More than 50% of Australian households are now preplanning and shopping for their end-of-year festive celebrations. With endless amounts of gift-giving and shared meals over the last few months of the summer period, it is important to make your end-of-year eCommerce website as profitable as you can. Christmas is everybody’s favorite time of year to spend money and with a boom in online shopping, it is important to utilize your online presence and create ease in your consumer’s purchasing cycle.
This systematically makes the end of the year the most profitable period for most e-commerce companies. Australia Post found that 5.5 million Australian households purchased their Christmas Gifts online in 2020. With over 50% of households in Australia using eCommerce businesses’ for their holiday shopping, it is important to make sure your website is fully functioning. Consumers are naturally biased toward an easily navigated and well-presented website. Updating your website to make sure it’s looking its best can make or break the success of your sales during the end-of-year period.
Check out some of our tips and tricks to prepare your company for the best Christmas sales period yet and make your end-of-the-year more profitable.
Update your website
With more traffic than in any other period, having an easily navigated and simple website can not be more important. Having a clean and translatable site will motivate quick sales but updating the site with clear images and in-depth descriptions can ensure a faster turnaround as the new or returning customer is satisfied with the product they are purchasing.
Customer Service Plan
As customers search and compare the millions of products online it is important to be available to answer any questions or concerns they may have. Creating that reliability and relationship with a customer may result in a sale or even a returning customer. Having an email, messaging system or even an FAQ section simplifies the experience for you as customers like to ask questions to small and medium-sized businesses online. Adding an AI or chatbot option is a fast and efficient way to communicate with your consumers in real-time. AI and chatbots can assist with questions, purchases, or navigation. Consider also taking advantage of social media to update or alert your customers on sales, products, and information!
Busy Periods/Dates
Understanding and acknowledging important dates and periods can have a huge impact on the success of your sales. The majority of online retail businesses do make more than half of their annual revenue between Halloween and New Year. This is the best time to offer special deals or discounts to your consumers. These sales can surround the ideas of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, or even the changing of seasons.
Specific Christmas purchasing patterns vary each year but it is easy to assume the majority of Christmas purchasing starts on Black Friday weekend. Black Friday falls on the 4th Friday of November. Large corporations and companies begin their large sales and discounts, which is a perfect segway to get your company front and center when someone searches ‘ black Friday sales ‘ online.
The other biggest period to be mindful of is the week before Christmas (14th-18th December).
Gift Guides
Indecisiveness is taking over the world one person at a time. Consumers may fall upon your eCommerce store with no intention of purchasing or may be unsure of what they want to purchase, having a gift guide available can streamline the e-commerce purchasing process. Plus, it is an easy way to get many of your products in front of someone very quickly. Showcasing gift guides such as ‘top 100 gift ideas’ or “Gift Ideas for the mum who has everything.’’ These may encourage visitors to spend longer on your website as well as build brand awareness and product awareness. If writing isn’t your forte, we suggest you outsource it to a marketing department like Boost Social.
Stay on top of your SEO
Christmas and end-of-year SEO needs some extra TLC as it is the busiest time of the year you should be making the most of the influx of purchasers surfing the web. Planning should ideally begin in October based on the trends observed from the previous festive season
Move popular products to the homepage
Note: Highlighting popular products and deals is important as these are crucial to your Christmas SEO planning. Include items and the products you predict will be top sellers this year on the homepage of your store for the ultimate turn-around. Ensure you replace any broken links.
Optimize your images
-Make sure all of your products include =images optimized for the web to avoid time spent downloading and description. Photos should also include ALT text.
Run Cohesive marketing campaigns
-Integrate your SEO campaigns with your Social media campaigns and online PR campaigns to ensure you are reaching your target marketing with the most exposure possible!
-Keywords are the most basic SEO tip we can remind you of. Christmas keywords may be obvious: ‘ Christmas ‘ ‘ Festive ‘and ‘ Gift ‘ but these keywords are too competitive. Think of any eCommerce store and they are probably using them too. This results in a larger click-through rate as well. It is important to research and understand your audience and what keywords they are typing into the web can put you in front of more potential customers looking for your product.
Need some extra help with your end-of-year site update? Get in touch with us at Boost Social Media at www.boostsocialmedia.com.au or email hello@boostsocialmedia.com for any inquiries or guidance on website building, refreshes, and updates.
