12 eCommerce strategies for peak season success:

Online shopping has undoubtedly become a regular part of people’s lives, especially in the past year due to Covid-19. The global e-commerce growth statistics show that e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $4.28 trillion in 2020.

This clearly means that companies have made good business. So why not take advantage of last year’s learnings and use it as the foundation of your peak sales season eCommerce strategy for 2021? Start by digging up your action plans made in the face of a global pandemic. This insight will give you a template for moving forward.

Gather data on best-sellers, sales times and performing campaigns. Use your data to segment customers based on their behaviour, and target them with relevant and timely offers. You could take a deeper look into last year’s.

Promotions: Which of your offers performed the best? Was it free shipping or a discount code? Compare offers and find out which promotions gave the best results and helped reach your campaign goals.

Channels: Which channels converted the most sales? Advertising is extremely competitive during holiday seasons, so make sure advertising costs aren’t eating up all your profit. Knowing which channel worked best last year will give you a guideline for budget allocation.

Timing: The holiday calendar is full of important dates, so naturally offers run at different times, with varying durations. Black Friday discounts may be set for just one day, whereas your pre-Christmas promotions may go on for multiple weeks. The timing of offers will have an impact on your overall sales and even your website’s functionality making sure you avoid unwanted site crashes.

Customer service: Peak season calls for increased traffic which usually calls for a clogged up customer service. So when planning for new seasonal sales look into your purchasing journey. Where did your customers need help with on your site? At what points of the checkout process did your customers fall off their purchasing journey?

How to Generate More E-Commerce Sales

Opening an online store is the same as opening a brick and mortar location. You can’t just put up a new website and expect traffic to roll in. You need to spread the word about your brand and ensure the shopping experience is enjoyable for customers.

1. Utilize Multiple Communication Channels

Trying to reach your customers strictly through your website isn’t enough. If you want to succeed online you need to be in as many places as possible. That gives you a much better chance of being found and discovered by new prospects.

2. Build Brand Awareness

Brand awareness has always been important, but it’s especially true when it comes to e-commerce. When you sell to someone in person, you have a chance to talk to them and build trust. Unfortunately, you don’t have that opportunity when you sell online.

• Run Online Ad Campaigns: Utilizing online advertising, such as Google Ads or Facebook ads, will allow you to be seen by more potential customers. Even if someone doesn’t click on your ads you’ll start to become familiar to them, which is the first step in building your brand recognition.
• Create Quality Content: Great brands aren’t just looking to sell their products. They also inform and educate their customers. By producing content (either on social media or your blog) that genuinely helps people you’ll be able to build trust and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
• Engage with Your Customers: Reply to comments on social media and your blog, or see if people are discussing your products on forums and get involved in the conversations. If people can actually talk to you they’ll realize they’re speaking with a real human, rather than just a faceless business.

3. Analyze Your Competitors

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. There are likely plenty of competitors in your industry that are already selling online and finding success. So, it’s a good idea to have a look at what they’re doing to see if you can replicate any of their strategies.

Do a Google search to find similar e-commerce stores and have a look at their websites. Go through the buying process to see what the experience is like. Are they doing anything differently than you? Do they offer any features that you’d like to add to your own site?

You can also analyze sellers on Amazon who are selling products similar to yours. The great thing about this is there are a number of Amazon product research tools available that will allow you to see what tactics sellers are using to promote their products on the platform.

• Google Analytics: By connecting your e-commerce site to Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see how people are finding your site. You’ll also be able to see where your visitors are located, along with a host of other information about your website traffic.
• Google Webmaster Tools: This is another important tool you should set up, as it lets you see what keywords people are using to find your store.
• Google Trends: Type your products and services into this tool to see who is searching for these items. You’ll also find related terms that you can add to your marketing.
• Facebook Ads: Do you want to make sure you’re always targeting your ideal customer with ads? Use Facebook’s lookalike audience feature when creating your ads to target people with the same characteristics as your Facebook followers.

5. Create a Good Shopping Experience

Increasing your e-commerce sales isn’t just about getting customers to your website. You also need to make sure you can generate conversions once they get there. To do this it’s important that you provide your customers with a seamless shopping experience.

Make sure you have a good navigation system in place. Customers should be able to quickly find what they’re looking for. To make things even easier, include a search feature so customers can type in the products they want.

Once someone is ready to buy, the process needs to be simple. Offer as many forms of payment as possible (credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.) and ensure your instructions are easy to follow.

If possible, let customers check out as guests rather than registered users to make the process even quicker. The easier it is to buy from you the better the chances are that your customers will complete their transactions.

6. Test and Analyze Your Strategies

No one gets it completely right the first time. Even if your initial e-commerce strategies are successful there will still be room for improvement. This is why it’s so important to keep testing to ensure you’re getting the most out of your online store.

Make your e-commerce business mobile-friendly

Over 79% of online shoppers purchase through their smartphones. This means that you have to optimize for mobile e-commerce to provide a seamless experience through the different levels of your customer’s journey. Ensure that your website is adaptable and includes clickable hyperlinks, autofill suggestions, and reduced animation usage. The content should also be displayed appropriately with fast processing time to improve your mobile e-commerce sales.

Payment gateways are crucial to the success of your business, and selecting an appropriate payment gateway is critical. However, while choosing a single option may seem convenient, it hurts conversions. It often results in cart abandonment, so consider accepting multiple payment methods, including ACH transfers, Visa, Mastercard, and mobile money transactions. Accepting various payment options expands topographical coverage, enhances the client experience, and improves conversions and sales.

Sources:

https://www.giosg.com/blog/ecommerce-strategy-for-peak-season
https://www.spiralytics.com/blog/ecommerce-marketing-boost-sales/
https://ecommercefastlane.com/how-to-improve-your-e-commerce-sales-in-2022/