Quick Wins to Boost Ecommerce Results: Holiday 2022 Edition

7 minutes read
How to Boost Ecommerce Results on Holiday

The holiday season is just around the corner. So, you are probably brainstorming ideas to attract more leads and boost your eCommerce sales.

But the online retail underwent a tremendous shift during the pandemic. The US eCommerce sales were $870 billion in 2021, a 14.2% increase over 2020 and a 50.5% increase since 2019.

This means you must gear up for stiff competition. It may not seem like an easy sail this holiday season. But there are a few ways to boost your sales.

Let’s check them out.

1. Update Navigation to Focus On Gifting

If you have been in the eCommerce game long enough, you know that curated collection pages help users make quick buying decisions. Meaning, your navigation needs to be holiday-centered. So, here’s what you need to do.

  • Add a Gift Guide Collection at the Top of Nav: That’s right! The holiday season is also the gifting season. Why not provide your users with the joy of giving? Think of adding high-quantity products to your GIFT GUIDE to help boost sales.
  • Get Additional Collection: There are never too many gifts. You can add a few more to your collection to attract more clicks. Think of gifts UNDER $25, stocking stuffers, and gifts for mom, dad, and kids. In other words, help your customers find the perfect gift.

2. Optimize Images to Promote Holiday Shopping

As they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” High-quality, detailed, and relevant images have a way of encouraging readers to take the desired action. Snowy/winter-related images increase the purchase rate by 600%! Take advantage of this fact this holiday season.

  • Create and use holiday-focused images for your products.
  • Use the hero space to promote products and categories more likely to be bought and offer more profit.

3. Audit Your Email Flows

Email offers the highest and most measurable RIO. For every $1 marketers spend on email marketing, you can receive $36 in return. It goes to $45 for every $1 invested in Retail, eCommerce, & consumer goods. So, you should audit your email flows for the holiday season.

You can:

  • Start putting together your emailing schedule now.
  • Focus on discounts, sales, and promotions.
  • Feature your most popular holiday products.
  • Target customers based on their sales cycle (Welcome, Winback, Abandon Cart, Post Purchase, etc.).
  • Build your list for the next holiday season.

4. Encourage Last Minute Shoppers to Buy

Last-minute shopping isn’t a myth. In fact, most shoppers make last-minute purchases.

In 2021, before the weekend ended on December 1, 94% of U.S. shoppers still had gifts to buy, and 64% still had decisions to make on these gifts. As a marketer, you can tap into these last-minute shoppers.

Consider these strategies:

  • Provide Buy Online and Pickup in Store options to capture those that don’t want to pay for shipping.
  • Provide product recommendations with GIFT CARDS.
  • Make sure to display your shipping deadlines clearly across your site.
  • As the holiday season is also the season of giving, provide users a FREE GIFT donation when they spend a certain amount on your website.

5. Focus on Your Checkout Page

Ensuring your checkout page is optimized and faster loading speed helps you bring in more sales. Hassle-free and secure payments build trust and improve brand image.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Make sure the Checkout Page is fast and well-performing. (For example, you can avoid using high-resolution images to increase loading speed)
  • Remove distractions from checkout pages, such as banners, to streamline the checkout process.
  • Review and optimize your mobile checkout experience. It should be as seamless as the desktop version.
  • Add a progress bar to improve the checkout experience.
  • Add a guest checkout to reduce cart abandonment.

6. Use Social Proof to Influence Purchase

Two out of three people actively seek out social proof before making a purchase. In 2021, almost 61% of US shoppers ALWAYS viewed online reviews before buying, while another 33% did so REGULARLY.

Given its importance, you will want to:

  • Add a bestseller badge on your collection pages.
  • Add reviews and testimonials on product details pages.
  • Leverage your email marketing to convert the customers who’ve abandoned the cart.
  • Use scarcity-based messaging, such as ONLY 10 LEFT, to boost your sales.

7. Make Product Discovery Fun – Promote Product Finder

Product discovery should be more than just finding your products – it should be an experience. And one of the best ways to make it fun is using a Quiz. Tarte Cosmetics uses this marketing tactic to boost its holiday conversions.

Promote Product Finder to Make Product Discovery Fun

 

You can also use:

  • Guided discovery of products to engage your target audience.
  • Quiz questions to narrow down product different sets.
  • Gift finder tools to create a memorable shopping experience.

8. Badging – Holiday Exclusives

Who doesn’t like exclusive holiday offers?

You can create holiday offer badges and place them front and center on your product pages. You can use holiday badges to build a sense of scarcity and urgency among shoppers, which often translates into conversions.

Some examples of holiday badges include:

  • Best Seller: This badge tells the target audience that the product in question comes highly recommended. As many have bought it already, they should try it too! It’s a quick and effective way to score a sale.
  • Almost Gone: This badge creates a sense of urgency. It’s a great way to increase eCommerce sales. The fear of missing out (FOMO) often encourages the user to make a purchase.
  • Limited Edition: On the other hand, this badge creates a sense of exclusivity. With only a few editions for sale, buying one will place a customer in your exclusive buyers’ club. That’s going to boost your sales!

9. Personalizing Recommendations based on Demographics

Although the holiday season is a gifting season, people are also shopping for themselves. The data shows that Gen Z shoppers are the demographic (38%) most likely to enjoy buying presents for themselves during the holidays. They often spend on electronics (64%), gaming (55%), and entertainment (49%).

So, when a Gen Z shopper lands on your website, you can focus on showing electronic, gaming, and entertainment-related products. You can use such demographic data and marketing strategies for your eCommerce business to drive your holiday sales.

Other demographics you can use are:

  • Location
  • Device
  • Previous Purchase/s
  • Gender
  • Education
  • Occupation

10. Take Advantage of Holiday Bundles

Christmas and New Year are actually the holiday seasons when people buy several gifts. They also shop for themselves. It’s easier to target them by creating exclusive HOLIDAY BUNDLES. As these bundles carry discounts, you can create value for your customers and drive more sales.

You can create holiday bundles:

  • Based on higher AOV and CLV.
  • With relevant products such as a face care kit or a complete body care kit.
  • By putting together new products.

11. Don’t Forget Stocking Stuffers

Let your potential customers beat the holiday shopping rush by leveraging your top-rated stocking stuffers as early as possible. These products should be small enough to slip into a stocking and more fun than average gifts. Here’s what you can do.

  • Roll out new stocking stuffer recommendations every week or even daily.
  • Create recommended stocking stuffer bundles exclusively for this season.
  • Create personalized stocking stuffer recommendations for each customer.
  • Prompt users to add low-cost gifts (items under $25) to their cart before checkout.

12. Optimize Your Site for Mobile

We’re in a mobile-first world. Mobile accounted for more than half (58.99%) of the global web traffic in the second quarter of 2022. So, it is necessary to optimize your website for mobile or be prepared to lose almost half of your potential customers.

Your website should be as easily accessible on a mobile as on desktops and laptops.

Be sure to:

  • Create an eye-catching responsive web design.
  • Make navigation user-friendly for small screens.
  • Optimize images and videos for small screens and faster loading.
  • Remove invasive pop-ups and graphics.
  • Build an intuitive and secure checkout process.
  • Improve page loading speed.

Talk to your website developers about implementing these changes as soon as possible.

Skyrocketing your holiday sales is possible, but these strategies will require time to start seeing results. Implementing these 12 quick insights as soon as possible can help increase conversions and stay ahead of your competitors.

  • Manish Dudharejia is the founder and president of E2M - a full-service white label digital agency. E2M helps agencies scale their business by solving bandwidth/capacity problems when it comes to websites design, web development, eCommerce, SEO, and content writing. E2M has been helping agencies for 10 years and currently works with about 130 agencies across the U.S., Canada, UK, Ireland, and Australia.