The holiday season for 2021 is fast approaching and it only makes sense to get a hang of the market before you release your grand plan to make some hefty profits.
What we know from the past year is that a lot of things have changed due to the pandemic. Holiday shopping isn’t the same for the buyer, the seller, or even the supply chain. In these changing market circumstances, how can merchants prepare well for this year?
Considering the data and surveys carried out by market watchers, we can understand how buying habits have changed. There is a paradigm shift in how people settle on a product. Some people are good at never going to a physical store, while some want to buy online, and pick it up from the store. The variations will further diversify as market conditions fluctuate due to a sweeping global pandemic recovery phase.
Let’s look at some key trends that are shaping the holiday season to understand what to plan and what to plan.
More Online and Hybridized Shopping
While most of us thought that in-store shopping will be off the charts, for now, people are actually stepping out of their homes to shop offline. This proves that shopping will best stay hybridized for a few years to come. Most retailers are treating the situation as an opportunity to digitize their sales processes and offer more digital touchpoints to the customers.
As a merchant, remember that depending upon one channel of sales is not going to be in your favor. Open multiple channels to maximize the
revenue potential and ensure that more people can reach you as they decide to shop online or offline.
The same applies to the payment modes you’re offering. Having a multifunctional POS that allows users to pay digitally or by cash is a smart option for merchants, readying for the holiday season.
Good Reviews Get Good Customers
Reviews will assume an inexorably more significant part this year in the 2021 Christmas season. Indeed, the arrangement of reviews and social evidence has been hailed as crucial to progress. It’s suggested that brands and retailers offer customers anything to help teach, support, and increment the possibility of conversion.
Indeed, 70% of ANZ customers read somewhere around one audit before making an online buy (source: BigCommerce report). Customers need to be completely taught before buy and are glad to do their exploration and retailers need to offer this, or hazard losing deals.
Furthermore, shoppers will be searching for three things in the audits — realness, recency, and connections. Customers need to see a blend of both positive and negative audits. Trust is consequently the main factor with regards to audits and their effect on expanding transformation.
Be Prepared for More Ways to Shop
There is a healthy chance that people refrain from actually visiting a brick-and-mortar store, and might prefer making all the purchases online. In such a case, merchants across the market may feel a dependency on logistics services.
But if there is a turnout at the stores, merchants may get caught off-guard with low in-house stocks and inventory. You would want to avoid such a situation wherein you’re not sure about how to handle the incoming traffic of buyers.
Therefore, it’s recommended to be prepared for multiple shopping avenues. If you don’t have an eCommerce store, now is a good time to get one and get started with online payments.
Payor offers several products for eCommerce stores that need a multifarious payment gateway that will help you gather payments throughout the holiday season.
Utilize Multichannel Marketing
Does your marketing campaign cover PPC and Facebook ads? Great! But what about SEO and Email newsletters? Awesome! But you can’t forget SMS marketing.
The point is that we don’t know where the customers will click while they’re scrolling screens to find their purchases. A good tactic in such a case is to create a multichannel marketing funnel that can bring in traffic from multiple sources.
This will help you hog in as many customers as possible and not let your business succumb to opportunity loss. A number of businesses have already invested heavily in content marketing in order to expand their reach throughout the first half of 2021. Now they’ll be able to reap the benefits as the holiday season sweeps by.
Offer Shopping Convenience
Is your store offering “Buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS)? If not, then it’s time to consider the same. Also, do you offer size exchange on your clothing items? If not, your shoppers will choose a competitor that does.
We have seen that shopping convenience is the key to winning customer trust when crazy offers are active everywhere. Each eCommerce store will offer discount coupons and one-off deals but buyers would eventually gravitate to sellers who have an easy shopping experience.
For instance, people are likely to pick a product that has 2-day delivery and Credit Card processing over the one that will arrive after 7 days and doesn’t have a trustable gateway.
The bottom line is to test your shopping experience before the season and ensure that everything works smoothly. You would not want to make it a hassle for the customers to shop, now that you’re putting out your best game.
Shopping is going Mobile-first
Buying portable devices should be on the lookout. Shopping on cell phones is not difficult to do in a hurry for customers, particularly for last-minute buys. Be that as it may, cart surrender can be higher on portable.
This is a pattern that online retailers should attempt to check by giving a frictionless portable shopping experience, and by recalling that individuals are more disposed to make a buy from their cell phone if a rebate is accessible.
Convey limits shrewdly by offering a coupon code once a client buys into your bulletin. That way you have their contact data and you can keep on sustaining them by email, as well. You can likewise show an extremely tempting proposal on leave plan to keep clients on your site and boost them to finish their buy.
Start Early to Stay Longer
Buyers will begin shopping early. Store network interruptions from the previous year lastingly affect discernments. Last year, we heard that 70% of customers planned to shop ahead of schedule to keep away from the two groups and things being unavailable. Comparable patterns are normal this year.
To fulfill the early needs, retailers ought to consider dispatching vacation plans and advancements sooner than expected.
Be ready with the offers and roll multiple campaigns before hitting the season. A number of companies like sending out teaser emails before the actual sale begins to make sure that they get maximum attention during the sale.
Merchants, Be Prepared With The Inventory
Know about production network imperatives. Commonly, retailers need to arrange their things somewhere in the range of 3-9 months early to have the option to satisfy them on schedule for these special seasons. Worldwide stockpile chains are considering major to be as creation limit is tapped out and purchaser request is expanding.
Can retailers purchase sufficient stock? Will it come on schedule? Will dispatching burdens proceed or will store returning spread out buyer interest and relieve the burden on transporters?
Stocking up wisely well before the season could be a great decision. At the same time, the sales forecasts and campaign force should also be aligned with the stocks.
Ramp Up Your Payment Experience
Imagine trying to checkout on a near-sold-out product and getting your bank card declined. The moment you try again, the product is gone! This could be the most regrettable shopping experience for any buyer, especially, when they’re purchasing during a sale.
Therefore, it’s wise to not only offer multiple payment options to your buyers but improve the overall payment experience.
In the US – Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and Paypal are the most popular options. You must be prepared to accept payments through all of these options and test out your gateway rigorously.
Payor offers you a consolidated payment integration for all your offline and online products at bare minimum transaction fees. It only makes sense to not miss out on payment methods with more than 90% market share, and the payor helps you keep your payment acceptance rates to be 99.95% successful.
Conclusion
The reality of the situation will become obvious eventually how the forthcoming Christmas season will go. Will customers be eager to get back to stores or will they keep on partaking in the comfort of online for a lot of their vacation shopping? What channels will they rush to and what provisions will acquire their business?
Our best exhortation is to get ready by covering your bases however much as could be expected. Set up your site early. Serve clients wherever they shop. Furthermore, give a consistent shopping experience. For more data on preparing your site to convey occasion wizardry, look at our aide.
