How to prepare your online store for Christmas Sales

‘Tis the season to be… sorting out your eCommerce store ready for the merry Christmas rush!

It will come as a shock to absolutely no one that the Christmas holidays rush is one of the biggest sales times for shopping. The trickle begins around the beginning of October when the kids are back in school, and the plans start for both Halloween and Thanksgiving that are fairly close together. Even in countries that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, there are holidays around the same time that will encourage spending.

This year is a bit of an odd one though; it’s going to be both very different and very similar at the same time. Christmas sales are definitely expected to rise across the world of commerce, but that rise is expected to be seen much more sharply in eCommerce rather than in-person footfall.

With the global pandemic still working its way across the world and causing a huge amount of disruption across the globe, the move to Christmas sales online and eCommerce has only been exacerbated, and as internet marketers, that’s something that we need to be aware of.

Dates To Be Aware Of

As with any online business, there are some key dates in the calendar that it’s worth noting down. These will be dates you should expect to see a rise in traffic, so you need to make sure that you have your content, your website, and your product descriptions ready to go, displaying at their best to increase eCommerce sales conversions.

Singles Day – 11th November

Kicking off the Christmas eCommerce buying season is Singles Day, celebrated in China on the 11th of November. This is an important date for the world for two reasons, firstly China does not celebrate Christmas and, as such puts, much more emphasis on other holidays such as Singles Day, New Year, and Spring Break, and secondly because many Chinese retailers will be doing HUGE 11/11 sales.

It might be worth trying to capitalise on Singles Day if you have a lot of Chinese customers, but if not, it’s worth noting that your Chinese suppliers may not be contactable around that time. It’s also worth remembering that in the UK, the 11th of November is Remembrance Day, akin to a national day of mourning. When organising your content, it can be very difficult to walk the line between both Singles Day and Remembrance Day.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday – 27th and 30th November

Black Friday is held the Friday after American Thanksgiving (with Canada celebrating Thanksgiving earlier in the year), and this year, it will be the 27th of November. Traditionally Black Friday is the biggest day of the year for in-person sales with huge deals from many high street retailers even in the UK.

Around 40% of shoppers made online purchases on Black Friday in 2019

Expect this year to be different as more retailers will be pushing online rather than in-person sales. Cyber Monday on the 30th will be busy, and so you should have your content ready and out there well before then.

Last Post – 19th and 21st December

If you are posting and shipping products to customers as gifts, it’s vital to be aware of the last posting times. Although the Royal Mail in the UK does work overtime during the Christmas rush, this year is likely to be even more difficult due to the restrictions in place.

If you’re really concerned, it may be worth investing in a courier company that can guarantee reliability.

Panic/Super Saturday – 19th December

Panic Saturday or Super Saturday is the last Saturday before Christmas. This year we have a bit of leeway as the last Saturday is nearly a full week before Christmas, but this means that online sales are likely to skyrocket as many will be trying to get the last purchasing and posting in before Christmas.

Very Last Post – 23rd December

Even the very best couriers and delivery companies have a cut-off date, and the very last post for Special and Next Day delivery is the 23rd of December. This is a great date for eCommerce sales as you can really market to those last-minute shoppers who are more likely to be concerned over posting time than price.

Getting Your Online Store Christmas-Ready

Now you know the important dates to aim for, it’s vital that you get your store Christmas shopping online ready.

This will involve all of the usual visual aspects, like getting your landing pages ready with Christmas eCommerce ideas, visuals, working on banners and social media posts for the Christmas rush, but it also involves technical SEO for online shops too, making sure the back end of your store is Christmas-ready too.

Planning Your Sales and Promotions

Get ahead when you’re planning your eCommerce sales and promotions, the earlier you plan, the better prepared you’ll be, and the better your financial forecasting will be.

This year is likely to be really tough for eCommerce online sales as many retailers will be considering the same thing, but get ready sooner and make sure your sales are hitting the right target audience.

For this, it’s worth considering using paid advertising to really appeal to the right audience on social media, having an eCommerce website design that is perfect for Christmas, and reaching out to a good graphic design to tie together all of your promotional materials. This will mean they are on-brand and on-point, as well as recognisable by your audience. Many retailers find that word of mouth advertising really boosts up this time of year, so it’s vital that your adverts are recognisably from your brand.

Planning Your Website Refresh

It’s worth planning a mini refresh of your website ready for the purchasing of Christmas gifts online rush. Make sure to cover all things, such as blog posts, landing pages, meta descriptions, banners, navigation, eCommerce SEO, user experience, and categorising.

Very few customers will be visiting your website from the home page, so you’ll need to make sure that the navigation is excellent across all pages, no matter their entry point.

One thing to consider that many eCommerce stores fail to do is the ‘add to cart’ experience for customers. Many customers find it incredibly frustrating to add an item to the cart only to be taken away from the page they were looking at.

Consider adding an ‘item added to cart’ pop up with the option to go to the cart or continue shopping so as not to take customers away from their shopping experience. If you can also work in a ‘you might also like’ section into this pop up you have a higher chance of driving related sales.

As far as landing pages and navigation is concerned, now is the time to be very strict about your social ads, posts, and email marketing Christmas campaigns. If the campaign or post tells a customer they will be learning more about a specific item, be sure to send them to that exact page, not the home page, as customers are pressed for time and want the answers there and then, they don’t want to have to go on the hunt for them.

Email Marketing

Speaking about email campaigns, now is the time to invest in your email eCommerce marketing strategy. Be aware, though, now is the time that thousands of retailers will be investing in email marketing, and it’s easy for customers to be overwhelmed with hundreds of emails a day, which they will just ignore.

Better for you to be savvy, send emails at different times (use your analytics for the best times) and invest in good copywriting for the title and the subtitle because these may be the only thing your customers see.

A great tip for email marketing campaigns is an abandoned cart campaign. If a user puts an item in their cart then doesn’t complete the sale, why not try sending them an email a few days later with a small discount voucher just for them? This is one of the greatest ways to increase eCommerce sales to an already warm lead.

Social Media and PPC Campaigns

We’ve come to the last part of our tips to prepare your store for Christmas eCommerce marketing, and we have to talk about social media.

Social media use has skyrocketed since the worldwide lockdowns kicked in, and that’s great news for advertisers. Customers are falling back in love with Facebook, and the use of other platforms such as Instagram and TikTok continues to grow, so it’s vital that you leverage that for your online store.

When planning your social media campaigns, it’s really vital that you consider the audience on each platform because there is no point in advertising high-end expensive products on a platform whose target audience is under 18.

Here’s a quick rundown of each of the major platforms and their general user base demographics.

• Facebook – The split is almost even between males and females but slightly skewed towards females (54%F/46%M). The average user has 155 connections or friends, and around 69% of the US use Facebook (comparable stats across the Western world). Facebook is not officially available in China.
• Twitter – 13.7 million UK users, nearly 66% of whom are aged 18-49. The average Twitter user is an affluent millennial, with 56% earning around $50k
• Instagram – Around 27.25 million UK users, roughly 51% female and 49% male. According to Sprout Social: “75% of 18–24 year olds use Instagram. 57% of 25–30 year olds use Instagram. 47% of 30–49 year olds use Instagram. 23% of 50–64 year olds use Instagram.”
• LinkedIn – Roughly a 57% male audience, and 43% female audience, 28 million users in the UK with 24% of millennials using Linkedin. Generally seen as a more professional network.
• Snapchat – Only 38% of those aged 35-44 use Snapchat, with the target audience being under 35.
• TikTok – 26% of TikTok’s users are ages 18-24, and only 9.3% are aged 25-34. TikTok is aimed at a younger audience.
• YouTube – The UK’s second-biggest social media platform, with a 2 billion monthly active user base worldwide. In the US, 90% of adults aged 18-44 use YouTube on a daily basis.

It’s worth taking note of the demographics on each social network so that you don’t waste budget advertising on networks that aren’t your core audience.

Video and image content is still highly rated on all networks, especially YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Instagram users tend to favour more ‘lifestyle’ product shots and videos, whereas YouTube’s audience is all about the influencer reviews, unboxing, and usability of products. Facebook’s targeting options are still the best of any platform, including Google’s own PPC platform.

For eCommerce Christmas campaign ideas, it really is worth installing the Facebook pixel and doing retargeting campaigns. These can boost sales by targeting warm leads from your website across the social media platforms they are using, especially Facebook and Instagram.

When considering your social media content, be sure to aim for emotional advertising, and focus on the benefits. Users are fatigued enough with advertising and want to see something different rather than just sell, sell, sell. Social content should be focused on a content-first strategy rather than a sales first strategy.

Summing Up

eCommerce at this time of year can be a tricky thing to master, and it’s really worth investing in good advertising and good advice sooner rather than later.

If you leave your eCommerce to chance, you will miss out on a huge audience ready to buy.

Get in touch today to find out how our Technical SEO specialists can help your eCommerce store prepare for the Christmas rush and drive eCommerce sales in. We can help build your social media and PPC eCommerce Christmas campaigns, run you through an SEO for Christmas audit to ensure you are right at the forefront of search engine results, and make sure your eCommerce link building strategies are providing you the right results

Give the team a call today, and we’ll be happy to talk you through our eCommerce solutions and help make your Christmas season merry and bright for both you and your bank account!