post by:
Carmen Marks
The holiday season is a joyful time for us to practice gratitude and community with our friends, family, and loved ones. Regardless of the religion or faith you practice, the time from the middle of November through the end of the year can feel simultaneously stressful, optimistic, hectic, and calm depending on the day. In recent decades, though, the holiday season has become synonymous with one major activity: shopping. Between end of the year sales, gift-giving practices, and work bonuses, people may feel compelled to spend more during the month of December. As such, the end of the year has become one of the most profitable times for large and small businesses alike as they bid for consumer’s attention.
The times have changed, however. While it used to be that people would take care of their holiday shopping at brick-and-mortar retail outlets, the rise of the Internet and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive consumer shifts toward eCommerce to complete their holiday shopping. For the same reason that we now have Cyber Monday sales on top of Black Friday offerings, the Internet is able to meet the needs of many customers where physical stores fell short: convenience, increased choice, and (often) lower costs being the primary reasons. This holiday season alone, Axios forecasts that eCommerce transactions will amount to $262 billion in 2022. The influence and power of eCommerce businesses during this time is undeniable.
But while there are many reasons that customers forgo physical retail, online shopping is not without its fair share of criticisms. From the trepidation of buying clothes without trying them on, to complicated return processes; from increased risk of fraud to unhelpful customer support lines, there are aspects of the eCommerce ecosystem that haven’t yet been fully solved. Another criticism unique to the past few years has been supply chain snafus and increased logistics costs brought on by external economic conditions (read: inflation, oil, and overwhelming volume). These concerns are not necessarily unique to one specific niche of eCommerce seller, either. But your business’ reaction and address of these concerns can set you apart from the rest of the field. Here, we are going to lay out a game-plan for your eCommerce business on how to prepare for the holiday season this year, as well as strategies you can implement to make this year your most successful yet.
Plan Far In Advance
It goes without saying that in order to minimize stress and maximize returns for your business, it takes specific planning to address the issues that are inherent in the holiday season. One of the most crucial steps in this process is to be honest about the capabilities of your eCommerce operation, which involves setting realistic expectations and goals relative to the size of your business. As an example, if your eCommerce platform creates bespoke jewelry on a small scale, it would be a fool’s errand to compete and compare yourself to titans in the field (such as AliBaba). It does not mean that your business is any less valuable to consumers, but it does require you to set goals appropriate to the size of your operation.
Even if you are not able to compare to larger fish in the pond, you should still get in touch with your shipping and logistics contacts far ahead of the holiday season to coordinate your shipping capabilities and prevent unforeseen expenses down the line. If we were to continue with the example of a smaller bespoke jewelry maker based in the United States, it would be a reasonable goal to ensure 7 day shipping to anyone within the continental US if you are relying on the United States Postal Service (USPS), DHL, or other shipping brand. However, your ability to sell products to customers overseas (especially to countries with stringent shipping regulations like India, Brazil, and others) might be affected by your scale and location. Additionally, making realistic guarantees to your customers and shippers alike will minimize the amount you might need to spend to expedite shipping of your products in order to meet your own deadlines. If you are unsure or if you can only guarantee a range of shipping time, err on the side of longer arrival times. Customers are far happier receiving their product earlier than later.
As the final portion of the planning section, make sure to stockpile inventory that will be in high demand. Since the holiday season is associated with many gatherings and traditions (hence the name holiday season), products that reflect this will be in higher demand than at other times of the year. Whether they are holiday-themed scented candles, ornaments for a Christmas tree, or wintry garments, novice eCommerce sellers might overlook stocking up on these seasonal items and end up blindsided by the demand during the season. In addition to holiday-themed items, be sure to order extra inventory of your company’s best known products to anticipate increased traffic to your site. The worst that can happen is that you don’t end up selling the amount that is projected and you are able to save on your next major shipment of items.
Improve Digital Experience
It might be implied within the title of eCommerce, but it is crucial during the holiday season for you to ensure a smooth and welcoming digital experience for customers who choose to shop with your business. As you transition from the planning stage to the execution stage of a successful holiday season, you need to prepare your online site for increased traffic. There is no quicker way to frustrate your customer and lose a potential sale than to have your website bogged down, slow, buggy, or crashing altogether. By shoring up your digital defenses for increased traffic, you will be able to relieve your customer of many frustrations and earn their business again in the future. For more concrete recommendations on how to best accomplish this, read on here to learn more.
Along with ensuring that your site is prepared for more traffic, the holiday season is a time to double down on the security of your eCommerce site. While security should always be a priority for your eCommerce operation, the holiday season is susceptible to increased scrutiny from attackers. Not only do they know that you’ll be enjoying more web traffic than off-peak times, but attackers know that many customers will be putting in payment information as they prepare to shop online. A disruption or compromise of your site’s security will not only upset customers who have used your site, but will damage your reputation and credibility in the long term. If you have not already, you should follow these steps to improve your website’s security, and follow the best practices for ensuring secure payment processing on your eCommerce site.
The final step of improving the digital experience is to prioritize customer convenience. It is something that many of us may have experienced before, but the more steps that are required to purchase or subscribe to a service, the more likely we are to abandon the process altogether and look elsewhere. How exactly you make your site more convenient for the customer can vary depending on how your site is currently laid out. Making your site more convenient can involve optimizing your user interface for mobile devices, improving search capabilities, creating a more intuitive flow of product offerings, or enabling one-click payment, among others. If you are looking for more suggestions, start with this list.
Meet Your Customers Where They Are
Now that you’ve planned your holiday campaign and optimized your digital experience for the customer, you are left with the small problem of getting customers to use your site and purchase your products. The Internet, and eCommerce specifically, has turned into a crowded space that takes ingenuity and consistency to break through. One item you should consider is to target marketing campaigns towards where your customers spend the most time. If you have demographic information on your customers, you already have a tremendous leg up on the competition to create a unique marketing campaign that will give you the best return on investment (ROI). However, if you do not yet have unique consumer data, do some research into the general demographics who purchase your products. To resurrect the example of the jewelry maker, they might see that the market exists mainly for young people. From there, the owner would be able to create a campaign on social networks popular with young people (i.e. TikTok) or place advertisements on sites where young people spend their time (i.e. online magazines like Vogue or GQ). Not only are you getting exposure to the customer through these media, but they will subliminally associate your brand with youth-oriented culture, inclining them further to purchase your product.
As mentioned in the planning stage, a necessary element of meeting your customer where they are is making sure you can ship your product to your desired customer. If your products are popular in a specific region of the world (or even a specific neighborhood), it might be worth higher shipping costs on the back-end to expand your influence within that market and cement your presence. Additionally, if your product is region-specific (i.e. scarf sales will be higher in colder climates and countries than warmer ones), you need to factor that into your triangulation. Finally, as it is the holiday season, you will want to make sure that any holiday-specific products are able to be shipped to markets that celebrate those holidays.
Not only should you work to meet your customers where they are physically- and attention-wise, but you should be flexible with the financing needs of your customers. One of the most popular options in this space are Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) APIs that allow customers to purchase your product without paying a lump sum and paying it off in several regulated installments. Using services like these, especially during a financially pressing time like the holidays, has the potential to increase sales. Additionally, offering discount codes and sales on popular items will increase the traffic to your site and drive transactions. These are staple offerings of the holiday season, between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but they ease the financial burden on your customer and build long-term loyalty to your business. And in line with the digital experience stage of this game-plan, enabling one-click payment options will increase convenience and build an affinity with your customer.
Be Prepared For Roadblocks
As well as this article can help you prepare for the predictable aspects of the holiday season as an eCommerce seller, will encounter roadblocks and issues during such a hectic time of year. Even though they are unwanted and unexpected, you can still take steps to prepare your company to deal with these issues. The major takeaway from this section is to create an open line of communication between the customer and your operation. As the lack of face-to-face interaction is one of the downsides of eCommerce, you can take steps to create a human experience for your customers.
To do so, you should work to create a robust and prompt customer service procedure for your eCommerce site. As we mentioned in the introduction to this article, one of the more common criticisms surrounding online shopping is an unhelpful customer support line that leaves the customer feeling isolated and ripped off. If you have the bandwidth/funding to hire a dedicated customer service staff member, that would be the best route to take. Even if it is only a seasonal hire, it will free up you and any other staff to deal with more pressing matters surrounding the business. However, knowing that most eCommerce sellers are smaller operations, you can create a dedicated customer support box on your website and work to guarantee a 24-48 hour turnaround on customer service questions. For more pointers on how to provide excellent customer service for your eCommerce business, read up on some of the best practices.
Implied within open lines of communication and prompt customer service, your eCommerce business should be transparent with your customer base. This item is of a similar tone to the note in the planning section about being realistic with your own expectations, but it is unique to customer service as it requires you to openly communicate any issues your customer is experiencing to the other partners in your business. For example, if a customer is waiting for a product you have shipped that you sent out on time, it is important to inform them that you will contact the shipping partner to remedy the situation. Rather than ghosting your customer while you await an answer, being transparent and open will build a rapport and affinity between your customer and your business in the long-term.
And even if you take all of these precautionary steps, accidents still happen. Packages will get lost, there will be delays in printing shipping labels, or you run out of inventory. During these times, it is paramount that you take accountability for these mistakes and right any wrongs. If the shipping partner loses a package and it cannot be retrieved, apologize to the customer and resend their order free of charge, along with a personal touch that shows genuine remorse. It might be more expensive to conduct business that way in the short-term, and you run the risk that the customer doesn’t trust you to ship things correctly the first time, but in the long run it is more likely to build a positive relationship and a return customer from the interaction.
Reflect On Your Performance, and Take Time For Yourself After The Holiday Season
One of the most important parts of the holiday season game-plan comes after the season has passed. It can be easy as a smaller eCommerce seller to dedicate your whole life to the success of your business, especially given how complicated the field can be. With that being said, be aware that burnout is not conducive to success as an eCommerce seller. There are many issues that a seller needs to resolve during the holiday season, and it can cause you to lose sight of the passions you once felt for operating the company in the first place. Between exhaustion to fulfill last-minute orders, being overwhelmed with shipping details, and everything in between can cause a lack of fulfillment by the work and a blindness to the rewards of owning and operating a small business. After the holidays, publish on your website that you will be taking a brief hiatus (indicating when you will return and orders will resume again), thus hanging an electronic “closed” sign on your business.
Once business slows down sufficiently, critically assess your performance during the holiday season. This is a procedure that is often overlooked within small businesses, but reflection on your performance is a crucial step towards improving your customer experience and growing your business. Inspect what went well during the season (Were you on-time with all of your orders? Did you get positive reviews from customers on your products?) as well as pitfalls (Did you not stock enough of a given item? Were you slow to respond to customer queries?) to inform your strategy for the next season. Be sure when performing this analysis that you separate areas that are in your control (customer service, product quality) and out of your control (postal worker strike). Having this objective view on the successes of your holiday campaign will pay you dividends as you plan for future seasons.
Finally, engage with your customers to provide feedback on your performance. At the end of the day, you would not have a business, eCommerce or not, if you did not have customers. Offer the opportunity to send a survey to your customers which, if filled out, provides a discount code or other perk. Not only does this incentivize your customers to provide feedback, but it will give you crucial voluntary data on your customer base to inform marketing and operational efforts for the season ahead. As with the priority of keeping an open line of communication with your customers, soliciting insights from consumers will orient you towards success for the future.
With this article, any eCommerce seller will be prepared to tackle the holiday season with professionalism, efficiency, and flexibility. If you plan far in advance, improve digital experience, meet your customers where they are, prepare for roadblocks, and reflect on your performance, you will be ahead of most of the competition. Happy holidays and stay sane!