Top 5 Christmas Tips for Ecommerce Retailers

With less than 24hrs before the first Advent calendar windows will open, Christmas shopping has already begun. But if you haven’t yet updated your site for the Christmas period, don’t worry, there’s still time to make changes to help increase your conversion.

We have complied a list of the top 5 tactics that won’t take a huge amount of time or resource to implement. Just some simple and clear messaging can make a difference!

1. Clearly Display Christmas Delivery & Cut-off Dates

Delivery is one of the most important messages to get right over the festive period. If users to your site don’t know when they will be receiving their orders, they simply won’t make a purchase.

Ensure your delivery rates and timescales are easily visible throughout your website, clearly showing the last ‘cut-off’ day to receive their order before Christmas.

And don’t forget people will also be shopping throughout the week from Christmas Day to New Years. If you shut down your fulfilment processes over this period, make sure your customers are aware when they will receive their goods.

2. Prominent & Extended Returns and Exchange Policy

Stress is part and parcel in the run up to Christmas for many shoppers, so the more you can reassure your visitors of easily being able to return goods, can have a huge impact.

As with delivery information, your returns police should also be clear and easy to find. You could also consider extending the returns period well into January, giving people the time to send back unwanted gifts.

If you can manage the costs, offering free returns will also give shoppers the confidence of buying during this period, however it will directly affect your profitability so should be used with care.

3. Give Your Site a Festive Feel

A festive design theme brings Christmas to life and make the site more fun. Change the homepage and Christmas landing page colour schemes to traditional festive colours of gold, silver, green, red etc. Giving users the feel if Christmas can really help to sell your Christmas proposition.

4. Christmas Offers & Promotions

Use marketing promotions and messaging to help remove any barriers to impulse purchases. Get creative, there any many different types of offers you can use to raise conversion rates as well as encouraging repeat visits and a higher average order value:

• Get a free gift when purchasing X
• % discounts over a certain basket value
• A new daily deal very day

Ensure your key promotions and messages are included across your site. Customers arrive on your site via many different routes. Don’t let them miss your market leading offers by assuming they’ll see it on the homepage.

5. Don’t Waste the Opportunity to Up-sell

By offering free delivery, free returns or a multitude of sales and promotions – you are sacrificing profit to generate sales and new customers. Consider the life-time value of the customers you have built-up during one of the busiest shopping periods.

Make sure your remarketing strategies are in place and have a strong follow-up plan to target them in the January sales. Why not send them a voucher with their order for them to redeem in January.

We wish you a merry ecommerce Christmas?

We hope you found this article useful. If you’re looking to maximise your online business over the festive season, get in touch – we’d love to help.