HO HO HOLIDAY SEASON HACKS

The holiday season is quickly coming on us and with that that businesses must prepare. Traditionally, this meant going to the store to do your holiday shopping. However, with the increasing use of the internet as well as the uncertainty brought on by COVID-19, how can online retailers prepare their sites for the flood of holiday traffic that is expected this year?

One of the most important things that an online store can do for its customers is personalize the shopping experience. In other words, they need to figure out ways to take the personalized in-store experience and bring it to their online stores. According to research, 63% of customers are open to giving more personal information if that means online stores can better predict their needs. For example, many online stores use AI to personalize every aspect of a user’s online browsing experience based on things such as search history, previous purchases, and current context. However, you shouldn’t just stop there. Make sure to make the entire customer experience a personalized one with things such as packaging and product design.

With so many options online to shop, it is important to expand your selling channels. In other words, you need to make sure you are where your customers are. This can include places such as social selling platforms, online marketplaces, and eCommerce stores. However, at the same time, you can’t just be everywhere as this can feel very disjointed and confusing of the customer. Rather, you need to make sure that your online presence is seamless across all of your marketing channels.

Online stores also mean that you can sell anywhere. While this is great, as it means you can expand your customer base, it also means that you have to be aware of tax obligations in other states. If this is not your forte, don’t worry! There is automation software that can help you stay on top of your tax responsibilities.

Lastly, you need to focus on the post-purchase customer experience. It is no longer an afterthought in eCommerce. Rather, it has now become one of the most important parts. For example, a survey by the National Retail Federation found that 55% of holiday shoppers will return or exchange unwanted gifts. As such, you need to prepare for this. In other words, your supply chain doesn’t only need to focus on getting products to customers, you also need to make it easy for customers to send products back.

If you would like to learn more about leveraging technology to help make this year’s online shopping season the best it can be, make sure to check out the full article.

Online shopping is booming. As a retailer, it is imperative to take advantage of this. However, when is the right time to prepare and if you are late, is there a way to catch up on the preparation?

From 2015 to 2018, U.S. eCommerce holiday sales have increased from $82.5 billion to $126 billion or in other words 52.7% in this short period. Taking into account these trends as well as the current situation where many people must stay at home, these sales are only bound to go up.

So how can we prepare for the upcoming holiday online shopping season?
First, it is imperative to optimize the user experience. While shoppers are interested in bargains, you don’t want that to be the only reason that they are on your site. Rather, you want to focus on a fluid, user-centered experience to drive sales. You can do this in several ways; however, before anything else, you need to earn their trust. Don’t hide things in the fine print and make sure to be upfront and clear about things such as shipping prices. To build their trust, you need to optimize the checkout process. According to statista, 69.5% of online shoppers abandon their online shopping cart. To help reduce this number on your website, make sure to include things such as one-page checkout and mobile optimization. In fact, according to Shopify, 66% of 2018 holiday sales were from mobile devices!

Second, make sure to market your eCommerce store during the holiday season. While this may seem difficult, there are several strategies you can use to stand out from the crowd. Some of the most effective ways to do this are through email marketing and social media. However, you can’t simply send out an email or create a social media post and expect people to respond. You need to implement a well thought out strategy. For example, one of the worst emails that you can send out is a generic, bland one. Your customers can quickly tell that you don’t care for them. As such, it is important to segment your emails to focus on particular customer groups. You can do this by exploiting the idea of FOMO, rewarding subscribers to your site, utilizing influencer marketing, or even sending a reminder email when someone abandons their shopping cart.

Lastly, you must prepare your fulfillment for the holiday season. Customers want their packages as quick and as cheap as possible. With the last-minute rush during the holidays, it often can put a lot of stress on your systems. However, there are several ways you can prepare for this such as stocking up your inventory in advance. Also, make sure to provide several different shipping options to please all of your different customers, from those who want the cheapest options to those who want the quickest. If this is too much for you to handle all by yourself, consider using an outside fulfillment service to take some of the stress off your back.

If you would like to learn more about how to prepare for the upcoming holiday eCommerce season, make sure to check out the full article.

The holiday shopping season is an extremely important time for many businesses. According to LiveChat, eCommerce sites get around 120% more visits during Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well as a 63% increase in visits during the entire holiday season. Needless to say, the season is an important time as a sales manager. However, how can you properly prepare your website to best take advantage of consumers’ increased spending habits during the holidays?

First and foremost, you need to prepare your inventory. Expect at least 10 to 12% increase in product sales and pre-stock accordingly. Additionally, be prepared to re-order inventory if you go through your stock too quickly. If this is something that might overwhelm your business’s core competencies, don’t be afraid to partner with a logistics provider. They will be able to take the stress off of you with regards to handling all customer-related shipping problems. To build on this point, it might be worthwhile to also include free shipping with your products. 9 out of 10 online customers prefer if the shipping is free over it being quick!

At the same time don’t forget about the customer experience in every step of the buying process. This starts with your website’s speed. A slow-loading webpage can mean losing a customer. Therefore, it is important to test out your website’s stability and scalability beforehand to be ready for the holiday rush. In the same vein, make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. According to Tara Sporrer, VP of marketing at Moxie Software, more than 90% of people use and “live” on their mobile phones.

Another critical part of the customer experience is marketing. However, with a short holiday season, it is important to create a relevant content calendar to advertise to your customers. A great way to do this is through appropriate promotional emails. According to research, email campaigns are 2/3 the part of any online sale! Needless to say, they work! Additionally, focus on creating good, relevant, and urgent promotional copy. According to JustUno, 84% of website conversions happen on the first visit. With so many websites out there, you might only have one chance to get a customer’s attention. Make it count!

You are not done with your customer after you have sold your product. The after-sale is one of the most critical times. This is the best time to create return customers. With great customer service that goes beyond expectations and loyalty programs, you can convert a one-time paying customer to a long time repeat customer.

If you would like to learn some more not so obvious tips on how to prepare your eCommerce site for the upcoming holiday season, make sure to check out the full article.

COVID has hit the market quite hard. Needless to say, this upcoming holiday shopping season is not going to be like any before. According to Bloomberg sales in some discretionary categories will see falls of 5 to 10%! As a retailer how can you prepare for this upcoming holiday shopping season?

First, it is important to understand the main reasons for the post-COVID shopping slump. One of the biggest contributing factors is unemployment. In the US, in April, the unemployment rate hit 14.7% or 20.5 million lost jobs. This has affected the consumer psychology. In such an uncertain time, people are much more likely to save than spend. The feeling of uncertainty is only compounded by the risk of a second and potentially worse outbreak. Lastly, the COVID crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of the supply chain. In its currently weakened state, many people are worried that it might not be ready for the upcoming season.

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to only focus on doom and gloom. Rather, with proper preparation, you can set your company up for success.

One of the most important aspects you must focus on is your eCommerce website. With the expected increase in demand for online shopping, now is the time to make sure that your website is in the best shape to handle the influx of traffic.

However, to do this, it is important to make it easy for customers to find you. Make sure to focus on SEO best practices to get you on the top of searches in Google as well as social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Now that you can’t talk to your customers face to face, it is more important than ever to set up effective customer communication hubs. These allow you to streamline the communication process with your clients. Tools such as GoogleMeet, Zoom, email, and even SMS make it convenient to talk with and help your customers quickly and securely.

This brings us to the next point, reputation is everything in online shopping. 87% of online shoppers comparison shop using reviews of others. Therefore, you need to provide great service as well as tools that allow your customers to say how great you are!

Lastly, you must track everything that you are doing. Without automated analytics, you are just stumbling around in the dark. Strong metrics allow you to look at everything that we just talked about with an impartial eye so that you can tweak and adjust your strategies according to your particular business’s needs.

If you would like to learn more about how you can proactively prepare for this upcoming online holiday shopping season, make sure to check out the article.

Ecommerce sales during the holiday season might seem like a piece of cake. However, it is far from it. With so much competition out there, it can be quite difficult getting a piece of the pie. Therefore, as an online store, how can you prepare to maximize your profits this upcoming online holiday shopping season?

The 2020 holiday online shopping season is going to be different from any before it due to COVID. In April alone, we have already had more traffic than Black Friday last year. According to Deloitte, they expect a 25% to 35% increase in sales or $182 billion to $196 billion in total sales this upcoming season.

The most important part of maximizing profits is having key measurable goals. Without these, it is impossible to tell if you are doing the right thing or not. Fortunately, tools such as Google Analytics provides great KPI (key performance indicators) such as traffic, bounce rate, click-through-rate, etc…to help you measure your successes and failures.

The next most important step is to optimize your website. This means many things. For example, one of the most important things is to make sure that your website is prepared to handle the load of customers in the holiday season. You can do this by pretesting your website’s performance. According to Forbes, 70% of customers say that page loading speed is a critical factor in a customer’s experience. Breaking this down even further, 22% said they would leave a website if it was too slow, 15% would go to a competitor, and 12% would tell their friends of their bad experience.

However, optimizing your website doesn’t stop there. Even if you have the fastest website in the world, it doesn’t ensure that people will come. It is also important that you optimize your merchandising strategy for the holiday season by highlighting holiday products with great promotional campaigns. A great, cost-effective way is through social media promotion. For example, Facebook has over 2.7 billion active users worldwide. Also, make sure to expand your store’s sales channels. This means you need to be where your customers are. Great places include online marketplaces such as Amazon, social media commerce such as Instagram, and comparison shopping engines such as Google Shopping.

Lastly, you must focus on your shipping and fulfillment. There are several ways to go about this depending on your particular company needs. However, if you find that your business is not ready to take on the Herculean task of shipping packages all by yourself, consider using a 3rd party logistics provider. This will allow you to focus on what you do best while letting someone else make sure your products get to your customers quickly and safely.

The 2020 holiday season is a great opportunity for online stores. However, success only comes to those who prepare for it. If you would like to learn more about how to maximize your eCommerce sales this year, make sure to check out the full article.

COVID-19 has significantly changed the world that we live in. This is especially true for eCommerce. In fact, in the first quarter of 2020, US online sales were $145.5 billion, or a 14.5% increase from the same time last year. With the upcoming holiday shopping season, this trend doesn’t look to be changing. While this has been great for online business, it has also put a lot of stress on the system. As an online retailer, how can you prepare for the upcoming holiday season so that you can take the best advantage of it?

There are three main problems for online retailers this year. First, with the uptick in online sales, many stores have not had time to plan and restock for the holiday season. Second, a business that relies on a single supplier or a local supplier is much more prone to problems. Lastly, with everyone shopping online, the shipping system has become extremely strained. However, despite these potentially big issues, there are several things that you can do to make this holiday shopping season the best it can be for your eCommerce store.

First and foremost, make sure that you have your supply and logistics side set up. This means that you need to diversify your suppliers. Rather than focusing on a single supplier, look for multiple suppliers, ideally from different geographical locations. Additionally, prepare ahead of time by stocking inventory in advance. You can use data from the previous holiday seasons as well as data from earlier this year to make predictions on how much inventory you might need to buy ahead of time. Afterward, it is important to focus on your fulfillment operations. If you don’t have the staff to do it yourself, consider using an outside fulfillment service to take some of the stress off. To build on this, it is great to consider different pickup and delivery options. This can include having customers pick up from a brick and mortar location or using crowdsourced delivery platforms such as Uber and Lyft. The most important part is that you offer your customers options to make the experience the most convenient for them.

It is also important that you get your website prepared for the holiday shopping season. This includes displaying banners, focusing marketing efforts on both existing and new customers, and updating return and shipping policies. Additionally, make sure the entire shopping experience is seamless. This means that you need to focus on your payment systems.

If you would like to learn more about how COVID has changed how we buy online and how it will affect the upcoming holiday shopping season, make sure to check out the full article.

Due to COVID, 2020 is on pace to set online shopping records. For example, we have already seen a 7% increase in online sales between April and May of this year when compared to the 2019 holiday season. With Halloween (October 31st), Black Friday (November 27th), Cyber Monday (November 30th), Christmas Eve (December 24th), New Year (January 1st), and Valentine’s day (February 14th) still around the corner, there is still a lot of shopping left on the table. However, how do these changes affect us and how can we prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season?

The current pandemic has only put the growth of eCommerce into super drive. Before, eCommerce was booming with a 14.9% annual increase in 2019. This year, it is only skyrocketing even faster! For example, some stores like Target and Walmart are going to close their physical locations on Thanksgiving and only sell from their online store. Additionally, brands such as Nike, who is famous for selling directly to their customers, have increased online sales as well. This year, 30% of all their sales were online, a figure they weren’t expecting to reach until 2023. They now are looking to hit 50% of all sales online.

Building on this move to the digital shopping experience, we will also see a big shift in the role between the online store and the physical store. 8 out of 10 customers consider shipping as one of the biggest factors in their purchase. Now the online store instead of the physical store will be the central hub for your business. Brick and mortar locations will now work as fulfillment centers. This will help solve one of the customer’s biggest concerns. With the changing role of physical locations, you will be able to provide things such as BOPIS (in-store pick-up), 3rd party shipping, tracking to the customer.

Lastly, COVID has brought to the forefront the big security threat that online shopping can potentially have. It sets up for the perfect environment of anxiety and human error which is the cause of 52% of all data breaches. Additionally, it doesn’t matter how big or small you are, you could still be a target. 32% of eCommerce sites have had security-related incidents. For example, on Twitter famous users such as Elon Musk were hacked. While the overall damage was relatively small ($100,000), it has caused irreversible harm to Twitter’s reputation. Therefore, as an online merchant, it is important to be prepared.

If you would like to learn more and be better prepared for the trends that we will see this upcoming online holiday shopping season, make sure to check out the full article.

In the last several years, holiday shopping has been increasingly becoming more virtual. Companies such as Walmart are completely closing their physical stores on Thanksgiving and rather focusing on the online experience! With COVID, this trend is going to only become bigger. While this is great for many eCommerce stores, it can also be quite scary as there is suddenly much more competition. As one of many online businesses, what strategies can you use to help you succeed in this online holiday shopping season?

One of the best ways to predict the future is by looking at statistics from the past. Normally, this would mean that we look at the previous year’s sales. In the current COVID world, we can’t compare this year with last year. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t still use sales data to help us. Rather, we need to focus on trends since March. During this time, online at home orders increased by 74%. By analyzing how your eCommerce store performed during these peak times earlier in the year, you can better prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping rush.

We are living in the digital age. Many people have grown up with computers and phones. As such, we can’t keep offering them the same old stuff. Rather, we need to adapt to this new digital culture. One of the biggest things that you can focus on is the mobile experience. This is very important as almost half of all online traffic is from a mobile device. Building on this, it is important to offer diverse payment methods such as PayPal or subscription-based packages.

COVID has also changed the way we live in our everyday lives. According to Criteo’s survey of US consumers, 55% of them have changed their daily habits due to the virus. As such, you need to change accordingly. Rather than marketing products that they are no longer interested in, highlight best-selling products that your customers are currently buying.

In the same vein, you might have felt a loss of customers due to these economic and cultural shifts. If that is the case, it means that you need to expand your scope and search for new customers. Now is one of the best times to do so. According to research from Arlington Research and PFSweb, 44% of online consumers were trying new brands during the pandemic with 45% of them saying that they would continue shopping with the new brands if they liked them.

This year has been hard, and as a marketer, you are probably feeling it in the online marketing budget. Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. 37% on eCommerce businesses are tightening the strings. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t advertise; rather, you just need to focus on the most bang for your buck. Some of the best channels for this include influencer marketing, email campaigns, and Facebook ads.

In this time of so many unknowns, it is important to adapt to the times. If you would like to know more about the best marketing tactics to help you in the holiday shopping season, make sure to check out the full article.

2020 has been a stressful year. With the current pandemic, stores have been forced to ramp up online sales to make up for losses in brick and mortar locations. All of this seemingly overnight. With the rapidly changing landscape, how can you prepare your eCommerce store for this upcoming holiday season?
You might think that this uptick in online sales is only due to the lock-up of physical locations. However, according to a survey by Rakuten 73% of consumers plan to do most of their shopping online. Also, 40% of online shoppers unsurprisingly say that they are doing this primarily due to health concerns. In the first 3 months of 2020, online sales have grown the same amount as it had in the previous 10 years! Needless to say, scaling your eCommerce operations to fulfill this new onslaught of demand is extremely challenging.

Fortunately, there are several strategies you can use to prepare for this upcoming online holiday shopping season.
Start your sales earlier. The term “Christmas creep” has existed for over 40 years. The phenomenon of the holiday shopping season starting earlier and earlier is nothing new. However, with our current pandemic, it is starting even earlier! However, as an online retailer, you should see this as an opportunity. For example, instead of paying 2 to 3 times the advertising price in the heat of the holiday season, you can pay much less. Additionally, the seasonality of products is quickly disappearing. Durable goods such as computers and appliances can be bought at any time of year.

Another way to succeed this holiday season is by using limited-time sales to replicate the excitement of holiday shopping without giving the headache of the crowds. In other words, leverage the power of FOMO to drive sales.

If you have a physical store location, make sure to leverage the power of buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS). This contactless option is good for several reasons including allowing your users to get their products ASAP, save both you and your customer on shipping costs, and show your customers that you care about their health.

It is also important to adopt the “peanut butter and jelly” approach. In other words, you need to strategically partner and broaden the categories of products you sell. A great example of this is the menswear retailer, Todd Snyder, who expanded their store to include luggage, grooming products, sunscreen, etc…

All of the above requires you to adapt to your eCommerce business. However, that is not as simple as throwing more money at the problem. Rather, you need to focus on CX (customer experience) and CS (customer support) to differentiate you from the rest of the online stores. This includes back end process such as scaling your servers, optimizing your Content Delivery Network (CDN), taking out resource-heavy features, and managing demand with things such as a virtual waiting room.

Needless to say, the 2020 holiday online shopping season is going to look different than anyone we have seen before. If you would like to best prepare for it, make sure to check out the full article which includes great visuals, graphs, and case study examples.

The holiday shopping season is almost upon us. Never has there been a time in eCommerce history with so much opportunity mixed in with so much challenge. As an online store, what can you do in these uncertain economic times to best come out on the other side?

First and foremost, you need to set your goals. This can include things such as getting more customers or launching a new product. Once you have established what you want to achieve, you need to identify the concrete success metrics to get you there. This includes things such as average order value (AOV), cost of goods sold (COGS), holiday discounts, return on ads spent (ROAS), and profits.

After you have put that all together, you can start planning 3 to 5 marketing campaigns for the main holiday shopping seasons that take place from October to early December. This means planning a marketing budget. However, as online ad rates spike during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) season, it can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. The simple solution is to start buying adds earlier in the season. However, this metric can be a difficult one to use to convince higher-ups to spend money when they don’t see immediate results. Rather, you must use the Delayed Attribution Multiplier (DAM), provided in the article, to show how much revenue your 1 day add spending is bringing in over the next 28 days. In other words, many online shoppers are “window shoppers” who don’t buy right away but tend to come back later.

There are a lot of different social media platforms you can use to advertise. One of the best bangs for your buck is Instagram. However, if you want to test out some advertising strategies without spending a lot of money, consider platforms such as Snapchat and Tiktok. If things work here, you can always cross-channel market on other platforms like Facebook.

To create a great social media ad, it must do 3 things. First, it must be able to grab the person's attention in as little as 3 seconds. Second, it must make the user explore more. Lastly, it needs to effectively produce the desired result. If you can achieve these 3 things, you got a great ad, no matter where you place it.

However, don’t forget the power of email marketing! As described earlier, this is a long term play. For example, 56% of email’s annual revenue is brought in November and December and 89% of BFCM purchases are made by customers who opened an email first. Emails acquired in October have the highest 3-month value than any other 3 month period.

If you would like more detailed information on holiday season marketing strategies, including graphs, charts, and case studies, make sure to check the full article.

The most important rule in eCommerce is to adapt to the current situation. This has never been truer than now. With the COVID pandemic, every industry, including eCommerce has been affected. In fact, in May, eCommerce sales were $82.5 billion, 77% more than the previous year. As an eCommerce business, how can we prepare for this upcoming holiday season?

With a predicted $2.91 trillion in sales, mobile is quickly becoming the go-to place for buying online. Additionally, Google is now placing a lot of importance on page loading speed in their search rankings. As such, it is now more important than ever to focus on mobile optimization. One of the easiest and most straightforward ways to do this is by implementing AMP (Accelerated Mobiel Pages) which can easily be done on your WordPress site. Some other great ways to improve your site for mobile is by optimizing photos with a responsive template design.

Another place to focus on is the upsell. According to research, more than 30% of eCommerce revenue comes from the upsell. However, you can’t focus on a generic upsell and hope to be successful. Rather, you need to personalize your upsell for each one of your customers. User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to convert a browser into a buyer. As the saying goes, sometimes the best form of advertisement is word of mouth. Another way to do this is with special holiday promotions and campaigns through strategies such as FOMO, special holiday gift cards, email segmentation to customize based on things like demographics, interests, and purchase history.

It is also important to focus on making your eCommerce platform SEO ready. However, this is not just a last-minute thing. Rather, this is something that you should always be focusing on. One great way to do this is by using Google Analytics to both track last year’s as well as this year’s keyword trends. But, don’t forget to also look at voice-related searches! According to a survey conducted by Adobe, 48% of consumers use voice to search for things online.

The holiday season is not like other seasons. Therefore, it is important to update your merchandise strategy to reflect this. A great way to do this is with high quality pictures. With only 7 seconds to convince your customer to buy your product, you need to include as many pictures as possible. Additionally, if you can include multiple products on the same page so that they can see and compare, even better! To help simplify the purchasing decision, you can even include product bundles!

Lastly, the customer experience after paying must be great as well. One of the most important things to do is to be as transparent about shipping and make sure that it is as quick as possible. In fact, according to research, nearly a quarter of shoppers have canceled orders due to slow shipping! To help with this offer multiple shipping options and even include a map to show where their package is.

If you would like to learn more about how to make this upcoming holiday eCommerce season great, make sure to check out the full article.

Due to COVID, the 2020 shopping season is going to be one of the most unpredictable ever. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t prepare. As an eCommerce site, what are some safe bets that will help ensure success in this upcoming holiday shopping season?

According to Deloitte, there is a lower than normal projected holiday growth for this holiday season. This can be expected due to the shaky economic situation brought on by COVID. However, this doesn’t mean it is all doom and gloom. Rather, it looks like the end of the holiday shopping season, namely between November and January, will see a 1% to 1.5% overall increase in the US and a 35% increase in holiday online shopping sales. Additionally, 73% of shoppers expect that their holiday spending budget will be the same or even increase from the previous year. In other words, many retailers will be able to make up for losses earlier in the year with great sales numbers at the end. Also, this indicates that the way people will be shopping will be different this year. Rather than seeing large Black Friday crowds, expect small crowds, social distancing, and buy-online-pickup-curbside to become the norm.

The biggest winners will be eCommerce sites. 64% of customers expect to spend more online than they did last year. Overall, it is expected to see between 25% to 35% growth in online sales this year as compared to 14.7% in 2019. Breaking this down even further, 34% of US consumers say they shop online daily, and 19% say that they shop online multiple times a week. Needless to say, online shopping is the new gold mine. One of the biggest winners in the online shopping trend is mobile commerce. This includes things such a grocery app usage. According to eMarketer, 37% of American adults were more interested in mobile app shopping than they were in the previous year.

Even with all of this uncertainty, many retailers are still woefully unprepared. According to a PayPal survey, only 39% of online retailers are proactively preparing for the holiday shopping season. Don’t be one of them. According to research, 36% of customers say that one of their biggest frustrations with online retailers is when they are out of stock. Additionally, 39% of customers say that the deluge of advertising during the holiday season overwhelms them. As such, make sure to strike the right balance with how often you send them personalized advertisements.

If you would like to learn more about the predicted trends for this upcoming holiday season so that you can best be prepared, make sure to check out the full article.

It is not an exaggeration to say that COVID has caused some real havoc this year. Traditionally, the last 3 months of the year is a time where retailers make the majority of their sales. While the worst of it might be over, how can you as an in-store or online retailer take advantage of this new normal?

Planning ahead of time has always been key. With all of the uncertainty, this is even truer than ever before.

As a physical retail location, this doesn’t mean you can’t still use the internet to help. This means that you need to set up and update your online store for the expected flood of holiday shoppers. Consider implementing click and collect. This solves several problems at the same time. Your customers can get their packages quicker than regular shipping while not having to be worried about entering your store. Don’t forget to provide hand sanitizer for that extra level of safety!

It is normal to stock up on popular products for the holiday season. However, with the level of uncertainty, they might be harder than usual. By paying closer attention to your customers’ current needs, you can hold less stock in inventory. This brings to light the problem of over-forecasting. According to surveys, 52% of retail supply chain executives say they spend too much time data crunching. As such, it is important to implement real-time technology-based solutions to both save time as well as better predict customer-spending habits.

Traditionally, in-store holiday buyers tend to be browsers. That is, they tend to go into a store not knowing what they want to buy. However, with the current COVID pandemic, this doesn’t work as well. This is where your online store can come into play. Use it as a great opportunity to provide your customers with the “browsing” experience. Afterward, they can come and buy it in the store. If you are an online-only store, you don’t have to feel left out. You can still take advantage of the in-store experience with popup locations.

Lastly, for physical store locations, there will be many new things to consider for public health and safety. For example, many places will have local laws that regulate the number of customers that can be in a store at one time. A great way to alleviate this is through extended hours and outdoor queuing. Now you can have more customers in your store without having too many people too close together at the same time.

If you would like to learn more about how to prepare for this upcoming COVID holiday shopping season, especially if you have a brick and mortar location, make sure to check out the full article.