Share
Top 18 eCommerce Holiday Ideas: Preparing Your Store for the Holidays
Every business wants to reach over the hundreds of millions of Americans shopping online and benefit from the new shift in today’s marketing habits. Thus, several companies have moved online, and the competition stiffens daily.
So, how do you prepare your online shop well enough to tap into the potential market, edge competition, and benefit from the holiday shopping spree? This article offers 18 eCommerce holiday ideas for every small business yearning for success. Scroll down for more.
Table of Contents
1. Have a Perfect Holiday Marketing and Inventory Plan
While working on revamping your online store, spare some time to make workable marketing, sales, and inventory plans.
The idea is to do everything possible to attract your consumers’ attention and have enough inventory before the holiday shopping rush. Review your previous small business Christmas marketing ideas and adjust where necessary, have sufficient inventory, and create room for new sales tips.
2. Revamp Your Website To Reflect the Holiday Moods
Your website should set the stage for the incoming holiday promotion objectives.
You don’t have to do a complete website redesign. However, downloading a holiday-related theme and adjusting every other feature to speak that voice will help you connect emotionally with your consumers and encourage shopping.
Also, include offers with Christmas tags, create holiday sales videos and photos, add precise shipping details, and remember to add a call-to-action button.
3. Work on Your Email Marketing Campaigns:
Don’t underestimate the power of email marketing even as you consider the top holiday promotion ideas for small businesses. Email marketing helps you notify customers about special offers, promos, and personal products.
Also, you can stir your customers’ emotions by creating urgency on specific products. The more offers, discounts, promos, and other helpful info you share with your customer through email will reflect how successful this marketing idea will work for you.
4. Put Your Best Effort Into Holiday Gift Guides
The Christmas holidays are a perfect gifting session for everyone in the family.
Create perfect gift guides focusing on different personalities, interests, and hobbies. Also, you can get creative with your products and services to come up with perfect gifts, depending on what you have or what your customers need.
Grouping your goods into discounted gift bundles and offering your eco-friendly products for families are some ideas to go about this.
5. Create Flashy Holiday Experiences
The Christmas small business holidays are a time for passionate and emotional affairs. Ensure your products have the perfect packages and visually appealing displays.
Keeping your online and physical stores beautiful and visually appealing will set the mood for your customers and give them the joy of shopping. Also, consider including some unique but flashy holiday experiences to attract and keep the customers entertained while they shop. Add some beautiful decorations, attractive themes, holiday decoration pictures, and more.
6. Follow Your Customers Where They Are
Not everyone feels safe in crowds, nowadays. Some customers are afraid of going to public places to shop, while others enjoy it.
One of your eCommerce holiday ideas should be figuring out how many of your customers prefer BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), which ones want home delivery, and the group that fancies in-store shopping but fret crowds.
This information will help you prepare your store and services to make them convenient for each of your customers. That, in turn, will win you more return and referral customers.
7. Be a Perfect Timer
If you’ve been keeping records, you probably have a history of how your holiday marketing ideas perform yearly. Revisit those pieces, mark the time-frames and results, and then make suitable adjustments. Ecommerce holiday ideas will succeed if you implement each at the perfect time.
To most people, November is a perfect time to prepare and set the holiday mood for your eCommerce campaigns. Try various methods and find the ideal time to get the most sales and responses.
8. Carry Your Current Customers Along
Your current customers can be a great source of income by purchasing your goods this holiday season. Also, you can earn many new consumers from referrals.
Take advantage of the features on Google and Facebook which allow you to launch past customer-centric campaigns. Also, Facebook has tools that can help you create an audience with similar features as your current customers. These tools can be your business breakthrough since a similar audience is a potential consumer of your products and services.
9. Embrace Product Personalization
Ensure the channel you’re using has technical data optimization tools that categorize products into types, descriptions, photos, titles, materials, colors, and dimensions, among other features. The more exact a product description drives, the easier it is for your customers to decide and purchase.
Also, ensure your website has quality content that analyzes your products and client needs in-depth. Including some how-to guides, previous customer reviews, and others will help capture your buyers’ attention.
Be creative and find what works for your business and clients. While at it, remember to pump up your marketing on the deals to reach a large customer base.
10. Have Dedicated Landing Pages for Your Product and Offers
The holidays are a time to attract and convince new customers to purchase your goods. While you have an elaborate landing page for your products and services, having one or two additional pages will draw more success to your sales.
Do you have a new discounted product in the market, or are you creating an offer? Are you working on a special treat for your customers? Create a dedicated landing page for these items and ensure the website features blend with the tempo and theme of the adverts.
11. Work on Your SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) allows you to expand your website’s visibility and reach. SEO takes time to perfect. Thus, you may want to improve your pages as early as possible.
Find high-ranking holiday keywords for your niche and use them in your product descriptions and web pages. Also, creating landing pages for essential shopping sprees like Black Friday and Cyber Monday will help you rank higher.
12. Run Your Ads Early
Time is vital if you want your eCommerce holiday ideas to bring any results. For perfect small business Christmas marketing ideas, start implementing them as soon as you’re done with Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.
Some ideas include running social media giveaways, organizing contests, and reaching out to previous customers. The more touch you keep with your customers, the higher the probability of them considering you in their holiday purchases.
13. Have Some Time-Limited Deals and Offers
Creating urgency and scarcity in your products is an excellent way to drive sales and double your income during the Christmas holidays. Consider creating some time-limited deals and offers on your products during the holidays.
Some ideas to try out include free shipping for orders made during the weekend, free giveaways for all shopping during the Christmas week, and more. Be creative and find what works for your business and clients. While at it, remember to pump up your marketing on the deals to reach a large customer base.
14. Promote UGC (User Generated Content)
User-generated content is an efficient way to push your eCommerce holiday ideas beyond the horizons. This method sells your brand to the user’s network and works as a perfect and high-quality referral marketing.
While working your way through holiday promotion ideas for small businesses, consider running branded hashtags and promoting them through different social media platforms. Also, retargeting campaigns and push notifications are great ideas to try out.
15. Make Customer Experience Hassle-Free
No customer wants to spend eternity on your website trying to purchase products and services—at least not now, when all your competitors are aggressively hunting for clients and the consumer has numerous options.
Make the purchasing process as hassle-free and frictionless as possible. Try limiting the number of steps the customer needs to pass to complete the purchase. If registration is necessary, consider allowing quick sign-up using existing accounts (social media or Google accounts)
16. Provide Various Shipping Options
Customers have varying habits, and one shipping option may not suit everyone. For instance, some clients prefer purchasing products early and planning their holidays. On the other hand, another group of consumers is comfortable with the last-minute shopping rush.
A single shipping option may not work for all of them. Thus, having various alternatives allows them the power to choose what matches their preferences and convenience.
17. Make Social Media Posts
The success of your eCommerce and any business depends on how many people know of its existence. Social media is an excellent platform to reach more people, given that over half the world’s population is using the media.
Make as many Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts as possible promoting your products, offers, and deals. You can also include some intuitive pictures of your store, offers, or products.
18. Launch a New Promotion or Create a New Product
Creating variety or launching new offers will spike interest among your existing and potential clients. Check through your shop to see what product you can create and sell. You can then create these commodities and market them alongside your existing inventory.
Alternatively, create some exciting offers and promotions to capture the interest of your clients. You can have time-limited promotions, shipping advantages, or flash sales on given products.
Final Thoughts: Take Advantage of the Holidays
The Christmas holidays are an excellent opportunity to clear your inventory and double your sales income. However, it all narrows down to what you’re doing to prepare for this period. Ideas like creating dedicated landing pages, proper timing, and offering special deals and promotions are some top tips to help you push your business ideas ahead.
Take action and start preparing today.
Trending Articles
Get exclusive CMO tips that I only share with email subscribers.
Don't forget to share this article!
Back to top