach the busy months of October, November, and December, and I’m here to tell you about some of those things.

First of all, you’re going to want people to know that it’s the holiday season. On social media, post about how the holidays are approaching and how some special deals are going to arise. After a few years on the Earth, people are very accustomed to the holiday season equating to a time to purchase goods, usually at a discounted rate. So, making them aware of this while also putting your brand name into their head is fantastic because they’ll immediately start thinking about what they can buy for the holidays, and if your brand name is right there, you’ll take that prime real estate of first spot in their mind. Some ways you can do this include making your store holiday themed, offer special holiday discounts, or even release some exclusive items that won’t be around after the holiday season to trigger people's’ fear of missing out. Combining all of these small things will create an atmosphere that will greatly enhance conversions on your store just by playing into a pre-existing mental state in people.

Secondly, and this is the most important by far, you need to have discounts. I’m talking big savings - bigger than you’ve had before. As we approach this time, yes, people are going to be looking to spend more money. However, the trade-off here is that they’re looking for more deals to justify spending all this money. So, offer discounts of 25%-50% and even higher around Black Friday and Cyber Monday to make your customers think about what a great deal they’d be getting by buying right now. I personally always offer a 10% discount throughout the year, but that jumps to 25% during the holidays. Also, be sure to make it known that these discounts aren’t going to last. Once again, you want to create scarcity and a sense of urgency to get people to spring on your products and impulse-purchase. That is extremely easy to do when you offer them deals that they won’t see again for an entire year.

Finally, step up your marketing. There are two subsections to this point. First of all, with your advertisements, you need to up your ad-spend. This is because EVERYBODY is upping their ad-spend, so if you were spending $10/day on an ad, it’s really like you’re spending $5/day due to the increased competition. Yes, it is a bit of a trade-off and profits won’t be as huge because of this, but it’s a necessary evil in order to stay relevant in this crazy time. Additionally, you need to market to the people that you’ve already roped-in once. In this, I am referring to your email marketing list. Send out emails 2-3 times a week describing featured products and new deals, and always be sure to include a special discount in the email that only a few people have access too. Once again, this more personal style of marketing will greatly increase the chances of somebody springing on your deals, and it’s extremely cheap to send out email marketing. In fact, you can get a 30-day free trial for Get Response by clicking this link. It’s a fantastic way to send out emails and has a bunch of other perks that I’d highly recommend checking out.

By utilizing all of these strategies, your holiday sales can and most likely will increase even a little bit, which is a huge win. The great thing is that you can start using these today. This also means it isn't too late to start on your ecommerce adventure. If you're ready to start, you can get a 14-day free trial of Shopify by clicking this link.