4 Proven Ways Ecommerce Stores Can Boost Holiday Sales

During the holiday season, people are especially eager to buy gifts for their family and friends. In fact, statistics show that up to 30% more purchases are made during the holiday season with ecommerce stores gaining 5-10x more sales! While this is excellent news for your business, you must be ready with a plan to handle it. But what kind of plan? How do you ensure your website is optimized for the holiday season and not just any other time? With help from ecommerce expert Marouane RHAFLI, we’ve compiled a list of the top 4 items to consider before your competitors do!

Create and promote holiday-related discounts

The holiday season is the perfect time to promote special discounts and promotions on your website. This will help you gain more traffic, which can lead to more sales. You should create a special discount code or promotion code that’s only available during this time of year and then promote it via social media and email campaigns. If you have any loyal customers who always buy from you, consider sending them a personal email letting them know about the discount!

Typically holiday discounts are 20% - 50%, but you can always be more aggressive with your promotions if you want to make a bigger impact. However, it’s important to remember that the key to success is not just offering discounts but also promoting them effectively.

According to our ecommerce expert Marouane RHAFLI, the best way to promote holiday-related discounts is to send two separate emails. "The first one should be sent at least a week before the holiday, informing your clients that there will be an exciting sale coming soon. This will encourage your customers to wait for your special promotion, rather than purchasing from a competitor."

Marouane continues, "The second email should be sent a day before the holiday. This email should be short and sweet with an attractive title, a banner image, small description and Call-To-Action button containing the discount code."

Offer free shipping

Offer free shipping during the holidays. This is one of the most popular ways to get people to buy from your store. It's a great way to compete with other retailers and win customers over. The key is to make sure you're offering free shipping on a wide range of products. Don't simply offer free shipping on one or two items, but also include it with orders over a certain amount or for all orders above a certain price point.

Marouane adds, "free shipping is not only the best way to increase your sales and AOV (Average Order Value), but it will also reduce your charges since you will pay less in shipping fees to your supplier when you buy in bulk."

Create a holiday gift guide

A gift guide is a useful way to showcase products that will appeal to different shoppers. You can use it to promote your newest products, but also include some older products that might not have gotten much attention in previous months.

If you have an online store, consider creating a dedicated landing page with your gift guide and highlighting some of the most popular items in each category. That way, people who come directly to your site will be able to easily find what they're looking for without having to search through your entire catalog.

Another great option is to provide a list of gift ideas for people with different budgets. You can’t assume everyone is looking for the same thing. For example, if you have a $50 gift guide, don’t just include items that cost $50 or less. Instead, include suggestions for people who want to spend less than $20 and more than $200 as well.

Offer customers an incentive to refer their friends and family

The more people you have buying from you, the better. And if you can get them to spread the word about your business, even better! Social sharing is one of the easiest ways to get more customers, and it's free. Your customers will be happy because they're getting something in return — a discount on their next purchase or special treatment on their birthday — and you'll be happy because their referrals will increase your sales.

Give out coupons or discounts for social shares. Offer discounts by using social sharing buttons on your website, product pages, and blog posts. When someone clicks on one of these buttons, they'll see an overlay that asks them to share what they just saw with friends via Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. In return for sharing, they'll receive a coupon code that gives them 20% off their next purchase from your website. This can help increase traffic by encouraging people who weren't ready to buy yet anyway to make a purchase now while they're already excited about what they saw online!

According to Marouane, a happy customer is the best marketing tool. When a customer is happy, they can refer and recommend your business and products to their friends and family.

He continues, "Rewarding the referred and referee through special discounts is a snowball effect that will certainly increase your brand awareness and motivate more prospects to turn into regular customers."

Conclusion:

Of course, this is the last-minute guide to boosting your sales during the holidays. It won't work for all businesses, and it might not be correct advice for your brand or industry (depending on the type of business you operate). But if you're looking to improve your sales for the holiday season, try one or more of these strategies, and see what you can come up with. You never know—you may just find a winner!

Learn more about our ecommerce expert:

Marouane RHAFLI has been an ecommerce expert since 2010 and he is currently the C.E.O at Scrowp.com. Marouane helps Shopify merchants get more exposure for their brands by providing custom development and marketing solutions. If you're looking to increase your organic traffic or boost your SEO, then look no further than Scrowp.com. Their experts will provide you with the information you need!