It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s also one of the busiest, most expensive, and stressful times. As customers continue to clamor online for deals, steals, and gifts, here’s a few ways to make sure your store and products stand out in this digital shop frenzy.
Promote your promotions:
How are you communicating with your customers, and potential customers?
- Email Blasts: These are great, essential, especially when well done. Keep in mind you’re not the only one with this great idea, consumers are bombarded with emails. Keep it short, simple, and use quality images and videos to showcase your products and services.
- Social Media: It’s time to get creative. Just made a customer happy? Offer them an incentive to brag about it. Don’t limit yourself to Twitter and Facebook. Now’s the time to try a new platform and capitalize on a less saturated market. Pinterest and Tumblr are always on the lookout for unique products and services, and companies who care. Both platforms can compliment and help scale social media campaigns.
- Website: Is a customer close to your free shipping minimum? Make sure they know about it. Is a similar product on sale? Don’t risk a disgruntled user at the end of the checkout, let them know. Offering a cart discount with email sign up or social media follow? Create a pop-up to let them know.
Be mobile first:
One third of all e-commerce purchases were made on a mobile device during the 2013 holiday shopping season. As devices get bigger and faster, and services like Google wallet and ApplePay take hold, that number is sure to continue rising. I was shocked while shopping this year, how many of the sites I visited were not at all mobile ready. Most of my shopping was done on an iPad, and if I couldn’t easily browse and purchase… I moved on. Take a critical eye to your mobile site. Are images optimized? Video scaling? Checkout functions working? Can users check the status of their order? Access shipping updates? All of the functionality of your full site needs to be available and accessible in the palm of your customers hand.
Check your checkout process:
I buy a lot of products from Amazon, for a variety of reasons. But the number one reason? Its easy to checkout. A lot of sensitive data is exchanged while purchasing online. Make it simple for your users.
- Checking out should be linear. Use breadcrumb navigation to let your users know where they are in the process.
- Give options. Don’t force a user to create an account, allow them to check out as a guest.
- Check your forms, and only ask for critical information.
Secure your site:
And then brag about it. Make sure your customers know that they can trust you and that you are up to date on all security measures and processes. Adopting new technologies and creating a safe environment, will encourage customers to choose you because they trust you’re taking care of them.
Educate your customers:
You have amazing products and services, tell your customers about them. Creating a shopping guide, can help you navigate your products and learn about your brand. People want to give gifts, not just stuff, help them know why your company and products are what they are looking for. Do you offer engraving? Gift wrapping? Let them know not only that its offered, but why its better.