How to Maintain Store Sales Even After the Festive Season?
Festivities Aren’t the End of the Seasonal Hustle.
Yes, you heard that right. To achieve the most out of the accomplishment you’ve earned during the festive season, remember to keep performing hard from the start to mid-January in the next quarter.
Post-holiday promotions are a terrific way to get rid of any surplus stock that may have accumulated, but you’ll need a dedicated team to empty your aisles. There will surely be refunds and other issues to deal with during this time, so you must guarantee the quality of your customer support does not suffer.
Obviously, you and your employees are exhausted after the holiday rush, but sticking it out and staying focused for the first few weeks of the new year will definitely create a positive impression on your clients.
Even if you’re exhausted after the holidays, the post-holiday period is still a pivotal period for sales and client gratitude. The problem is that you aren’t the only one who is tired; your consumers may also be looking for a vacation from shopping.
That’s why, in January and February, you’ll need to adjust your marketing methods to meet the wants of the post-holiday shopper.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the strategies you might want to exercise with this final objective-
1. Market with the New Year Attitude Again
When the New Year arrives, a consumer’s perspective shifts dramatically. They are eating and drinking well until the final minutes of December 31, spending money, buying things, and making memories.
On January 1st, something wonderful happens. They undergo transformations. Consumers are instantly endowed with a strong sense of self-control, a steely resolution, and a desire to “be a better person.”
But, once the season is gone, how do you capture them again?
People aren’t going to spend money on junk food, designer clothing, or expensive toys and gifts. They will, however, purchase products that will help them achieve their New Year’s resolutions.
The following are some of the items that people are willing to spend more money on during the New Year leaves:
- Organizing and productivity-enhancing products- This category contains a large number of objects. With a New Year’s mentality, anything from pencils to iPads may be sold. People are seeking methods to improve their lives after January 1. Organization and efficiency will appeal to a large number of people.
- Products that improve your health- Gym memberships, health supplements, diet plans, and exercise equipment are by far the most popular products. Prepare for a New Year’s windfall if you’re in or near these niches.
- Products that make cleaning easier- After the Christmas enthusiasm fades, customers get into the cleaning spirit. After all, there’s still the post-party cleanup to deal with.
- Safety and protection-oriented products. People start to think about altering their lives, being prepared for anything, and safeguarding their families after the New Year during the winter’s hard chill. It’s a great time to promote your safety products, iPhone cases, identity security, or password protection apps.
Everything that can be rationally linked to a New Year’s resolve is perfectly acceptable for your advertising skills.
2. Use Segmentation and Re-Targeting Tactics
Define your target demographic and use classification and advertising strategies to reach them. Utilizing those mechanisms to get again or retarget on a customer’s horizon if they could have an interest in a particular product can be effective, but won’t create pressure on them. That’s why it is quite essential to customize your retarget statements.
Analyze the Data
If you become a successful eCommerce site administrator, you must monitor your site’s stats on a regular basis.
Play a proactive role in evaluating holiday statistics if you want to keep up the momentum after the holidays and avoid a significant dip in sales. Here are a few ideas for how you may use the information to avoid a sales slump after the season-
- Determine which channels brought in the most traffic and concentrate your efforts there.
- Figure out just what your best-selling items were and why.
- Reach out to newly subscribed clients and invite them to return.
- Look at which sales made the most money and repeat those methods throughout the year.
- Examine your buyer personas to discover any changes that occurred.
It’s also a good reason to begin a new round of A/B testing to see which promos are the most effective for you. Beginning right after the holidays will give you plenty of ways to check and execute new tactics without getting ahead.
Make Returns Super Simple
You certainly don’t want customers returning things to your online store after the holidays. It will, nevertheless, take place. Making it difficult for individuals to return stuff they don’t like simply makes matters worse for you.
Returns are an inevitable aspect of every business. So, why not take advantage of the minor opportunities that come your way when someone returns the favor?
By delivering a memorable user experience and strengthening your relationship.
Extend your return policy, as Target does, for popular goods customers. Incorporate modern strategies that suit your buyer persona and also introduce an intelligent RMA solution for your business to minimize the hecks.
Refresh Visuals
Whenever things are slow, try to think of it as if you’ve been granted the gift of time. This is the time to focus your efforts on something useful that will amaze the people when you return.
You may begin with updating your product descriptions with optimized product details and images with advanced AI visuals i.e. AR/VR that will grab the attention of customers and raise the likelihood that they will purchase someone as a result of the extra shine.
It’s also a good idea to look at your website’s backend for SEO purposes. To help you be seen in an organic Google search, update the meta descriptions, meta keywords, and tags with the most relevant terms that define your organization, goods, mission, or anything else that is unique to you.
You may achieve this by doing eCommerce phrase research and finding out what your clients want and then directing people to your site to meet their wants. This time off could be exactly how you’ll get back on track when work comes up.
Hold A Contest
Consumers LOVE winning prizes!
When things are slow, what better approach to increase traffic engagement and conversion than to run a contest?
This kind of buzz might bring a lot of people to your website. A competition can supply organizations with a large number of new leads as well as increased traffic.
Visitors can get their emails by giving visitors the opportunity to win a big-ticket item or a package of your goods just for inputting their information. It works well as a lead magnet. A simple competition can help you reach your quarterly sales goal of $2 million. That should compensate for some time lost.
Combat Cart Abandonment
Here’s a sobering statistic: on desktop and mobile devices, over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave the site without completing a purchase i.e. carts are abandoned, respectively, leaving a lot of money on the table.
The major reasons for cart abandonment include unanticipated and additional costs such as shipping, service fees, and so on. Other explanations could include a discount code that won’t work at checkout or simply comparative shopping.
Customers may wish to keep their prized item in the shopping cart so that no one else can take it. In the meantime, they open a new tab to search for a better deal.
They realize that the same item can be delivered for free via some other company and decide to buy from them rather than from your firm, leaving your product in the cart. It’s a clear warning to companies who aren’t providing discounts, free shipping, or other specials or promos to meet their consumers’ needs.
3. Start Another Sale
Prepare to do it all over again after you’ve offered all the promos, discounts, freebies, coupons, knickknacks, and free shipping you can think of.
Customers purchase from you not only because it is the festive season, but also because of the deals you offer. If you keep offering discounts, you’ll be able to entice your clients back for another round of bargain prices.
Your clients may not be bored of the deal, but you are. You don’t have to deliver quite the same degree of service, but even a simple sale can help you get back on track.
Here are some suggestions for after-holiday sales-
Winter Clearance
Discard your wintertime stockpile and mark it as a clearance commodity. Flash sales are immensely popular.
Throw in a FREE Gift
Giveaways are usually good ideas. Offer free gifts or rewards to your consumers that include sale attention from your store.
Just like the offer, Avail 75% Flat Off on Shopping up to 1799/- Instantly… such offers not only catch attention but also promote your store’s sale right away. Such offers always work.
Bulk-Buy Discounts
Bulk deals could sometimes give you an advantage. The free shipping trick can also be useful if you set the minimum order size restrictions.
Incentivize your Loyalty Program
Invite customers to join your loyalty program when they make a purchase from you, offer loyalty points and rewards to them. This is particularly important for first-time purchasers. Advertise to them again, but this once offers a benefit in exchange for signing your email list or being a member.
Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative, and advertising agencies.
4. Display Prominent Guarantees
You may indeed boost your eCommerce purchases by assuring users that your goods or services are of exceptional quality. This can be implemented in the following ways-
Security Badges
Those would be the emblems that indicate that your website’s transactions are private and secure. With the addition of a security credential from VeriSign, digital marketing business Blue Fountain Media experienced a 42% increase in conversions. However, not all badges are made equal.
Consumers only trust badges from well-known brands such as Google, PayPal, and Norton, according to a survey by Conversion XL.
Return Policies and Money-Back Guarantees
This bags the trust of prospective consumers because they know they can get a refund if they aren’t satisfied with the product or service. According to a case study conducted by Visual Website Optimizer, putting a symbol denoting a 30-day money-back guarantee increased conversions by 32%.
Industry-Specific Badges
These badges are unique to your field or industry. They could be industry rankings, prizes, accreditations, or organizational memberships. Bag Servant, an online store, witnessed a 72% increase in conversions simply by showing an award they had won.
Crofters Organic’s sample below illustrates industry-specific seals that their target consumers will value. These include organic, GMO-free, and gluten-free seals on products.
5. Make It Easy For Your Customers
Users are accustomed to acquiring what they want with just a few clicks, as you may know. Users are more likely to quit the sale and go to the competition if your purchasing procedure includes any barriers. Follow these suggestions to prevent going down this road.
Have an Easy Purchase Process
In general, fewer clicks are more ideal, but at every stage, make sure the consumer has the knowledge they need. Amazon is a shining example in the market, with a system that allows customers to buy a thing with only one click, rendering refusal more challenging than ever.
Make a Variety of Payment Methods Available
Users frequently have their own interests in this regard, therefore you must cover all of your bases. Include credit cards, PayPal, transfers, and even cash on delivery as alternatives.
Avoid Additional Charges
Hardly anything irritates a customer more than paying for a good online only to discover that the cost is higher than expected.
If you’re going to add extra costs to a product’s pricing, make sure you let people know as soon as feasible.
Low Shipping Costs
Shipment should really be free wherever feasible.
Good Return Policy
ASOS is an industry leader that excels at this, allowing customers to return items for free (with no need to give a reason) for up to 28 days after receiving their order. Whatever the terms are, it’s critical to spell them out clearly and follow through on your promises.
Fast Delivery
Determine when the product will be shipped to the customer’s location.
6. Collect Customer Information and Put Their Data to Good Use
You can only generate potential sales from existing customers if you have the correct consumer data. To that end, make a point to get data from consumers while they’re in your business.
An incentive program is the most effective approach to accomplish this. Encourage your customers to join your loyalty program so you can collect their contact information and past purchases.
Consider Levi’s, a denim business. Most of its cashiers have been trained to collect information from the respondents if they’d want to sign up for Levi’s loyalty program by providing their email addresses. Subscribers who opt-in will receive a 20% discount on their next purchase as a bonus.
Here’s a sample of Levi’s welcome email-
Source: Francesca Nicasio
Make a similar display at your store. After you have your clients’ information, make an attempt to remain on their radar by informing them about new items, corporate updates, and discounts.
If you give them communications that are pertinent to their browsing history or past buying, you’ll get bonus points.
Levi’s succeeds at this yet again. When an item that a customer has been eyeing goes up for sale, the brand instantly tells them, encouraging them to make a buy.
Source: Francesca Nicasio
7. Use Recommendations
One of the most efficient sales tactics is Word-Of-Mouth marketing. Because purchasers are more likely to trust other individuals than brands, suggestions are extremely crucial when making sales.
There are two fundamental approaches you may use to make the most of it and while developing your website.
Include sharing buttons that are easily apparent. In this manner, consumers will be more likely to share their information or goods on social media, resulting in an increase in traffic.
On your website, including comments and suggestions. Seeing how other individuals have used your goods and services can help users connect with them and realize how they might profit from them. You can also incorporate the logos of companies that have previously worked with you in B2B marketing.
8. Remember Your Own Story
To sum up, my retail sales approaches and strategies, remember why you’re selling.
There are a lot of store owners out there who don’t have a soul, a point of view, or a passion for what they do. Shoppers, particularly millennials, are searching for a trustworthy brand.
“I founded this store because I wanted a place where folks like you could come and shop,” he or she can remark. Alternatively, employees who have embraced the product or lifestyle that their brand stands for.
They’re very interested in social responsibility and how you might improve the world. It creates a connection and demonstrates your humanity when you focus on your story and train your staff to share theirs. What’s the end result? Your team understands how to boost eCommerce sales.
9. Focus On Email Capture
It’s not enough to rely on visitors to your site, especially if they depart without making a purchase. That’s why email capture is so important for nurturing your email list. Your client email list is the lifeblood of your company.
Apart from making a sale, collecting visitors’ email addresses is the most critical stage in traffic conversion because it is the most direct way of communicating with prospects and customers.
To help your email list grow, consider these conversion ideas, likewise, you may develop Facebook ad campaign audiences using your email list, allowing you to target current leads with Facebook advertisements.
Email capture leads to higher conversion rates, more sales, and a higher return on investment from your sponsored traffic programs.
10. Be Active on Social Media
You could help new consumers discover your store and establish loyalty with existing clients by continuously providing material on social media that is relevant to the audience. According to Hootsuite, large social feeds still account for 52% of all online brand identification.
On Instagram, post high-resolution pictures of your products or video files of them in function. After all, 92% of Instagram users claim they’ve followed a brand, visited its website, or purchased a product after seeing it on the network.
Are You Ready to Start Using These Post Sales Tips?
The reason doesn’t matter.
When you’re first starting out, you’re often obsessed with the customer because each acquisition can make all the difference between generating or making a loss.
You were famished. You frequently employed folks who were also hungry and knew how to sell in a retail setting.
People who liked the sport of putting together a sale. Employees who thrived on the responsibility of adding on, persuading others to treat themselves, and having a good time.
You infused life into your store. The doors could be opened by anybody.
It is still the case.
This article’s post-sales strategies can assist you in getting started or reinvigorating your initial passion.
After that, it’s up to you to learn from your mistakes. With the correct online shopping marketing strategies, you can get more from your existing customers and discover how to effectively target high-value consumers.
Happy Selling!
