Holiday Tips for Your eCommerce Store in 2019

It is that time of the year again with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and of course Christmas just around the corner, meaning it is likely to be your stores busiest time of the year.

As the saying goes, “It is wise to make hay whilst the sun shines” and the sun is about to come out over the next couple of months.

Which is why our friends over at Feedvisor have put together this handy list of tips to help you make the most out of this Q4 and hopefully make it the busiest one yet.

With that said I will hand over to President and COO of Feedvisor, Dani Nadel.

1. Plan for and Capitalize on Holiday Shopping Habits

While retail sales for holiday are expected to grow at a moderate 4%, e-commerce retail sales are forecasted to grow nearly 15% year-over-year for the 2019 holiday season. In order to maximize revenue during this period of heightened sales and traffic, brands and retailers need to plan for and maintain a healthy inventory position of their most popular products.

When determining holiday inventory, they should consider product seasonality and also look at historical and real-time sales data to forecast demand, making sure they are not stocking out or leaving customers searching for their favorite listings and therefore going to the competition.

2. Maximize Market Share With Optimized Product Listings

The holidays are a critical time of year, with nearly three-quarters (73%) of sellers making up to half of their total sales for the year during holiday sales events. This increased market pressure also means increased competition.

In order to stand out and increase discoverability, brands and retailers should focus on optimizing their SEO strategy and creating detailed product pages, both of which can benefit organic rankings leading up to peak shopping days. They can also experiment with implementing holiday-specific keywords to drive awareness –– for example, adding “gift” to popular items can increase traffic for target audiences.

3. Experiment With Product Bundling to Increase Revenue

Holiday shoppers often turn to Amazon as a “one-stop-shop” for quick and comprehensive gift giving. In fact, 60% of consumers most frequently shop for last-minute holiday gifts on Amazon.

To maximize spending and drive upsells and cross-sells, brands and retailers should consider bundling similar products as gifts. By packaging highly complementary products together, they can increase spend through basket-building and also create a convenient experience for shoppers, a key driver of brand loyalty.

4. Launch Advertising and Promotions Earlier Given This Year’s Shorter Shopping Season

This year there are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a crucial time for engaging shoppers with holiday campaigns and engaging advertisements. Brands and retailers should start advertising holiday deals earlier in order to drive consistent sales.

According to Amazon holiday data, search impressions attributed to advertising were 1.7x higher in the 14 days before Black Friday and 3.9x higher during the weekend of the “Cyber Five” compared to an average prior to holiday, demonstrating the importance of advertising to drive immediate and near-term growth.

5. Leverage Amazon Loyalty to Reach New Consumers

Especially during the holidays, Amazon gives brands and retailers the opportunity to leverage heightened shopper intent and generate growth at various stages of the marketing funnel, from brand awareness to consideration and ultimately conversion.

With nearly two-thirds of consumers (66%) beginning their search for new products on Amazon, brands and retailers can captivate new audiences, as well as capture past purchasers, using holiday-specific promotions, PPC campaigns, Amazon’s new “7-Day Deals” feature, and product bundles to pique their interest and increase sales. Brands and retailers can also leverage organic and paid social media to drive relevant traffic directly to their Amazon product detail pages.

6. Stay Nimble With Price Optimization

Amazon’s hyper-competitive landscape, particularly during the holidays, makes price optimization more essential than ever. Brands and retailers need to closely monitor each individual SKU in their catalog and adjust prices in real time to keep profit margins intact.

Price is still the most influential factor in the purchasing decisions of more than four in five Amazon shoppers, so brands and retailers can enhance loyalty and drive incremental sales and profits with dynamic pricing strategies in place. Given the complexity of managing growing catalogs, AI-powered price technology can enable optimized pricing minute-by-minute in the marketplace.

7. Monitor Returns to Identify the Root Causes

The holiday season generates almost as much of an increase in returns as it does sales –– last year on Jan 3rd more than one million returns were processed by UPS. While this can compromise profit margins for brands and retailers in the short term, it is an opportunity to better understand customer preferences, potential product flaws, and the overall competitive landscape.

Brands and retailers should make sure to track the unique reason for each return, analyze patterns, and create proactive solutions to drive return rates down, which will ultimately help grow their bottom lines.

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We’d like to send a huge thanks to Dani at Feedvisor for sharing these tips with us, she did the same with Prime Day earlier this year and we know loads of sellers found her insight useful.

Will you be implementing some of these tips this year, or have you started to do so already? Let us know in the comments section below or over in our Facebook Group.

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