By
•
Sep 14, 2022
According to the latest Deloitte holiday retail survey, online shopping is expected to make up the majority of people’s holiday spending.
If you own an eCommerce business, this is good news! It means you can expect to see a surge of holiday traffic on your site. However, you’re not the only one who wants to maximize the holiday rush to boost sales.
Your competitors are also vying for the attention of your target customers, so you need to be prepared.
But how?
As your trusted digital marketing agency in Miami, believe us when we tell you that being the cheapest and having the best quality product in the market is no longer enough to convince customers to buy from you.
What matters most to holiday shoppers is getting their packages on time and having a valuable and delightful overall experience with your brand.
Here are a few ways you can optimize your eCommerce strategy to provide a hassle-free experience during the holiday.
The holidays continue to be the leading shopping season – and online shopping during this time is at an all-time high as 57% of consumers shifted to online channels for their purchases.
During peak sales season, like the holidays, expect your popular items to sell very quickly as they come in.
This means you need to stock up early, have proper inventory management, and quick turnaround times to ensure your customers don’t run out of items and wait for a very long time or resort to a competitor.
If your supplier is running late on their deliveries, it means you can’t deliver your items to your customers on time either.
Shipping speed is very important to online shoppers. 87% of consumers consider it as a key factor when deciding whether or not to buy from an eCommerce store again.
68% of consumers said that fast shipping would lead them to buy online. However, if a good percentage of your customer base stretches over multiple regions and countries, how can you make sure your delivery lead time meets their expectations?
It’s best to split your inventory across multiple fulfillment centers to ensure you can deliver your items as fast and as efficiently as possible, especially during the holiday season.
42% of shoppers expect two-day shipping and some are even willing to pay more for same-day delivery options. With more than one fulfillment center, you can store your goods nearer to buyers. This can significantly reduce shipping expenses and delivery times since your items won’t have to travel as far.
Modern consumers are no longer satisfied with simply waiting for their packages to arrive. They want to know what’s going on with their orders and their whereabouts, especially if it’s going to make it in time for Christmas!
Provide your customers order status updates via email or SMS alerts, from the time their orders are being fulfilled to the moment they received their package.
Giving your customers better visibility into their package’s whereabouts by sending them accurate shipping information and tracking updates help put their minds at ease.
It also allows you to proactively solve unexpected delays in delivery by letting your customers know before they even begin to notice that their orders are delayed.
Once their item has been shipped, don't forget to send a follow-up email to confirm if their package has indeed arrived. Follow-up emails also provide the opportunity to ask for feedback or even cross-sell.
As the best digital marketing agency in Miami, we strongly believe in the power of personalization. Personalization is no longer something that’s “nice to have” – it’s an expectation and a prerequisite to ensure your eCommerce store thrives in the years to come.
Businesses see a 19% boost in their sales when they personalize their web browsing experience. 56% of online shoppers are also more likely to revisit a site that offered smart product recommendations.
Product recommendations can be as basic as showing each user with a list of your best-selling items or as complex as using an algorithm that presents each visitor a dynamically updated set of products based on customer data and on-site interactions.
Attract customers to your online store by showing the right products for them! Relevance will give you the ability to wow customers. It also makes their lives easier, especially during the holiday rush.
Instead of endlessly browsing through your product pages, they no longer need to go further. This is because you’ve already given them what they’re looking for!
Here are the different product recommendations you should consider using on your site for the holidays:
The more quickly you adopt product recommendation technology, the faster you can make precise suggestions across sales channels, and the more you can provide the most delightful customer experience.
The number of people shopping online through their mobile devices is growing by the day. Mobile commerce sales hit $359.32 billion in 2021 and are predicted to reach $620.97 billion in 2024.
To provide a hassle-free experience to your customers this holiday season, this digital marketing agency in Miami suggests that you optimize your website for mobile by using a mobile-friendly web design and providing mobile payment options.
Below are the six ways to optimize your mobile shopping experience this holiday season:
Modern consumers want to have the freedom to decide how to buy and receive their items.
Some people want to have their orders delivered fast, while others are willing to wait over three days as long as the shipping is free.
Many shoppers also want to be able to buy goods online and pick them up in-store, or buy in-store and have them delivered to their house.
Offering flexibility in how your customers want to shop and a variety of options on how they want their orders to be delivered is essential to customer satisfaction. It also attracts customers and helps build loyalty.
Another way you can offer flexibility to consumers is by offering simple product returns and exchanges policy. 62% of shoppers are more likely to buy from your online store if they can return their purchase to one of your physical stores.
Omnichannel retailing refers to enabling customers to transact with your business across multiple channels, including social channels, marketplaces, physical stores, and more. It also provides a consistent and seamless shopping experience across all possible customer channels.
Allow customers to engage with you however they want with your brand on whatever channel or device they prefer.
By being present and active on various channels, you can be more available to your customers, drive sales, and generate traffic.
Creating a consistent brand experience is also important because customers don’t want to “start over” whenever they engage with you. Rather, they want to be able to pick up where they last left off, especially when shopping for holiday gifts.
Instead of letting customers come to you on their own, take initiative in reaching out throughout their lifecycle and help them take the next step in their journey.
You can do this by:
Some examples of proactive communication are reaching out to your customers even after they’ve already made a purchase, such as sending post-purchase surveys, letting them know if there are any delays in shipment, emailing cart-abandonment messages, and many more.
By being proactive in your communication and sending prompts, you can engage your customers further, establish trust, and develop a relationship.
Providing a smooth and delightful holiday shopping experience isn’t about being the cheapest on the market. It’s about making sure your items are in stock, providing your customers with various shipping options, making sure order arrive on time, providing smart product recommendations, optimizing for mobile shopping experience, being active across multiple channels, and being proactive in your communication!
Digital Resource is the most trusted digital marketing agency in Miami. Our digital marketing experts and SEO specialists will work with you to create a custom holiday strategy that will ensure a smooth and delightful shopping experience for holiday shoppers!
Contact us today to get started!
Think you've got what it takes to hang with the pros at Digital Resource? Check out our Careers page to browse current job openings!
.svg)