Get ready for the biggest eCommerce sales!
The vibrant mood of the festive season gives people enough reasons to indulge in delicacies and shopping sprees.
As a business owner, you can expect a huge increase in revenue, if you make the right decisions. So, this is the right time to start prepping your online business for the festive season.
If you don’t start now, this opportunity will slip through your fingers! In this blog post, we are giving you expert advice on how you can prepare your eCommerce business for the festive season.
- Prepare your Inventory
- Introduce holiday offers
- Optimise your website
- Make the user experience smoother
- Be active on social media
Contents
Prepare your inventory
Make sure that you don’t go out of stock during peak shopping days. There is a high chance you will see a spike in orders. So, get in touch with your suppliers early to check if in-demand products will be available consistently.
Assess your inventory as early as possible. Stock up on best selling products, get enough packaging material and organise everything.
Introduce holiday offers
Strategically introduce offers during the festive season. Let people know how your product offers more value for money. You can have promo codes and discount sales. Select the products you would like to keep on sale and promote them separately.
Decide beforehand what products to sell at a discount or you could keep everything under discount sales. Analyse previous year sales to find out which items are in-demand.
Another attractive thing that you could offer your customers is free shipping. In fact, 93% of customers prefer free shipping over discounts.
Optimise your website
A good website is required to keep your online business professional. Here’s a checklist for you to make sure you have everything ready on your eCommerce website:
1. Make website SEO-friendly
If you haven’t optimised your online store with SEO, you need to do it now! Find out which keywords are most popular related to your product or store. For this, you can use an SEO tool or a simple Google search. Perform an SEO audit to check for any issues.
When you write product descriptions, make sure you include the keywords. This will help you stay on top of search results.
Related Read: How to Use the Power of SEO to Drive Traffic to your Online Store
If you use Instamojo’s premium online store option, you get access to in-built SEO elements that will boost your store automatically in the search engine rankings.
Watch this video to learn how you can use basic SEO settings for your Instamojo online store.
2. Page speed
A slow loading site is the biggest turn-off for any online shopper. Test the loading time of your website using a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights. Make sure your product images are properly optimised to maintain a good page speed.
3. Make your website mobile-friendly
Most Indians use mobile phones for online shopping. So, make sure your website is mobile-ready. To achieve this, you can simplify your menus, install a good theme, and include a search function.
4. Update theme
Updating to a new theme is not necessary. But having a new theme for your online store to match the festive mood will surely add a little glitz to everything! Platforms like Instamojo offer premium online store themes to choose from.
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Make the user experience smoother
A holiday shopper wants a hassle-free experience. So make sure they have it. Make every process of their buying journey smooth. Here are some ways to ensure customer satisfaction:
1. Smooth checkout process
Review your checkout process in your online store. Reduce cart abandonment rates by implementing a one-page checkout, never asking for the same information twice and removing any unnecessary distractions for the customer.
2. Provide good customer support
Customers may reach out to you through social media or email to know more about your product or brand. The key is to not keep them waiting for too long. So, send a respectful and thoughtful reply as soon as possible.
3. Provide multiple and safe payment options
In addition to good support, you also need to ensure safe payment methods which offer multiple payment options. Some people prefer one option over the other. For example, recent surveys show that online shoppers prefer using Google Pay and Paytm than other options. This is a good strategy to earn customer trust online.
How to market festival discounts strategically?
Partner with social media influencers in your niche and give out promo codes. A discount coupon from customers’ favourite influencers is a proven tactic to increase sales.
You can also consider investing in paid ads to reach a wider audience. Set a budget for ads and identify the channel that works best for your business and ace it there. Find out more about setting up high converting ads for your small business.
Keeping track of digital coupons and applying them can get tricky. If you create an online store on Instamojo, you get features to easily conduct festive sales and offer discount codes. Explore more Instamojo online store features and find out how every task for your small business becomes easier!
Be active on social media
Create content relevant to your audience. As a business owner, this is the best time to be active on social media if you haven’t already. Take aesthetic pictures of your products and plan a content calendar for the festive months.
Do research on what kind of content your audience will find useful at this time of the year. For this, pay attention to festive trends and see how your product matches them.
Instagram is a great place for small businesses to market. Create good quality videos and images or hire a social media manager. Build momentum in advance for holiday sales. You can create a countdown till the day the discount sales begin.
You could also organise contests and giveaways to drive more audience to your business. The more interactions and engagement you gain from social media channels, the more traffic for your online store.
In conclusion
Your online store will be able to attract shoppers if it provides an enticing shopping experience with the right discounts. Start preparing as early as you can and get ready to welcome holiday shoppers to your store!
If you want to take your online business to the next level, get your own online store that has all the features to bring in more sales during the festive season. With more eCommerce features, you will be able to create a full-fledged online store that will provide a seamless experience for more holiday shoppers!
