Cyber Monday is less than a month away. This annual event sees companies worldwide launch enticing promotions and discounts to boost online shopping before Christmas. This year, it falls on 28 November. Therefore, brands aiming to participate in this campaign should start preparing their e-commerce stores as soon as possible. However, not all companies are clear on where to focus their efforts.
While this challenge demands extra effort from technical and marketing teams, the potential business opportunities make it an attractive initiative. Statistics seem to support this. For example, according to online payment platform PayPal, Cyber Monday sales in Spain increased by 53% last year compared to 2013 results.
8 out of 10 Companies Expect to Increase Online Sales
This trend could solidify this year, according to the third edition of the study E-commerce Evolution and Perspectives for 2016, prepared by Kanlli and D/A Retail magazine, in collaboration with the ICEMD Digital Economy Institute and Club Ecommerce. The study states that 79% of surveyed e-commerce sites expect to increase online sales this year, a forecast particularly strong in beauty, fashion, and accessories.
Adding to this, according to the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), Spain is already the fourth country in the European Union with the highest online purchasing activity—only surpassed by France, Germany, and the UK. This highlights the importance of paying special attention to this sales channel.
To assist you, we offer some tips to help you sell more through your e-commerce store. Take note!
The 10 Commandments for Selling More Online
While any online sales platform should always be perfectly optimised, this becomes a top priority during peak sales periods, such as the one we are about to enter.
Therefore, it is essential to keep the following 10 commandments in mind:
1) Start Creating Specific Content
Many consumers are aware of the year's major commercial events, but it is still worthwhile to promote them online. For this, creating specific, valuable content for the company's target audience is especially useful. This way, the company can approach, attract, and retain current and potential customers in a less intrusive manner—known as pull techniques—and, crucially, for a much longer duration.
2) Design Specific Promotions
Did you know that 40% of consumers start planning Christmas gifts and purchases before Halloween? Therefore, it is essential to begin planning the company's commercial offerings, as well as associated sales and promotions, as early as possible. This applies to both the corporate website, newsletters, and social media profiles. For effective planning, it is crucial to survey the market, monitoring online searches. This precaution will give the company an advantage over its competitors.
In addition to tools for finding Keywords, using other specific applications, such as Trend Hunter, is also recommended.
3) Have Multimedia Material Ready
The weeks leading up to peak sales periods are ideal for inventorying and preparing the graphic material you will need: commercial and non-commercial images for different social networks, header images for the website, updated product photos—and, if appropriate, themed for the current season—banners, etc.
SMEs, start-ups, or businesses with more limited resources can accomplish this task with tools like Creative Market. If they prefer to hire a graphic designer, the selection process must be carried out weeks in advance to ensure the chosen professional can deliver the required quality.
4) Prepare Various Advertisements
To prevent potential customers from getting bored seeing the same online advertisements, it is advisable to prepare various creatives and launch them gradually, with newer ads replacing older ones. However, during this period, you do not need to spend excessive time on this task, as internet users are more receptive and tolerant of advertising at this time. For example, according to a recent study, the number of clicks in the days leading up to Black Friday increases by around 36%.
5) Enable a Wishlist
This feature is perfect for increasing sales probability, allowing users to purchase items they are interested in later, but do not wish (or cannot) acquire immediately. Furthermore, it is also an effective retargeting tool. By correctly using pixels, internet users can see targeted ads for products they have added to their wishlist.
6) Launch Customer Recovery Campaigns
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the average online shopping cart abandonment rate decreases compared to other months of the year. Nevertheless, given the larger number of potential buyers, it is still worthwhile to implement strategies to recover users who did not complete the conversion process.
Ad hoc emails, additional reminders, and special discounts for those who abandoned their purchase before payment often yield excellent results. BigCommerce and Shopify are just two platforms that offer resources to recover customers with products in their shopping carts.
7) Also Focus on Existing Customers
What company does not want to expand its customer base? While this is a major goal for most businesses, you must not neglect existing customers. In fact, various studies conclude that acquiring a new customer is 6 to 10 times more expensive than retaining an old one. Furthermore, it is much easier to sell to veteran customers, as the company has already established a relationship of trust with them, and they are more receptive to company communications.
8) Offer Some Products at Cost Price
Offers with significant discounts or 'hard discounts' usually act as an infallible magnet for attracting user attention (and clicks). Therefore, it is worthwhile to select one to three products that can be sold without a commercial margin. Although the company will not profit from their sale, these will be a powerful source of branding and web traffic attraction. And the higher the number of visitors to the site, the higher the sales probabilities.
To make this appeal even more effective, it is advisable to design attractive creatives and visually highlight other related products.
9) Implement Loyalty Programmes
Clearly, product quality or value for money are not the only arguments for gaining followers. In fact, consumers increasingly value the service received, an aspect that can differentiate companies. And to pamper buyers, what better way than to offer discounts and rewards on their next purchases?
For this purpose, tools like Sweet Tooth can be very useful.
10) Offer Free Shipping
It should come as no surprise that the inclusion of shipping costs in the final purchase price is one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. Indeed, these shipping costs sometimes exceed the purchase amount itself. Therefore, even if the company bears this cost, this decision can become an investment that, in the long run, helps increase sales. Likewise, free shipping is one of the major advantages of certain e-commerce sites, as is the case with most products offered on AliExpress.
Despite these tips, we know better than anyone that implementing all these recommendations is not only a complex task, but also requires a significant amount of resources and specific knowledge.
Nevertheless, at B2 Performance, your digital marketing agency in Barcelona, we are ready to assist you in any of these areas. See for yourself: contact us today or call us on 93 532 93 78. We will assess your e-commerce needs and guide you on actions that will help increase visits and Conversions. We look forward to hearing from you!
