This holiday season, don't let your competitors win over your customers. Even if you own a small business, eCommerce holiday sales are when you can increase your revenue multifold on Shopify.
Sales and discount campaigns are some of the proven ways to boost Shopify page traffic, and the holiday sales season will be the cherry on top. The last few years' figures show that the demand during eCommerce holidays peaks up to 76% year-on-year. Especially Black Friday and Cyber Monday attract more than 44 million customers worldwide making purchases from Shopify. If these numbers impress you, here is the Shopify seller holiday prep guide to help you seize the best opportunities in the upcoming Shopify holiday sales season.
Shopify holiday shopping season checklist for guaranteed results
Here are the top 5 things that you must get right to make accelerated sales during Shopify seller holiday sales.
1. Prioritize page performance
Your page performance is the prime driver of your sales during the eCommerce holiday. With all-time high traffic of consumers, your product page will likely experience a lag if not optimized properly. A common complaint that gets registered during the Shopify holiday season is the slow loading speed of web pages. It might sound like a genuine problem, but it can cost your sales and customers. Here is what you can do.
The best trick to improve your page performance is to optimize the size of the product images you upload on Shopify. It doesn't mean that you can compromise on the photo quality. Your product images should be well-lit, and the resolution should be high enough that your visitors can zoom in on the details of your product photo without losing clarity.
2. Offer personalized solutions
Personalization will not only drive conversion for you but also improve customer retention. All you need to do is be more perceptive to your consumer's needs. Create unique experiences that are more tailored to your customer's preferences. Remember, eCommerce holiday sales are not about offering competitive prices. You need to provide a quality customer experience as well. According to a study, satisfied customers are 10-15% more likely to make a purchase.
3. Map out the shipping and delivery process
The holiday sale season can get pretty hectic. So, it is important to stay ahead in the game and map out the shipping and delivery process to avoid any last-minute lag during busy periods. It is also a good idea to re-assess the logistics and shipping strategy to make sure it is well optimized according to the market conditions.
You can start by listing down the challenges faced by your team during the fulfillment of current orders. You can also note down the touch time for each step to determine the approximate time needed for a successful delivery.
4. Leverage AI for page optimization
We talked about personalization in the previous section; AI is the way to do it. With Al, you can customize the customer experience to offer them a seamless and frictionless shopping experience. Here is how you can use Al to your advantage during the Shopify eCommerce holiday sales season.
- Optimize your homepage to display the products based on your customers' search history. It could display recently viewed products or top-selling products from your catalog.
- Customize your landing page based on the product your consumer is looking for.
- Send purchase reminders about the items in the cart and recommend complementary products.
- Display product details based on the sales funnel your customer is in. For example, a detailed product description is required for new visitors. For all-year shoppers and loyal customers, these are the things they already know so you can now attract them with some new features or enhanced products that you may have launched.
In addition, Al-based photography tools can be used to create Shopify-compliant and optimized product images that will make your product stand out in the market competition.
5. Make your product your hero
During the Shopify holiday season, despite the additional leverage of discount coupons, your product remains the main driving force of your sales. Yes, offering competitive pricing is good, but unless your consumers like your product, they are not going to invest in it. So, before anything else, build your product page in a way that stands out in the market competition.
The most important thing to focus on is the quality of your product photograph. Invest in quality photography equipment and lighting setup. There are professionals in the market who can do it for you. Even with a shoe-string budget, it is possible to acquire high-quality product photos. You can check out our DoMyShoot app if you are looking for a similar solution. But remember, you should deliver the same quality as you display if you want your customers to give you repeat business.
How to prepare for high demands during Shopify holiday sales?
You can pre-prepare for the Shopify seller holiday sales by addressing and planning for the following-
1. Stock up your inventory
Timely delivery of the products is the key to holding your customers as well as making new ones. You can achieve that only when you plan your inventory well. You can refer to your last few seasons’ stats to prepare for it. You should also put a backup plan in place in case you experience unexpected traffic on your page during the eCommerce holiday season.
2. Keep track of your site uptime
As mentioned before, eCommerce holiday sales will bring more traffic to your Shopify page. As a result, your web page might slow down or even crash unexpectedly.
To avoid this, you must focus on proper planning and regular load testing. Before the Shopify holiday season sale starts, identify and optimize the slowest loading pages. You can also use cloud-based solutions for the content delivery network to scale up during the eCommerce holiday season.
3. Simplify the checkout process for your customers
The checkout process should be smooth and hassle-free for the customers as they have limited time to shop throughout the holiday eCommerce sale. So, every second matters. Sometimes customers don’t even want to leave the page they are on to place an order. You can build a window checkout process where they can place an order and continue exploring the products on the same page.
4. Automate sales events to save time
To save time, you can automate multiple processes like product releases, inventory restocking, content modifications, scheduling, execution, and tracking of sales. This way, you won’t have to manually notify the backend team for every requirement. It will not only reduce the chances of error but also help you make the most out of the Shopify holiday sales season for your B2B store.
5. Establish a well-defined delivery system
An efficient delivery system is vital for the success of your online store during the eCommerce holiday sale. To achieve this local delivery and pickup can be a great step for connecting local markets. You can employ route management software to build and share optimized delivery routes to simplify delivery. You can also gather team feedback When it’s time to get out there and deliver. The tracking ability of orders in real-time is a feature that every customer loves, and it will also optimize delivery efficiency.
Conclusion
Planning for Shopify seller holiday sales can be a lot of work but equally rewarding. Now that you have the Shopify seller holiday prep guide and a checklist of things you must do to succeed, get on it right away.
If you have any additional points to add here, do share them with us. We would love to know your thoughts.
