Holiday season is the time when people are eager to spend, shop, and buy. People are ready to buy with or without promotions. The challenge for a retailer will be to know how to garner a substantial number of sales for their store. That is why most Shopify e-commerce stores engage their customers with discounts and offers to celebrate the season.
Table Of Content
1. Introduction
2. Why do you need to prepare for holiday sales marketing?
3. Global Holiday Sales You Need To Plan For
– Halloween
– Thanksgiving
– Black Friday
– Cyber Monday
– Christmas
– New Year
4. 5 Holiday Marketing Strategies To Increase Sales
– Customer Support
– Website Design
– Offers and Gifts
– Email Campaigns
– Product Collection
5. Wrap
The National Retail Federation projected that holiday sales would hit $886.7 billion in 2021 and about 6 to 8% in 2022. What this means for a Shopify store owner is that sales will skyrocket this year. That is if you know how to get your store ready for the season.
Purchase and consumption patterns tend to shift around certain times of the year. And that is usually when the year comes to a close. The end of the year is a period when people generally do a lot of shopping either for personal use, for gifting, or for family consumption.
If the buying habits of online shoppers are expected to change during this period, that means your Shopify store’s strategy toward sales for this season should also take a distinct turn. This is so that you can cope with changing sales capacity without letting your customers down.
Planning for the holiday sales season as a Shopify retailer is essential.
Why do you need to prepare for holiday sales marketing?
Holiday sales are an incredibly significant event in the e-commerce industry because it drives the biggest revenue the industry gets in a year. This is backed by the numerous online purchases people make during this period.
In general, holiday sales events are associated with gifts for loved ones, personal items being bought or upgraded, or changing some home appliances.
To thrive as a Shopify store during the rest of the business year, this holiday period is the time you can garner customers and sales. During this period, people are always ready to buy.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), holiday sales for this year are expected to experience between 6% and 8% growth over 2021 to between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion.
Global Holiday Sales You Need To Plan For
The global holiday sales practically start from Halloween day in the US. And around the time when the year is coming to an end. November through to December has each week lined with one-holiday event or the other. This occurs like that into the new year.
1. Halloween
Halloween period has people buying costumes, pajamas, candy, gifts, and other decor items to celebrate the season. It is celebrated every 31st of October when people wear monster-looking costumes to ward off ghosts.
In a report by the National Retail Federation, Halloween sales hit a $10.1 billion revenue in 2021 with an $0.5 billion increase in revenue for 2022.
2. Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a holiday in the US where families come together to celebrate which holds in November, the month that precedes the end of the year. That is why the shopping made for this period is usually large. Most people buy all they need to celebrate the rest of the holidays in the year.
Although Thanksgiving precedes Black Friday and Cyber Monday, its revenue is quite lesser compared to BFCM. Thanksgiving has a revenue record of $5.1 billion in 2021.
3. Black Friday
Black Friday is one of the biggest sales events where people tend to shop in view of Christmas and New year.
This holiday sales event comes right after Thanksgiving day in the United States. It was estimated to record about $8.92 billion in 2020.
4. Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday is a sales event that comes up the Monday after Black Friday. This holiday sale recorded about $10.69 billion in 2020. Hitting a new and greater record than Black Friday.
5. Christmas
Christmas holiday is attached to the celebration of Christ for the Christian faithful. This period has Boxing day following its celebration on the 25th of December of every year. And there is a lot of gifting done during this period hence, the reason for the sales avalanche for the period.
For Christmas, retail sales grew by 7.3% in 2021 compared to 2020 with the overall sales total exceeding 2019’s by £2 billion.
6. New Year
New Year is the most popular holiday. Maybe because it marks the end of one year and the beginning of another.
5 Holiday Marketing Strategies To Increase Sales
Reviewing the marketing strategies used by popular e-commerce brands that have helped them to garner sales during holiday sales. Here are some marketing ideas that can help you reach your goals even if you are a beginner or this is your first year experiencing a sales season as a Shopify merchant.
These guidelines are simple and quite easy to achieve even in this short time since you most likely have the basic things in place.
1. Customer Support
Talking about customer support, you need to ensure your store has a support system that requires minimal need for human assistance. This is because the sales you might be getting during this period can be overwhelming. In preparation for this, you need to optimize your website so that customers can find it easy to navigate and use.
One of the things you might want to consider is site speed. When shopping for limited-time deals online, online shoppers often opt for a site that is easy to navigate with high site speed. They do not have much time to waste at a store.
You will be able to handle your customer service more effectively when there is an increased number of visitors when you integrate live customer support before the holiday sales start. Even with chat software, you might still need to have a human support representative handle advanced customers’ questions.
5 Black Friday Cyber Monday Tips For Shopify Store Owners.
2. Website Design
Getting your store ready for holiday sales is a top way to start preparing for the biggest sales season of the year. Remember what reminds us of Christmas – the tree and jingle bells, Thanksgiving – turkey, chicken? This is the same concept your store should offer when preparing for holiday sales in 2022.
You can give your store a festive feel or the impression that something different is going on during the Christmas season with special designs.
For online store owners, it is quite affordable to have designs put up in your store. You do not need to purchase tangible items like Christmas trees and related decorations to give your store a beautiful look. This, however, is very necessary if you run a brick-and-mortar store.
Some of the easiest ways to design your Shopify store are Welcome mats, creative Pop-ups, Promo bars, Thank you pages, Product pages, Carts, and so on. StoreBundle is an all-in-one marketing tool that helps you achieve all these.
Keep in mind that attention is a key part of the e-commerce enterprise. You can have different designs attached to your landing pages. However, ensure they are befitting and relevant. Also, it should help customers to navigate your store with no stress.
3. Offers And Gifts
Yeah, I know the core part of holiday sales is the exclusive deals and offers that online shoppers get. That is why at each of the sales events, customers rush to grab whatever item they can lay their hands on before the offer time expires.
As a Shopify merchant, you need to have an organized structure for the offers you are intending to give your customers during this time. Offers for holiday sales extend beyond the 50% off discount or the free gift customers can get. A lot of shoppers are looking for stores that have a history of successful order fulfillment.
Towards the end of the year, it is a rush season. Quite often, businesses are overwhelmed with the orders they have to manage. A store that delivers on time is also sought after by customers.
That is why your sales offer can be free shipping. There can be a bar right on the homepage to notify visitors that you are offering free shipping for a certain amount per checkout. StoreBundle has a Free Shipping Bar app to help you achieve this as a Shopify merchant.
This is also a way to satisfy your customers. And if you can’t bear the full cost, you can offer discounted shipping.
Here are some offer examples that you can use for this sales season:
- Discount on certain order amount
- Free shipping
- Discounted shipping
- BOGOF – Buy one get one free
- Buy x, get y for free or at a discount
- Free Gift
- Discount on bundles
4. Email Campaigns
Email marketing is a key strategy, especially for online businesses. Creating a relationship with your visitors and customers helps you gain their trust and loyalty. And most importantly, they have your store in mind.
Most e-commerce stores collect an email list so that they can offer customers more value and also have promotional activities. Before the core day of sales, you can give your customers a glimpse of what discounts they’ll be getting. This way customers are able to prepare their minds and pockets for what they are getting from your store.
Aside from in-store marketing, emails are also a smart way to remind your customers and reach out to them to get the highest sales during the holiday season.
You can notify customers about all the offers your store will be running during this period, how orders are designed to be fulfilled, if they can make pre-orders, when the sales will begin and end, etc. There is so much information you can communicate with your buyers via email campaigns.
5. Product Collection
The key to unlocking the biggest sales of the century is knowing what product or collection will sell like hotcakes during every holiday sale. If you focus on what sells, you are definitely on your way to greatness in your e-commerce journey.
To know the products that are likely to attract sales for this period, you need to carry out a store audit and product analysis. This will help you know the most popular and demanded products, especially within your niche if you are a niche-based Shopify store owner.
Another way to be product ready is to take a look at products that can be mix-matched to create a combo (product bundling). Product bundling is a Shopify marketing scheme that helps store owners sell and reach their sales goals.
Price And Product Bundling: Increase Average Order Value With This Marketing Strategy [Advantages & Disadvantages]
Wrap
Holiday sales usually have gift items taking the lead in what people want. You can create a bundle that saves customers the stress of thinking about what items to combine to make a gift set. This way you are increasing average order value as well as revenue.
Be strategic about your product collection and if need be you can introduce new products to your store if they will help you drive traffic.
