As the holiday season is at the very doorstep, every eCommerce business is thinking about the best ways to show your appreciation and spark new interest in your leads, generate a lot of new ones, and make as many sales as possible. After all, the holiday season is that period of the year when your sales are going to peak, and it is an opportunity that you never want to miss.
The fact is that eCommerce is booming, but it is important to be aware of the current trends that are most likely to work. Every year is marked by its own set of methods and practices, some of them coming and leaving, while others just evolving into much more powerful versions of themselves. It is up to you to grasp what works best for your particular industry and niche and use it to your advantage. Web traffic is crucial, so don’t forget about your SEO efforts, but there is also design, marketing, and other aspects that you must think about carefully.
So, get ready for the holiday season the right way, and be one of those eCommerce stores that is going to be on top.
Build up anticipation and prepare
What you need to be aware is that your window opportunity isn’t big – it’s quite the opposite, in fact – and every other eCommerce business in your industry will be fighting for pretty much the same target audience. This is why you need to start building anticipation early. Start with your mailing list, and, of course, your social media channels.
Now, it is pretty important that all of your users have their own segment in terms of what they are after. This is all because of relevance. You want everyone to get the kind of offer that is specifically appealing to them. As the holidays come near, move slowly from teasing people with ambiguous ads and slogans, to openly presenting what you have to offer. In order to keep everyone informed, come up with your own branded holiday hashtag, pin a post to the top of your social media page, or make sure that all your newer blog posts have a Call-To-Action that lets your customers know that it is high time that they have subscribed to/followed you, because that way they will be able to learn more about your holiday promotions and sales.
Think mobile
If you aren’t already fully aware that we are living in the era of mobile devices, then you really need to get out from underneath that rock and embrace this fact. Long have passed the days when mobile marketing was merely an addition to your strategy. Today, it is pretty much impossible to be a successful eCommerce business without having a website that is mobile-friendly. In fact, Google has even made mobile-friendliness one of its priorities in term of ranking.
So, if you really want to make it big during the holiday season (and generally any time during the year), according to experts such as All Web Design, you simply have to invest in a good mobile solution, such as Responsive Web Design. When the holidays come, people will be crawling all over the web for what they need, and the fact is that the majority will be doing that via their smartphones. So, make sure that your website provides them with the perfect journey to conversion.
Incorporate a chatbot
Chatbots have become quite advanced and extremely useful for eCommerce businesses. First of all, they are the first way that customers interact with your website. A lot of them use AI, which enables them to answer more complicated questions, offer products that are related to what the user has looked for, and actually engage in discussions.
Even without a complex AI, they can be immensely useful for your website. The fact is that conversations with eCommerce stores generally follow the 80/20 rule. This means that about 80% of people ask simple yes/no questions, which any chatbot can handle easily. The remaining 20 percent will ask for more details about a certain product, where you can step in and respond. Generally, chatbots reduce the time needed to provide the best possible customer support and make it less stressful because your team of employees no longer has to go far and wide to answer every possible question.
It is also important to mention that chatbots make other things easier as well, such as tracking packages, cross-selling and up-selling, and so on.
Track your results
Finally, you must be aware that when the shopping spree ends, your job isn’t over yet. As we have ascertained, eCommerce is constantly evolving and coming up with new trends, and this is largely due to people tracking their results and improving on the particular year’s success or failure. Lucky for you, social media website, surveys, as well as, of course, your own tracking via your preferred tools, provide you with the data that you need.
You must always keep track of things such as Cost Per Click (CPC), Return on Investment (ROI), Customer Retention Rate (CRR), Cost Per Mille (CPM), and of course, and complaints that your customer may have had.
When the holiday season comes knocking at everyone’s door, it is time to amp up your eCommerce efforts and embrace the trends in order to be at the top amongst the enormous competition. This is the time of year when the sales can go through the roof, and it is up to you to make that happen. So, stay ahead of the ever-evolving nature of eCommerce, and make the holidays fill your pockets.
The post eCommerce Trends That Will Mark This Holiday Season appeared first on Nick Throlson Professional Word Press Web Designer.