How to prepare your E-commerce Store for the 2022 Holiday Season

By Bryn O’Reilly

It’s that time of year again. People far and wide are shopping for the holidays. 73% of shoppers are expected to spend more or significantly more this holiday season, as noted in a Deloitte holiday retail survey.

The holiday shopping season is now and will not die off until after Christmas. Which is great news but now it’s time to get ready for it. The mere idea of handling the increase in traffic and knowing that there will be more eyes on your business can tend to leave small business owners stressed. If you’re included in this group, it’s time to shift your thought process. This holiday season will be a great opportunity to earn brand trust, develop brand loyalty and keep customers coming back. So let’s get to it…

DO THE RESEARCH

Gather campaign data and see what has worked and what hasn’t. If your past self has already put in the hard work, let’s squeeze that data for all its worth and learn from it. To be able to strategize appropriately you need to run a fine tooth comb through your data and analyze the following categories:

• Best performing campaigns
• Most popular products
• Days that had the best traffic
• Traffic sources
• Total revenue earned during each campaign period
• Average order value
• Keyword performance
• Competitor analysis

FUNCTION OF YOUR SITE

Preparing your website for the increase in traffic is top priority. To start, make sure your website will be able to handle the traffic. Contact your host directly to make sure the increase in traffic isn’t going to cause your site to crash. 

Consider the user’s experience and make it simple! Allow your website to be easily navigated. Give the user the ability to search with a highlighted search bar that allows them to filter your products by price, best selling, and alphabetical order.

For the holidays, create a Holiday Sale specific category page. Allow people to filter by typing things like:

• Holiday Sale/Offer
• Black Friday Sale/Offers
• Cyber Monday Sale/Offers
• Gifts For ____

Once the navigation and overall UX/UI is in order, it’s time to optimize for mobile. As we all probably know by now, people are browsing the internet and shopping right from their tablet or phone more than ever. Creating an easy-to-use mobile shopping experience is going to help get those customers through to check out.

BUILD EXCITEMENT

Let it be known that you are here for the holidays and that you have many gifts to offer. Your website, social media, and email lists are golden tickets to reaching your audience early.

Here are a few ways to campaign for your business leading up to the holiday sales:

• Utilize email marketing to show off new products and sneak peak sales
• Refresh your social media pages with holiday banners by adding design elements to profile photos that correspond with the campaign collateral
• Post new products or seasonal/limited time products well in advance.
• Do a countdown to create eagerness and urgency.

PLAN AHEAD

Now that you have your campaign designs and ideas in order, it’s important to make a list and check it twice. In other words, get things organized.

Planning the creative for your campaigns and scheduling your content ahead of time is going to be half the battle. Next, you need to put some money where your mouth is. Increase your normal ad spending budget for the holiday season and prepare to be charged more for certain holiday specific keywords. You will want to make sure to have PPC ads on Facebook and Google Ads running to your website or holiday landing pages.

The last and arguably most important detail of them all is going to be preparing to have incredible customer service on your website, social media, and email. The season requires a quick response time and availability to help with questions, check out issues, and post-delivery problems.

To cut down customer service tickets; make sure you have this information in place on your site:

•  Order Tracking

• Have clear language easily found about return policies
• Details surrounding all sales, bundles and special offers
• A team ready to answer any and all customer questions

The holiday season can be stressful but by following this guide and properly preparing, your business is bound to bring in sales, good reviews, and revenue this year! If this laundry list of todo items is overwhelming, especially in an important time of your business— hiring a marketing agency could be the best solution for taking your business to the next level!