How to Prepare for the Holiday Shopping Season of 2020

Customers and sellers are most likely all set and excited about the holiday shopping season of 2020. Online stores are abuzz with marketing promotions in preparation for Black Friday, which people deem as the start of the annual holiday shopping season. With sales projections reaching $1.152 trillion according to CNBC, sellers should maximize this opportunity to accelerate their sales revenues and profit.

In the run-up to the holiday sale season, online sellers are busy bolstering their advertising campaigns, shipping their products to fulfillment centers, stocking up their inventories, repricing, and making last-minute checks before sale days.

Pre-Black Friday Kick-Off Sale

You’ll find that many merchants start their sale ahead of Black Friday, which is strategic in that it helps their page gain visibility. Sellers will be jousting each other on Thanksgiving weekend, so the head start would be a good move, as long as you don’t put all your items on sale too early. Shoppers start checking out products as early as Halloween, so it’s good to be ahead of the competition; however, make sure to price your products well or you might end up destroying your profit margins.

Offer Competitive Prices

As stores battle for market share, price wars are likely to emerge. A price war is when sellers cut down their prices in order to increase market share. It is wise to utilize a good repricer tool, especially this shopping season. Don’t fall into the trap of pricing your products too low because you’re too focused on gaining market share.  

Offer Bundled Products

Another way to move more inventory faster and at lower marketing costs is by selling bundled products, which means grouping your products together – a complementary item with the main product.  If you’re selling a computer mouse, your buyers might want a mouse pad to go with it. If you’re selling a gaming console, you can also bundle this with some games. 

You’re able to sell more items and your customers enjoy more savings this way. If you decide to bundle your products, make sure to start packing ahead of time. Look for an algorithmic repricer that can reprice bundled products, as well, because not all repricing software can do this.  

Email and Social Media Marketing

Because the entire holiday shopping season stretches all the way up until January, you’ll want to keep your customers engaged through email and social media marketing. Excite them with the promotions you are offering and the products you are selling. Focus on the benefits of your products. Exhaust all marketing efforts and aim for a strong finish this year.

Stock Up for the Entire Holiday Season Sale

The holiday shopping season goes on until January, so make sure to have enough stocks in your inventory until then. Review the previous years’ inventory records and ensure you don’t sell out on your top-selling products. Not only will this be a sales loss but it can also hurt your ranking. Good forecasting is key.

Check Your Site

Ensure a quick, easy, and seamless transaction by checking the links and the checkout page of your site. The last thing you want to happen is losing a customer because the checkout page is suddenly unavailable. This is a nightmare for any entrepreneur so make sure to run a quick check.

Customers’ Payment Methods

In the same vein, offer different payment methods because that’s what customers want: options. In a study conducted by Bariliance, over 70% of sales losses happen at the checkout page – when customers abandon cart. 

A strategy that most sellers use is giving customers the option to store their payment information safely so that checkout is fast and easy. Use a reliable fraud management system and make sure that the trust seals are visible all throughout your site to gain your customer’s trust and confidence.

Give your shoppers the option to checkout as guests. The same study points out that 28% of shoppers who have abandoned their carts say they backed out because they didn’t want to have to set up an account to complete their purchases. Customers want things done fast. What they do not want are extra steps at checkout.

Customer Support

This is going to be a busy season. With all the sales and shipping happening, we want to prepare for the worst. In case anything goes wrong, have customer service available and ready to assist your customers. We always hope for the best, but in case we experience glitches – things that are beyond our or our buyers’ control – we want to assure our customers that we are happy to help.

There is no such thing as overpreparation when it comes to the biggest sale period of the year. With the right strategy and resources in place, this is a very good opportunity for you to make a strong finish this 2020. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, indeed!