With the busiest shopping time of the year looming, is your e-commerce website ready to cash in on the increased traffic? If the answer is NO, or you are UNSURE that your website is ready for the upcoming holiday season, here are our top tips to ensure your site is Christmas shopping ready.
Spruce up our website with a holiday design
Give your website homepage a Christmas overhaul! Add some Christmas icons or small touches of red, or simply update the homepage banner with a Christmas-themed image. Really get into the festive season, and show your customers your personality through these updates.
Make the checkout process easier
With the expected increase in traffic, it’s important to make your website shopping experience as seamless as possible. If the checkout process is too difficult, customers will give up and leave your website before the sale is made. Keep it simple.
Make sure that your website is performing optimally
There is nothing worse than a slow website, as we’re sure you know! Did you know that over 50% of users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load? If your site takes too long to load, customers are likely to get frustrated and leave. That’s why a fast-performing website is so important, especially during the holiday season.
Show that your site is secure
Security is top of mind for many online shoppers (especially after the recent Optus breach). So installing a high-assurance SSL/TLS certificate on your website is a must, and ensuring all traffic is redirected through a HTTPS secure protocol.
Make sure people can shop from a variety of devices
Customers will be using devices with a wide variety of screen sizes, so your website should work well (and look good) on everything from a large monitor to a smaller mobile phone screen. In fact, studies have been done, noting the importance of a mobile-friendly design and how essential it is to retaining customers.
Get Christmas Ready & inform customers of holiday shipping deadlines
This is a big one! Consumers will be looking for a clear alert letting them know if they can still order a product and have it delivered on time for their Christmas deadline. Make sure this notification is very clear throughout the whole shopping process to ensure good customer satisfaction.
Run Christmas promotions
A fantastic way to increase sales is to package items together and sell them for a bundled price with a slight discount. Promote these bundles so they are easy to find on your homepage. That’s a very simple way to increase your average sale price and include lots of value for your customers.
Sell gift vouchers
Gift vouchers are a life-saver for people who don’t know what to buy. If you are not selling gift vouchers on your website, we would highly recommend you do. They are such an easy way to increase your sales and your brand reputation. They are also very easy to set up using WooCommerce.
Offer gift wrapping
If you’d like a point of difference from your competitors, increase your customer’s basket size by offering an upsell of gift wrapping upon checkout. This is a huge value add for the customer if it’s something that your business can support.
Get your email marketing right
Provided your website is Christmas ready, start sending weekly nurture emails to your email list promoting Christmas gifts, bundles, and any promotions you are running. Make sure you do this with plenty of lead time to ensure your customers have enough time to purchase and receive their gifts.
If you need some help to get your website Christmas ready get in touch with us today for a no-obligation chat or a website audit.
