Prepare Your Ecommerce Website for Christmas 2015

Now that we are firmly into November we are fast approaching “that time” of the year again.

For many retailers, both off and online, the weeks leading up to Christmas are the busiest time of the year. In 2014, the average Briton spent £350 on gifts alone, with UK shoppers spending a combined £75 billion on gifts, decorations and festive essentials in the six weeks leading up to the big day.

However with the rise in online shopping, it can be difficult for your online business to get a piece of the action in what has become such a saturated and competitive market. If you run an Ecommerce website and have already started preparing for Christmas then great, you’re already ahead of many. For those of you still needing a little guidance here’s our tips for getting your website ready for the Christmas rush.

Take Advantage of Ecommerce Sales Early

It is no longer just the week or two weeks before Christmas that people are spending their money on presents. In recent years, the UK and other countries have taken a leaf out of the book of American retailers, capitalizing on the successes of ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ flash sales.

Black Friday is the name given to the day after Thanksgiving (celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States, this year November 27th). During Black Friday large discounts are applied to products both in store and online and often indicate the beginning of the Christmas buying season. Cyber Monday is the online version of the flash event (happening on November 30th this year). Many online businesses take advantage of these dates and run discounts throughout the weekend to entice customers.

Even if your Ecommerce business does not operate in the U.S. you can still take advantage of this time, adding discounts and sales to your products to generate more conversions.

Anticipate What Will Be Popular This Christmas

The festive period is not just the busiest retail period of the year, it’s also the longest. Many retailers begin to roll out their festive stock and discounts as early as October, so in order to stand out against the bevvy of special discounts and unbeatable deals, it makes sense to offer a few lucrative deals of your own.

Anticipating what’ll be the biggest sellers and applying unique discounts and deals, for example deal of the day or deal of the week to these items will pique interest in consumers and, combined with other effective strategies, help draw budget conscious shoppers to your online site. Toys, gadgets and electronics are always bound to sell in huge volumes, so plan your promotions around these categories for the best conversions.

Promote the Best Deals Direct to Customers

There’s no point in dedicating time and effort into sales and merchandising if you’re not going to promote your deals to your customers. Bigger retailers with bottomless advertising budgets can afford to promote themselves across online, print, television and radio, but smaller retailers and Ecommerce channels have to be a lot more creative.

Festive newsletters are a great way of reaching out to consumers with information on new deals. Unlike other forms of marketing, recipients of newsletters are more likely to be previous customers and conversion rates from this effort are likely to be higher. If you’re newsletter list is on the thin side, consider promoting it in the months leading up to October and November to establish as large an audience as possible for your marketing messages.

Adding a discount code into your newsletter can also be a great way to entice customers to visit your website to spend.

Showcase your Sales with Social Media

Social media channels play an important role in many marketing campaigns. Using social media allows you to connect with hundreds of thousands of potential customers instantly with minimum effort, and showcase the best sales and Xmas offers before they go live on site, or in store.

Social media promotion is not only inexpensive, it’s an incredibly quick way of getting your message across. Perfect if you’re late to the table with launching your festive promotions, maintaining a presence on social media not only informs potential customers about what’s coming up, it’ll also let consumer sites and news channels pick up on the details. Many national newspapers and online sites provide annual rundowns of the best prices and deals every December, and getting your brand mentioned in one of these write-ups is a fantastic way of driving interest from new channels to your site.

Get Festive with your Web Design

Getting your site ready for the festive period with a seasonal design twist can help get shoppers in the right mood to spend. It’s straightforward and simple to give your site a temporary image overhaul, with festive twists to logos such as adding a Santa hat, changing banners to Winter scenes or even creating specific landing pages.

Adding the festive feel to your website can help if your customers are visiting your site from social media or a festive newsletter. If your newsletter is red, white, gold and screams Christmas but your website hasn’t changed you may unintentionally kill the buying vibe you had created.

What can also be effective is to direct customers to a Christmas offers section on your website which can help separate Christmas and non-Christmas shoppers.

Continue After Christmas is Over

Many people receive monetary or gift cards as presents at Christmas time and may be looking to treat themselves once the festive period is over. By having some sales or discounted products in January you can help extend your business’s income.

Prepare for Christmas 2016

If you are an entrepreneur looking to start your own online store why not take the first steps on your journey today? By finding the right agency specialising in web design in Glasgow or the UK you can get your Ecommerce website up and running by the middle of next year giving you enough time to build your client base and raise your brand awareness in time for the Christmas rush next year. If you’re looking for an experience Ecommerce web design company Adeo Group can help. We’ve built many conversion-driven websites and have the expertise to build a safe and secure e-commerce website. Contact us today to discuss your ideas 0845 241 8228 or fill in our contact form and we’ll get back to you.