Today, eCommerce platforms are gaining more power. The recent pandemic and lockdown have even contributed to its widespread popularity. Customers, in trying to avoid any form of infection, are making purchases from home. Shopping from home is convenient and stress-free for many. You don’t have to push your way through the crowd to get out of your favorite physical store.
Most businesses are now focused on online sales because of the increasing demand and growth. They implement various strategies, including online advertising and customer satisfaction, to ensure customers’ continuous flow. However, in certain situations, the inflow of customers depends on the season. How do you stay ahead of eCommerce seasonality trends and improve your sales?
What is eCommerce Seasonality?
Seasonality is all about a seasonal demand for a particular product or service. Basically, it involves a business focusing on a particular period for customers to buy more or less. When we talk about the season, it cut across winter, summer, spring, and autumn. It also encompasses special events and holidays. To understand better, people buy warm clothes when the weather is cold. However, in late spring and summer, they spend more on sandals and shorts.
Holidays could represent everything, such as Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas. While these seasons and holidays might not change yearly, businesses can track the situation regularly to re-strategize their marketing plans. Here are a few things you can do to help improve your sales to stay ahead of eCommerce seasonality trends.
Strategy to lead eCommerce seasonality trends
Think ahead for seasonal sales and deals
Planning ahead of time is the first step to increasing your sales in a seasonal period. You need to develop a strategy you will use. The strategy will depend on your location and events. The particular objective might include winning new customers, selling off old stock, retaining your existing customers, increasing brand awareness, and managing your community.
Once you have enlisted your goals and objective, you can create an action plan. Your action plan will enable you to determine what steps to take and the risks involved. In doing this, you can leverage statistics from previous seasons to make an executable plan and choose a suitable type of eCommerce promotion.
Create a plan for online communication channels
Once you create your objectives and goals, you need to devise an online communication channel to use. If your goal is to attract new customers, you need to determine if email marketing, social media campaigns, or content creation will be the best option.
Furthermore, you need to automate order and schedule newsletters and publications on social media platforms. Whatever the objectives might be, an effective communication channel is crucial to your success. Therefore, leverage every online communication channel at your disposal to improve your brand awareness and sales.
Prepare inventory
Another essential step is to plan and prepare inventory to cope with demand fluctuation during peak seasons. For instance, reorganize space for fulfillment convenience, conduct stock counting, implement demand forecasting, or configuring backorder options.
Further reading: Top inventory management techniques to implement in 2021.
Optimize website and train staffs
After all the marketing, your customers will order products through your store. Therefore, you have to optimize your website to generate more sales. You need to ensure you have a fast-loading website with all links working perfectly. In all, optimize your website to make the journey for your customer seamless.
Furthermore, train your team because they are vital to the success of your campaign. You will receive more orders, and that means more packages to ship. Ensure your customer services are top-notch and available all through the clock to meet customers’ challenges. You can use email, telephone, and instant messages to receive feedback and complaints from customers. Remember, the goal is to respond quickly to each customer.
