Is your website ready for the holiday season and the inevitable influx of e-commerce sales? Well, ‘tis the season: now is the time to start getting prepped to increase holiday sales during the busiest time of the year.
According to Fortune.com, $53.3 billion was spent online during the holiday season in 2014, marking a 15% increase vs. sales in 2013. With convenience at-hand and an opportunity for more valuable family time available, it’s becoming apparent that online sales will only continue to increase in the coming years.
Read on for our list of tips to ensure your site’s visitors have the best shopping experience possible.
First and foremost, make sure your website is easy to navigate through and isn’t overbearing to your potential customers. A clean site with content and directions that are easy to digest pave the way for a successful site and therefore, successful sales. Also, adding fun, holiday-inspired graphics throughout is a great way to spread the cheer and further engage your visitors.
With store representatives out of the mix, personalize your website by giving your site’s visitors some recommendations. Make room on your site to feature your top-selling and most loved products with an enticing message such as “Holiday Gift Guide 2015” or “Our Top-Selling Gifts”. This is the best way to get your best products noticed, and make sure you increase holiday sales online!
Make yourself available and closely monitor social media, emails and phone calls to help anyone that might have any questions. Your contact information needs to be displayed prominently throughout your website. People are less likely to make purchases if they are confused and don’t have anyone available to give them a helping hand.
A mobile optimized site is a must-have for shoppers who are on the go and looking for that perfect gift. Make sure your site not only looks fabulous on mobile devices, but runs smoothly on them as well.
Can your audience find you? Earlier this year, Google recently changed its algorithm to penalize search results for website who are not mobile optimized. Not only does this mean that you’re potentially missing out on 60% of internet traffic via mobile devices, you’re also getting penalized by google and not showing up as frequently in mobile AND desktop search results.
All I want for Christmas are awesome deals – and your customers most certainly agree! Run sales and specials that are only good through a specified amount of time. Brag about it: post your deals right at the top of your site, send emails, push out targeted ads. People are more likely to scoop up that hoodie or that delicious smelling candle if they only have a limited amount of time to get it at a discounted price.
