The Holiday Season is just around the corner ⏰. So pull up your socks, tie your shoelaces and get ready to win the giant e-commerce competition for the 2020 holiday season.
An off guard E-commerce store will not be capable to grab the increase in shopping needs and sales. You might have prepared your E-commerce store for the 2020 holiday season. But this ultimate E-commerce holiday guide will be beneficial to prepare your E-commerce site completely so that you do not miss out on any important things.
Before moving to the holiday guide, have a look at the important dates of the 2020 holiday.
2020 Holiday Sales Calendar
???? Halloweens – October 31, 2020
???? Thanksgiving – November 26, 2020
???? Black Friday – November 27, 2020
???? Cyber Monday – November 30, 2020
???? Christmas – December 25, 2020
???? New Year – January 1, 2021
???? Valentine’s Day – February 14, 2021
2020 Holiday E-commerce Forecast
The 2020 Holiday season will be different for E-commerce due to the effect of COVID-19. According to the survey by Radial, 66% of shoppers plan to spend more bucks online on the 2020 holiday. This shows a booming festive season for the online market. E-commerce merchants have a golden opportunity to rule online sales this year.
Without any further wait, the ultimate E-commerce holiday guide is right here for you.
Planning Guide to Prepare your E-commerce Store for 2020 Holiday
1. Set your Targets for the 2020 Holiday Season
Your holiday goals cannot be measured without key performance indicators. The common indicators to measure E-commerce store success are bounce rate, sales, conversion rate, traffic, shopping cart abandonment rate.
You can determine these indicators through a well-known tool, Google Analytics. It is also essential to measure the targets from a marketing point of view. That includes pay-per-click, number of subscribers, email open rate, number of ratings.
2. Believe in Tried and Tested Practices
Special offers are the thing that brings high traffic. So your E-commerce site must work smoothly even with high traffic to your site. Slow performance is likely to take your E-commerce site to the termination. Besides this, test the page load speed of your website as it determines the customer’s willingness to continue buying.
Ensure all the functionalities of your store work well. If you have not tested your store functions long back, check it now before the holidays appear. Allowing cart abandonment notifications will facilitate sending reminders to the customers for the items they have left behind. You can also send festive offers notifications to the customers to attract them to make a purchase.
3. Simplify the Checkout Process
The customers get time to leave your E-commerce site when there are multiple pages loading. Make the checkout process easier. Include all the options like shipping address, payment methods, shipping methods on a single page to avoid multiple page loading. Enable guest checkout for your store so that it does not impact the sales.
First-time visitors usually don’t feel comfortable to register, forcing them to do so will result in leaving the site without shopping. Sometimes, the user wants to avoid the long sign-in process. In this case, you can offer a Google One Tap Login to make the process quick and better the user experience of your E-commerce store.
If you are on Magento, accelerate your checkout process and eliminate the long procedures with this plugin. Moreover, you can also give a varied choice of payment methods to customers.
4. Enforce PWA on your Website
Progressive Web App(PWA) is a methodology that combines web to mobile app features. By implementing PWA for your website, your site will work the same as a mobile application. It has the option to add it to the mobile home screen.
Enforcing PWA on your website can be done in different ways, hire a PWA service, use a PWA extension, or install a PWA theme.
5. Make Sure to Beautify your Website
To give a festive appearance to your website, will encourage customers and increase engagement rates. You can do many things to delight them by changing the website theme, editing the photos, decorating the logo, adding the new festive banners, and displaying an attractive notification bar for your store offers and deals to boost sales.
Apart from that, you can offer exclusive discounts on a minimum purchase. And also luck games to attract customers. Look at the below example for the Holiday Sale banner.
6. Widen your Sales Channels
You are not only the one that offers discounts in the festive times. There are a lot of other companies doing it. So to get your products noticed in the competition, you need to expand your sales channels. Consider selling your products in the marketplace using various sales builder software to get more customers.
You can also sell your products directly on social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Also, reach to the shopping engines like Google shopping to enhance your sales.
7. Find Out the Execution of Shipping and Fulfillment
During the holiday season, you will probably have a massive rise in orders. You are not ready for the 2020 holiday until you plan out the shipment and fulfillment management. Options to handle shipping and fulfillment can include in-house handling, hiring a third-party provider, or dropshipping.
8. Plan a Marketing Strategy
Plan your E-commerce marketing strategy for the 2020 holiday. Determine a budget for marketing and promotion. The best e-commerce marketing strategies will prove profitable. According to the business features, customer features, and budget, you may choose a promotion idea from the following:
● Grant free shipping and wrapping
● Offer discounts
● Run a contest or giveaways
● Give a free sample or small gift
● Provide rewards and loyalty points
Reaching customers is a tough job. You need to expand your communication strategies. To make aware of your holiday campaign, go for email marketing, SMS marketing, paid advertising, google ads, and social media communication.
Wrapping Up
Hence, this was the ultimate E-commerce festive guide. The hectic time of the year is coming and get your E-commerce store prepared for the 2020 Holiday. Make your store stand out for the 2020 holiday season with the above holiday guide. This holiday guide will definitely lead to more sales for your E-commerce store.
Happy Selling ????
