This is the season to be jolly (and generate loads of revenue for your ecommerce store). After the rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, more people than ever are preparing to spend money right up until Christmas Day. With Christmas right around the corner, we know you’ll be keen to get your ecommerce strategy into order. When you’re a small retailer, you might feel as though you’re limited when it comes to what you’re able to achieve around the Christmas period. You’re already having to deal with increased stock numbers, increased customer support queries, and increased pressure to offer the best deals. It can very quickly become overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re struggling with ecommerce Christmas campaign ideas or don’t know how you can make your ecommerce store stand out, this is the post for you.
In this post, we’re going to give you 9 Christmas strategies you can use to make sure that when it comes to unwrapping gifts, the only thing you unwrap is profit.
Let’s go.
Get your Site Ready
The first thing you need to do to get ready for Christmas is to make sure that your site is ready to handle all the extra traffic you will get. More so than that, you need to make sure that your site looks nice and is easy to navigate. Put yourself in your customers’ position. When you’re hunting for a present for a loved one or friend, do you want to visit a website that crashes constantly, randomly removes items from the cart, or worse, doesn’t let you check out?
Not at all.
So making sure your site is ready for the expedited traffic will put you leagues ahead of your competitors. One thing you can do is make sure your site is super mobile-friendly. Many shoppers around this period will do a great deal of their shopping right on their phones. If they have to zoom in and scroll around the site in order to find more details about the items they hope to buy, they’re likely to move over to one of your competitors.
https://www.statista.com/chart/13139/estimated-worldwide-mobile-e-commerce-sales/
The graph above shows the increase in mobile ecommerce and how it’s predicted to grow over the years. What that means is now more than ever, it’s time to get your ecommerce mobile site ready. You also need to think about how fast your website runs.
SEO Strategy Helps You Generate New Christmas Leads
Around Christmas, you should know that people actively look online to buy their Christmas presents or even just browse for inspiration. One way to make sure that when someone searches for Christmas gifts, your website shows up is to improve your Christmas SEO strategy.
When you search for “Boots” online, you’ll see that they’ve changed their page title to include the word “Christmas”. They’ve also included two product category keywords, “beauty” and “health”. This is effective because it not only lets a prospective visitor know that there will be Christmas deals and offers on the site, but it also helps them find it in the easiest way.
One of the core reasons why people land on your site and don’t make a purchase falls down to the amount of friction your website has. If a customer cannot easily find what they’re looking for, compare other options, and make a purchase, they’re going to go somewhere else. So, make sure that when someone searches for them on Google, they can easily access the Christmas page and browse the products.
So if you’re going to start your Christmas campaign, make sure you have your Christmas products and offers in the most visible place so your potential customers can find them easily.
Christmas-Themed Deals
If there’s one thing a majority of people love, it’s Christmas deals. When you have a load of people to buy for, but you also want to get people nice presents, the total amount can quickly add up.
It’s why so many retailers offer specific Christmas deals their customers will love. What they do here is to reframe the way their deals appear. You’ll see in the screenshot above that the half-price razor has a Christmas theme.
People often like to buy high-ticket items for their close loved ones, and to know you can get an expensive item for half the normal price, it seems like a no-brainer why you wouldn’t make the purchase. In order to properly highlight these great deals, make them as prominent on your website as possible.
The huge banner images are above the fold, meaning that before people even delve deeper into the website, they’re presented with these offers.
If you’re just coming to the website to browse, seeing great deals like these is a sure-fire way to generate more sales. Remember, people can’t resist a deal; make it as easy as possible for them to get one!
Reimagining the Homepage
Every image and product category description on your website should be altered with Christmas in mind so that the entire thing feels “Christmassy”.
This is effective because it helps customers understand that this is the website to go to if they want to find a good Christmas deal. Every single image on the homepage has some sort of Christmas-themed graphic behind it. They even change the copy on some of their category pages to “shop stocking fillers”. This is because they know that at this time, customers are actively seeking out presents.
What’s more, they understand that although people are looking for presents, not everyone is prepared to spend 100’s of dollars. Having a specific section for lower-priced products like stocking fillers allows people to increase their average order value.
Think about it. You’re unlikely to buy 7 razors, but what you might buy is 7 different people a nice stocking filler. If you’re thinking about switching up your ecommerce store to have a better Christmas campaign, see if you can give your entire site a Christmas theme.
If you manage to do it, you’ll convey a message to your prospective customers that you understand their issues with finding the right gift and you’ve reorganised your online store to help them locate something that’s just right for them.
Customer Segmentation
Being able to properly segment your customers is a great way to generate sales because it helps prospective buyers easily find the products they’re looking for.
You’ll see in the image below, the first place where you can search for products for “her”. The second option is to search for products for “him”.
This is effective because it removes the sense of overwhelming you might feel when presented with a load of products. This is good to draw people into their website, but it can also feel quite pressurising when it comes to actually finding the perfect gift for your loved one. Also, you can have further filter options for customers when they want to choose which gender they’re hoping to buy for. You can segment by fragrance, brands, rating, but the one segmentation that’s particularly useful is the “who’s it for” section.
Under the “who’s it for” section, you can pick out of a range of categories.
So whether you’re buying for your son, your grandad, or your friend, you’ll find the perfect product for you.
If you’re looking for ways to segment your products during your Christmas campaign, see if you can go beyond simply “price higher to lower” and instead think about how people shop at Christmas.
Helpful Product Category Pages
Often, when brands produce a specific deal or offer and promote it furiously, it becomes the thing they’re known for.
If you’re from the UK, you’ll know about Boots‘ “3 for 2 mixes & match”. And if you’re not already familiar with the mix & match concept, they have a helpful motion graphic on their 3 for 2 page that explains the process.
They show a series of three images that guide people through how their offer works. The first tells customers to choose the gifts they want from the offer page.
The second shows that you don’t need to think about what price your products are. Their system automatically arranges the gifts in price order: from high to low. Finally, they let you know that you’ll get the third (cheapest) priced item out of the three for free.
It’s a really simple concept, but it’s made even more useful by the fact that they’ve explained how to use the system. Again, they’re working to remove any friction for customers who might choose not to buy simply because they don’t understand how the concept works.
Social Media
Social media is a goldmine when it comes to ecommerce, but even more so when it comes to your ecommerce Christmas campaign. You see, people use social media to discover new things, connect with friends, but more recently, to buy from their favorite brands. If you can get your Christmas social strategy right, you have a great advantage to attract entirely new audiences.
You’ll all know of big brands, spending thousands of dollars on their Christmas adverts, and the thing is, it works. The sharing nature of social media means that if you can get it right for your ecommerce store this Christmas, you’re in for a good treat yourself.
You might have various strategies in place to attract new audiences to your store during the festive period. However, what you might not realize is that you have a whole untapped opportunity, right under your fingertips: namely, in your email list. Your email marketing list is most likely built up of people who have already bought a product from you. As a result, you can boost your sales.
Extra Returns Policy
There is a range of people who will buy Christmas presents at the last minute. There is also a range of people who will be over-prepared and buy their presents early. With most ecommerce companies, you’ll have a set amount of time in which the customer can return the product. Usually, this is 30 days.
However, what happens when a customer buys a product in early November, but it won’t be opened until December 25th? If the customer’s gift receiver doesn’t like the item, and it’s past the return date, they will be upset. So, consider extending your returns policy.
Also, keep in mind, people usually don’t think about returns until at least a few days after the festive period has died down, so if you can, extend the policy for as long as possible. So, you can have a specific page on your website that lets your customers know your returns policy. Clearly state when they can start buying your products from you and how long they have to return them.
Ecommerce Christmas Campaign Takeaways
Your Christmas campaign is arguably one of the most important parts of your entire ecommerce strategy, so it’s definitely not worth it to leave it to the last minute. Don’t let Christmas become overwhelming for you or your customers. Give yourself time to prepare, get your audience excited, and give yourself the best possible opportunity to generate sales.
Let’s make your Christmas campaign to help your ecommerce store generate loads of sales. In this post, we’ve looked at a number of different Christmas ecommerce strategies you can implement into your ecommerce store. See what changes you can make to your store this year and watch the results fly in.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve ever changed your ecommerce store during the Christmas period.
