How to get more sales on Shopify this holiday season?

Create landing pages for popular products

Try to focus on developing landing pages for top selling products and link CTAs in promotional emails. Always double check that all links work correctly and being tracked via UTM parameters.

Remember displaying multiple CTA buttons may dilute the power of your product landing page.

Put recommendations on product pages

Shopify allows you to add a section on product pages displaying an auto-generated list of product recommendations. Display of product recommendations develops credibility.

This feature is based on an algorithm predicting the most relevant products a customer is interacting with.

Spreading word of mouth, give people chance to talk more about your company

Word of mouth is an old-traditioned and yet the most guaranteed way of getting people on store. So why don’t you think of improving chances of people talking more and more about your Shopify store.

An affiliate program is one of the ways. Tell people that they will get a $15 gift card if they refer a paying customer.

Improve your store average uptime, avoid crashes at peak timings/hours

Holiday seasonal traffic often causes your website to slow down or crash which we call a sin because you should keep your website at its best health all the times.

Run tests in advance and make sure your website can handle the busiest shopping times of the day.

Mobile first approach, speed up product pages for high conversions

Google has clearly spoken, you should have a mobile friendly online store otherwise you’ll be penalized inside the search engines.

Optimize your product pages as more and more people are buying through mobiles, even making it more vital for e-sellers having a mobile friendly Shopify store.

Predictive search functionality, helps customers find stuff quickly and easily

Two things: website search functionality and onsite navigation must help customers find what they want quickly and as easily as possible.

Bear in mind 80% visitors will abandon your store due to poor search experience.

Use predictive search where you can have search suggestions while the customer types in the search bar.

Re-target customers who have shown interest in your products in the past

It is potentially the most important pointer here. Your past buyers are the ones who will buy from you most likely. First, they have tried their product and they know what type of stuff you sell.

Avoid pouring all efforts in bringing new customers. Do focus on bringing the past customers and the ones abandoning their carts.

Sales automation, schedule and monitor sales events

Is your team spending day and night during this holiday season for making great profits? What’s the point of hard work when you can automate your sales events.

Shopify flow can help you in scheduling, execution and monitoring sales events or even product releases, inventory restocks etc.

Shopify one page checkout, for quick and painless experience

Everyone likes doing shopping at ease and checkout is the step which should be less time taking.

Tip – Let customers skip the cart and checkout without leaving a product page they are browsing.

Use Shopify’s dynamic checkout buttons. It may be difficult for you but you’ll get more and more products getting out of the stock. You can seek help in customizing your checkout page.

Automatic discounts on customer’s cart

Reduce chances of breaking buyer’s buying cycle. If discounts are automatically applying on the customer cart, there won’t be any need for memorizing the promo code, thus making the purchase easier.

Launch new products and boost them in the market like crazy

Holiday season is the best for testing out new products. Have a clear value proposition of your product or service for which the product is designed. If you can’t define why your customers need your product, they probably won’t be buying from you.

Launching a new product needs a lot of planning and marketing. There are unlimited brands out there and standing out in the crowd even after marketing is tough. Devise strategy.

Maximize security measures, become a PCI compliant

Hackers will be targeting weak websites/ store over these holidays. Fully prepare yourself by making your store a Level 1 PCI DSS compliant. This means Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). It is a security standard for all online stores who store, process or transmit credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB).

Automate front and backend workflows

As mentioned, avoid site crashes or slow speed, thus helping customer find what they need will boost your sales during holiday season. Save time by automating your front and backend workflows. Sit with your engineering team and do all the fixes. Phaedra has an in-house team of ecommerce experts.

Refresh homepage

First impression is the last. A website is a first stop for your potential customers where they take a look into your business and see what you offer. Ideally, you should upgrade your website annually or after six months based on your visitors’ behavior.

Do you know?
75% of the consumers admit that they judge a business’s credibility based on their website design.
Source – Maricel Rivera

Instagram marketing

Instagram is the best platform for ecommerce brands from where you can easily find new clients using hashtags, engaging with the right community and posting relevant and quality stuff.

Tip – post one-minute videos. Use stories feature as it helps in reminding your followers about the new products on your page/store.

Create search engine ads that target customers searching for holiday keywords

Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year all bring huge traffic during the holiday season. Utilize holiday keywords as customers don’t care from where they get their products, as long as they are getting them at half price off. Buy Google and Bing listings for better results instead of just relying on organic traffic.

Look at your search logs from last year

You will get a fair idea about what sort of products may sell by looking into the search logs of last year. However, this year may be different due to covid-19. Search log is a record of databases which your customers have searched and gives you ideas for what should you sell this season.

Donate a portion of your sales to charity

People feel good about shopping from a store which donates. Also, they get a sense that they have done something good over this holiday season.

Companies even ask customers which charity do they want to donate.

Holiday gift guides

Categorizing products into lists helps buyers in their holiday shopping process. Here the tip is ‘include popular products and market trends’. Use social media and online polls for gathering insights about what should you have inside a holiday gift guide.

A gift guide should not be prepared in a vacuum, talk to your customers.

Make sure your shopping experience is mobile friendly

This is an obvious point. Store navigation must be mobile friendly. Ask your quality assurance team to check if there is any responsiveness issues and solve them.

Mobile accounts for 65% of all ecommerce traffic.

Try paid social media marketing trail – Facebook ads

Facebook ads are cheaper than other social mediums. There are many strategies that you can use for traffic and conversions.

Use dynamic product ads – you can display single or multiple product ads to targeted customers who have visited your website. They may have viewed, added product to cart, or made a purchase – all are potential customers.

Upload product catalog (with images, description, price, product name) on Facebook Business Manager. Add custom audience pixel to website. Design dynamic templates (give ads title, specify keywords and pull images, add product names etc.) Advertise either a single product or few categories for Display Product Ads in the Power Editor.

Run social media contests to stir up buzz about the store

Holidays season is the best time for offering free stuff and for that matter, you can run social media contests/ offer giveaways. People love winning free stuff.

If you have loyal followers, you will find that they will love sending their own content/pictures using your product.

A contest is a one of the coolest ways to stir buzz about your company, while also getting people excited about discounts or free stuff.

Design your email templates

The most important tip ‘segment’ your subscribers for sending the personalized emails. Prepare lists based on geographic location, age, gender and products purchased in the past.

A/B test your emails. Test subject lines, preheader text, offers, personalization, emojis, email layout, visuals and CTAs (Call-to-Actions).

Your email main body should exude the holiday vibe. Again incentivize your subscribers for making an effort like referring to a friend and get a free gift.

Get a consultation on how you can increase your sales via emails here.

Provide a holiday shipping schedule with last dates to order

Don’t leave your customers confused whether or not they’ll get their purchases on time. Do mention the holiday shipping schedule. And if there are any last dates to order, do inform your customers. Plus, mentioning dates not only informs your customer but generates a sense of urgency too.

Personalize marketing greetings as people feel special

Like we said in our emails pointer, you should greet people with personalized efforts. Be it an email, or gifts wrapping. And personalization starts with data. Brands should collect as much data as possible because this helps in building buyer personas for targeted ads and overall content.

Generate customer personas after collecting data based on age, income, location, pain points, shopping habits etc.

Localize for international market

In order to be able to sell more in another geographic market, you need product localization. What does that mean? It means adapting the product in given language, culture etc. Many confuse it with translation but it’s just one part of it.

Tip – Compare pricing, look into the local laws and customs, revisit your branding, and find the right local vendor for success.

Integrate live chat feature for customer support

Live chat is a support for customers and helps them in conversion. In traditional stores, people want store assistant. Websites are unintuitive for customers and they may not be able to find the information they are looking for. Live chat makes it easy.

A pro of having a live chat bot is one single agent can talk to multiple customers at the same time. And this isn’t possible in real life.

Automated chat greetings are just like any store assistant. Once a visitor enters your website, live chat greets and offers help.

Example, your customer may spend a lot of time in a shopping cart and this may indicate that he needs help. Offering help at the right time increases chances of a successful purchase.

Send wishlist reminder emails

Do every customer purchase on the first visit? No. They visit your store multiple times via different devices before making a purchase.

Your customer may have opened your store in the morning and added a product into his wishlist. You can send a wishlist reminder whenever there is a sale/discount/ free stuff or a certain time has passed. Why so? This helps them in reconsidering and your conversion chances increase.

Final verdict

The holiday season is the most hectic one for businesses rather than being entertaining because it is that quarter of the year that is the most rewarding in terms of sales. However, the good thing about the above pointers is, every store can relate to it and can put effort into profitable results.

Phaedra Solutions is selling e-commerce services in Shopify, Magento and Woocommerce. You can literally ask for any e-commerce service, be it custom development or just a consultation.