8 Tips to Deck Up Your E-Store to Conquer the eCommerce Market, this Festive Season

Speculations Indicating a Surge in Holiday Season eCommerce Sale

According to a survey, 62% of holiday shoppers have already planned to spend in online shopping exclusively. In another survey conducted on 1000 shoppers to know about their holiday time shopping plan, it was found that 77% of them have plans to go for online shopping to buy more than half of the gifts, and 89% of them are looking forward to buy minimum 25% of their gifts online.

In an annual forecast report by Deloitte, it is speculated that the online sales will increase to 149 billion this holiday season.

So, the significant revenue increase is expected for eCommerce businesses, this holiday season. Also the higher discount rates and lucrative offers are making the online market more attractive for the customers, who have already started thronging these e-stores.

Well, sometimes even the hottest of discounts fail to generate sales, know why? There are certain factors, which if not taken care of, do not let your eCommerce website generate revenue with increased sales, no matter, how exciting deals are offered on it. Unless your website is smart and technically capable of providing great customer experience and ensures a happy checkout process, the e-stores cannot really make it well in the holiday season.

A single technical glitch can spoil even the happiest of mood, no matter how great the deal the customer is offered. So, your online e-store should not only be offering discounts, but also be considering these factors which are inevitable for the success of any eCommerce website.

Let’s probe into some crucial factors that can help you prevent a TGIF (Thank God, It’s Friday) deal turn into a GWIT (God, Why Is It a Friday) deal, like it did for the online store on Black Friday, frustrating the customers, and costing the company tremendous losses.

#1 Strengthen the Backend Support for Higher Traffic

So, you have an exciting deal, great! Your eCommerce marketing team may surely be up to lot of innovative thinking, determining what the customers want. Surely, the traffic is going to rise!

To be able to handle the crowd and provide them great user experience, your website or e-store ought to be enough strong and sound technically.

It does not matter how beautifully your website has  been crafted at the front-end, or how irresistible your offers may be, your backend support should be equally beguiling, so that the customer gets the right support throughout. Tarika Tech builds eCommerce websites with strong and robust backend. Want to have one strong platform for your business? Click here!

#2 Boost the Loading Speed of Your Website

The depleting patience levels of the consumers, owing to the fact that they are flooded with numerous options to pick from, has led the marketers to stay on toes so that they can provide what others can’t. The competition is fierce!

In such a dog eat dog situation, the website abandonment simply due to its slow load time, can be the most frustrating reason for any business owner.

Do you know, 70% of consumers have admitted that a slow website impacts their purchase decisions. Well, they are not to be blamed for this as there is so much already in front of them that they won’t spare single second to switch on to the other source to meet their needs.

It was in 2012 when even the retail giant Amazon lost billions just because of the one second lag-time of its website, keep aside the tiny boats.

You cannot lose your customers just because your website is slow, would you?

So as you deck up your marketing strategies for the festive season, make sure your website is also smartened with a quick load speed.

Know about: How to Boost Your Website Speed with 6 Quick Tips!

#3 Optimize the Website for Mobile Responsiveness

The avalanche of stats emerging from various studies conducted, indicates of the advent of mobile eCommerce, making it very evident for the ecommerce business owners to get their website mobile responsive, so that their e-stores can be well fitted into those handy screens as well.

It is interesting to note that 70% of online purchase related searches made on mobile devices lead to the purchase action within one hour. The future of mobile eCommerce is certainly bright, as by 2021, it is predicted that the mobiles will be driving the eCommerce sales by 54%. So this calls for the need to go for the mobile-first approach, and optimize the website for mobile devices so that the best of the holiday season can be achieved in the form of higher sales and revenue increase.

Not only this, you get even more opportunities to market your offerings, by reaching out to your customers anytime, anywhere with your mobile-specific offers! These offers can even be hourly and be made super exciting with countdown notifications.

#4 Streamline the Shopping Process

No matter, how exciting any deal may be, and how much crowd does it pull, if the entire effort fails to reach to the ultimate milestone, it goes in vain. That happens when the shopping process is complex or complicated. Remember, even if your customers have their carts full, single delay or a step too bugging to let them follow the entire process, may put the entire cart upside down.

Also, the customer gets so disappointed and frustrated that pledges to never come back to the site ever again.

Don’t let this happen to your website, especially during the holiday season when people expect so much from you, and so do you, from your marketing strategies. Simplify your shopping process, if at all it seems like getting complicated.

#5 Simplify & Ease Down the Checkout Process as Well

Checkout process is the most crucial part for any eCommerce website, as it concludes the entire trail of efforts behind everything that the customer can see on the website. The efforts pertain to all the frontend and backend support. So, it ought to be very well executed, to make sure the website doesn’t meet the fateful and abrupt abandonment, just because it irked them for some reason.

The prolonged and pestering checkout process leads to 87% of shopping cart abandonments.

So, better make it short and quick, especially for the holiday season, as the shoppers have lot to do online – shop, browse further, research, connect with near and dear ones, and lot more. There’s no point streamlining a shopping process unless its checkout process is simplified, with ample payment options made available to the paying customers. Of course, you need to make sure the transaction is safe and secure.

#6 Smarten Your Support Team for Handling Queries

Any question left unanswered frustrates the customer, and may become another cause of site abandonment; and when the holiday season is on, with a crowd of visitors on the website, follow numerous queries that should be addressed quickly so that the purchase decisions and actions are materialized quickly. The lesser the response time, the higher goes customer contentment.

So equip your support team with apt responses to all types questions, even the flying arrows!

#7 Integrate Bots to Support Your Support Team

To be able to address the flood of customer queries quickly, apart from a smart support team, you can also employ bots for live chat.

The holiday season discount deals drive customers to the websites, and along with them follow queries that require immediate attention. The queries may be on anything – a product, deal, or even the issues associated with the checkout process. So, get a smart bot integrated right there on your website. Chatbots help maintain customer engagement and relationship, and get the best of Artificial Intelligence.

#8 Develop Contingency Plans

The world is full of uncertainties; it’s digital aspect is no different. So it makes sense to have ample backup sources for almost everything. Whether it is about the availability of a crucial product, shopping process, or even shipping, keep a smart contingency plan handy, for you never know, any circumstance may spring up due to any unexpected and unwelcomed reason.

So, Let’s Conclude!

Technical glitches, especially in an eCommerce website are quite common, but they can be sorted well with adequate planning, and management. You cannot control the rapidly changing consumer behaviour and their depleting patience levels, but can at least make your website robust and compatible enough to cater to their growing demands and expectations, especially for the festive holiday season. Save your website from all the vulnerabilities and play smart by smartening your e-store.

Following the same strategy, the eCommerce web development team at Tarika Tech, offers eCommerce web development services, and develops feature-rich eCommerce websites that are compatible enough for the growing business demands.