There’s no doubt about it. 2020 has been an unpredictable year, and while the holiday season might look a little different this time around, an online sales surge is still widely anticipated. In fact, with lockdown restrictions affecting much of the western world, this holiday season could see record demand for eCommerce retailers.
Even in a normal year, the holiday season typically sees the highest sales of the year. In 2019 alone, online holiday sales reached a staggering $135.35 billion and average order values reached $152.95.
To make the most of the holiday season and stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to do more than simply have an online presence. Brands need to create meaningful connections with their customers, offer personalized online experiences and provide holiday shoppers with convenience and peace of mind.
In this guide, we’ll help you get ready for the most wonderful – and potentially profitable – time of the year.
Notable Dates (holidays vary by country)
1 – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
98% of website first impressions are design related. That’s why your store needs to look aesthetically inviting in addition to being easy to navigate. Let’s face it, there’s really no excuse for having a tired website in 2020. You don’t need to invest hundreds of $’s with a web designer either. In fact, if budgets are tight, check out a website builder such as Squarespace. They’ll give you full control over your site design and build and even integrate with all your eCommerce store functionality and review apps like HelpfulCrowd.
During the holidays, you might want to give your website design a shake up. Why not take advantage of festive colors or add some digital snowflakes on your product pages? Here’s a quick guide to some of the most festive colors for your website design and marketing this season:
Consumers demand a personalized online experience that offers true convenience. Consider the following ahead of the holiday season:
- Set up automated abandoned cart notifications
- Offer multi-recipient functionality
- Implement zero transaction fees
- Provide a variety of shipping and fulfilment options
- Make sure you’re asking for product and business reviews with a platform like HelpfulCrowd
Preparing your merchandising strategy
Before you get started, consider the following questions:
- What products will you sell during this holiday season?
- How will you display these products on your site?
- Will you have a holiday-specific category in your navigation?
TIP – Equip your store with an advanced search feature. This can help customers skip straight to the products they’re seeking out and optimize conversions.
Here’s how to decide what to sell this season –
- Analyze last year’s sales: Look back at what worked well and what didn’t.
- Read the news and gift guides: Check out what people are talking about in consumer media as this usually translates to higher demand and sales. For example, Mashable runs an annual “tech gadgets gift guide” each year.
- Industry reports: Each year, a number of studies and reports round up the most popular products for that holiday season.
- Check out the competition: Look at what your competitors are selling. Platforms like Commerce Inspector allow you to track which products are selling well on other Shopify stores. It’s a great intelligence tool to track the performance of ad campaigns, traffic and more.
- Review Google Trends: Like it or not, Google holds the clout when it comes to search. Search for specific product brands that you sell and see how popular they are during the key months of November and December. In the example below, you’ll see a search for “LEGO” shows the brand to be an extremely popular choice during the holiday season. Google Trends can also be useful for those stores using drop shipping.
- Check out communities and forums: Forums like Reddit are a great place to check out hot trends in your particular industry. You could ask a question and use the answers to inform your decisions.
- Review social media channels: Keep your eyes peeled to your social media channels and run a regular search to identify key talking points among your followers. Use hashtags like #BlackFriday and #ChristmasPresent to see what’s hot and what’s not.
- Check your reviews: If you’ve been using a platform like HelpfulCrowd, you’ll already be well versed in customer reviews and will likely be using feedback to inform your business decisions and merchandising choices. Keep an eye on those products receiving highest satisfaction ratings and don’t forget to set up “product recommendations” to upsell similar or relevant products to existing customers.
Product pages
Create the most appealing product pages that reflect your brand and place your products in the very best light. Facilitate the decision-making process by showcasing your best product reviews and star ratings. HelpfulCrowd allows you to showcase attractive widgets with media-rich reviews, star ratings and Q&As. These are proven to help drive conversions.
Checkout optimization tips
- Offer multiple payment options
- Enable automated cart abandonment notifications
Consider multi-recipient capabilities
Enabling multi-recipient functionality as opposed to having your customers placing a plethora of orders for holiday gifts is a great way to add convenience to your store, especially during the festive season.
2 – SELLING, SHIPMENT AND FULFILMENT
Where to sell
If you’re a business that sells purely online, you’ll likely be well placed to prepare for a busy holiday season. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional brick-and-mortar stores are having to consider adding more eCommerce capabilities in order to make up for a reduction in footfall.
Consider the following places when looking at selling options.
- Make use of online marketplaces
- Use social commerce, through organic and paid social media (we’ll cover this in more detail later)
- If you sell in-store and online, prepare for a higher-than-normal demand online
- Explore cross-border and international sales options
Don’t forget to implement good practice and consistency on your own site and on any other platforms where your products are being sold:
- Write compelling and clear product titles and descriptions
- Feature high-quality product imagery
- Integrate the channels you sell on your eCommerce platform
- Encourage customers to opt into your email newsletters or follow you on your social media channels
Cross-border selling
It’s now easier than ever to sell your products to customers around the world. However, to make the most of cross-border sales, you’ll need to consider a few specific eCommerce features.
Enabling multi-currency functionality on your store allows customers to transact in their local currency. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also increases conversion rates and gives brands control over their pricing.
If cross-border selling proves a success for your brand, consider other multi-store capabilities like multi-language – adding even more convenience for those international customers.
Finally, you’ll need to account for differences in your audience segments. While some will be clear – like language or demographics, others will require more research. The more specific you can be with your audience segments, the greater your chances of success when it comes to converting visitors into sales.
Shipping
Unless you have a team of reindeer at the ready, you’ll need to ensure your shipping and fulfilment solutions are in place ready for a surge in sales.
Now’s the time to determine which shipping options you’ll put in place. Will you –
- Handle shipping and fulfilment in-house?
- Outsource shipping and fulfilment with a third-party logistics provider?
- Outsource shipping and fulfilment with a dropshipper?
Whichever option you choose, automating your shipping process can make things easier.
Shipping software is a great way to conveniently print labels, manage orders, print shipping labels in bulk and reconcile shipping bills. Some providers even allow you to automatically set the cheapest rate or fastest method. One to check out is AfterShip, which also integrates with HelpfulCrowd so that you can automatically trigger review requests to be sent ‘on delivery’, knowing that the customer is not going to receive the request before hand, or if there is a delay.
With the right shipping strategy in place, you’ll be able to offer your customers a better overall experience. You’ll also see an increase in conversions and brand loyalty.
Inventory management
Be sure to stock up – sensibly.
Inventory management can make or break your success amidst the holiday craziness, and it’s best to look back at previous holiday seasons (if you have the data) to create detailed demand forecasts. Do keep in mind though, that 2020 is a year like no other, so flexibility is key.
Holidays can bring unpredictable challenges. For example, if your products are featured in a magazine gift guide or endorsed by an influencer, you might experience immediate supply and demand challenges. Keep these things in mind when planning your inventory and promoting your products in your marketing strategy.
Recommended products
A platform like HelpfulCrowd helps you make use of every opportunity to make a sale. Making use of “recommended products” on customer touchpoints, like review requests, can build loyalty and repeat business for the post sale periods.
Unboxing experience
Remember as a kid how excited you’d be about unboxing your Christmas presents – and then playing with the packaging more than the actual gift? It seems some things never change.
Search “unboxing” on YouTube and you’ll find endless uploads of excitable influencers unboxing everything from the latest iPhones to eco-friendly shoes. The unboxing experience has become just as exciting as the products themselves. For this reason, you should choose your packaging materials carefully.
While they should be aesthetically pleasing and in keeping with your brand, be sure to factor in sustainability. Sustainable, recyclable packaging is a huge hit with customers and this trend is likely to grow.
Storefront POS
If your brand sells both online and offline, you’ll need a point-of-sale (POS) system in place. This will allow you to integrate your inventory and even leverage offline inventory to fulfil online orders.
Prepare for returns
On average, 15% to 30% of online purchases are returned during the holiday season. This is a key concern for e-tailers.
Prepare your returns policy in advance and rather than seeing them as a loss, see them as an opportunity to win back customers.
You could even acquire new customers who discover your store from a gift.
3 – MARKETING
Build an emotional connection with customers
Christmas is all about giving back and spending time with family and friends. While 2020 may be a Christmas like no other, it’s still important to maintain those values and connect with customers on an emotional level. You can do this in a number of ways.
- Team up with a charity that fits with your brand ethos and mission.
- Use a storytelling approach within your marketing and PR collateral.
- Use user-generated content to reinforce your brand and celebrate your customers. Share review content (text and multimedia) across your marketing platforms to show REAL experiences from REAL people. Using a review collection app like HelpfulCrowd allows you to display a verified review badge too, helping site visitors trust your brand.
Decide on the “big idea”. What topic or message will lead your marketing campaign this time?
Are you running one key offer throughout the holiday season – for example, buy one get one free. Or are you doing a series of campaign promotions like an advent calendar or “12 days of Christmas” style promotion?
The above campaign shows Outdoor Research, for example, donating $10 to Paradox Sports for every Instagram post containing both the #OptOutside and #OutdoorResearch hashtags. This is a classic example of using a charitable connection.
Create your holiday designs
Prepare your social media and site graphics in advance if you can, integrating your brand colors, fonts and themes throughout. Get creative. After all, you’ll need to make sure your store stands out in a crowded market place.
Promotions
Promotional strategies are a great way to boost sales and loyalty during the holiday season.
Tactics include:
- Upsell with gift cards (can be ecards) at checkout
- Offer seasonal services like gift-wrapping and free shipping
- Add urgency with time-limited offers
- Add a charitable donation button at checkout
- Reward customers with discounts through a referral program or for writing reviews with rich content with videos and photos
HelpfulCrowd’s ReviewRewards feature allows you to easily offer customers incentives for leaving reviews, in a compliant and non-invasive way. ReviewRewards are a great way to engage with customers and encourage them to return to your store.
Top tip – decide on the time period for any promotions and work out the terms and conditions to prevent any problems arising down the line.
Your eCommerce store is your brand’s home. Craft content and copy that resonates with your audience and do your best to offer additional content resources like holiday gift guides or look books.
Customer reviews and user-generated content
Here at HelpfulCrowd, we’re all about user-generated content. After all, it’s free (it comes from your customers) and has proven potential to convince and convert visitors to your site.
One simple product review can result in a 10% increase in sales and 200 reviews can result in as much as a 44% increase in sales.
Our platform can help you gather more reviews, star ratings and media-rich user-generated content that can be used over and over. You can integrate this review content on product pages, at key conversion points, or on your social media channels and in paid ads.
HelpfulCrowd helps you acquire more reviews through a tried and tested email review request strategy. You can even add media reminders to follow up and increase the number of photo and video reviews you receive.
Social media
User-generated content rules on social media. It’s the modern-day version of “word of mouth” and the vast majority of millennials trust recommendations from peers as much as those from friends and family. If you’re looking to leverage influencers, ask them to create content that has a strong holiday focus. This will keep their efforts in line with your overall strategy. Be sure to keep the festive theme throughout your social media channels too. Here’s a little inspiration:
HelpfulCrowd allows you to share your best reviews quickly and easily to platforms like Twitter and Facebook. We do this using SocialTransmit. During the busy holiday season, you can even automate the platform to post reviews to your social media channels while you sleep.
Questions and answers are another great way to answer those most common queries and drive customers further along the sales funnel. HelpfulCrowd’s Q&A feature is a user-generated content machine, providing lots of helpful information ready to share on social.
Paid advertising
While organic content most definitely rules the roost, paid advertising can help your brand get a little more visibility in a crowded marketplace. Google Ads are also popular, with paid boosts garnering thousands of views in addition to any organic SEO efforts. Consider using your product reviews in your ads too. An app like HelpfulCrowd helps you pick out the very best feedback, as well as providing you with an abundance of photo and video review content. An example of a sponsored Facebook post, using reviews, is shown below.
Email marketing is a great way to deliver personalized communications to those already familiar with your store. Combine eye-catching emails with dynamic discount codes, specific campaign targeting, tracking and attribution.
Take care not to bombard or spam your customers with email marketing. Instead, try to target your email communications specifically and always observe the data privacy laws of your target audience (for example, GDPR).
- Segment your email lists – group them according to key demographics, geographical area or historic purchases
- Create holiday-themed campaigns. Change your color scheme, branding and add festive graphics
- Create a holiday gift guide email
- Launch exclusive holiday sales
- Use urgency
- Run a competition or contest, promoted through your email marketing campaign
- Theme your subject lines – a recent survey even found that emojis used in the subject line can increase open rates
- Don’t forget the footer – add those all important links to your store and product categories
- Always optimize for mobile
- . Test your campaigns
- . Use social proof and customer reviews within your email marketing
HelpfulCrowd lets you create attractive review request emails that not only allow you to garner more reviews, but also act as a marketing source to share recommended products or remind your customers about promotional offers.
SEO
Organic SEO is a great way to get your store seen by customers at any time of year, but can prove especially important during the holidays.
- Utilize SEO tools like Yoast to optimize all areas of your site.
- Regularly check your site’s load times with Google Analytics.
- Identify relevant keywords and search terms for your specific products and the holiday.
- Create specific landing pages for Black Friday and Christmas with custom URLs, page titles and meta descriptions.
- Use SEO efforts alongside other promotional marketing tactics like social media.
4 – Customer service
Avoid a potential nightmare before Christmas
A crashed website during the busiest sales period is every store owner’s worst nightmare. Not only can this result in the very obvious loss of sales, the sheer inconvenience can also put pay to return customers and leave a bad impression on those who encountered problems with your store.
When choosing an eCommerce platform for your store, it’s best to ensure you have access to 24/7 global support, additional premium security features and industry-leading uptime to provide the very best experience for you and your customers.
One other thing to avoid is a PR crisis. Negative reviews can be a major concern for e-tailers, but HelpfulCrowd helps you handle negative feedback in exactly the right way. You’ll be able to visibly offer solutions to your customers, automate quick responses and make use of ContentGuard – HelpfulCrowd’s feature to block out profanities or inappropriate content.
Support your customers
Even the most inconvenient situation can be rectified with the right customer support experience. You should provide dedicated support for your customers using phone, email and social media channels. Be sure to respond within 24 hours where possible.
You should also consider adding:
- Chat support
- Contact information clearly visible on your website and with order confirmations
- Q&A offers quick and easy answers about your products (HelpfulCrowd provides a handy Q&A feature that can be easily implemented on your product pages). It also reduces purchases barriers by providing answers to the commonly asked questions.
Ask for feedback
Here at HelpfulCrowd, we’re passionate about user-generated content and customer feedback. It’s one of the most powerful ways to receive product endorsement and make more sales.
Asking your customers about their experience with your brand will not only help you make more sales and provide marketing content, but also help you learn more about how you can improve as a business.
Where you’ve responded to negative feedback by offering a solution, HelpfulCrowd’s Re-review feature allows you to ask for an updated review to reflect the rectified situation (and hopefully boost your final review rating).
Holiday readiness checklist
Customer experience
- Evaluate your website tools
- Check your website functionality and make any changes
- Activate abandoned cart notifications
- Enable multi-recipient capabilities
- Optimize your checkout experience with recommended products
Reviews and feedback
- Make use of historic customer reviews and user-generated content, using them in your marketing campaigns and promotions
- Set up your customer review request process to ask for feedback. Alternatively, you could sign up to a platform like HelpfulCrowd that helps you automate the entire process
Shipping and fulfillment
- Integrate additional sales channels into your ecommerce platform
- Enable multi-currency functionality if selling internationally
- Finalize your shipping and fulfillment strategy and decide whether you’ll be managing this in-house or outsourcing
- Create your unboxing experience and decide on packaging
- Evaluate your return process and policy
Marketing
- Enable gift card and promotions functionality
- Create a content calendar with seasonal storytelling, festive hashtags and imagery
- Finalize your communications strategy and ensure full integration across channels
- Establish an email marketing campaign
- Amplify marketing efforts with paid ads and a strong SEO strategy
- Make use of user-generated content and establish your review collection strategy
- Incorporate recommended products at key points in the buyer journey
