E-Commerce Strategies And Tactics

E-Commerce Strategies And Tactics For The 2019 Holiday Season

The holiday season is the most wonderful—and the most challenging—time of the year for e-commerce sites. Amid the gift-buying frenzy, the high-traffic season sees intense competition from other merchants, increased instances of cybercrime, and overwhelmed, busy, distracted shoppers.
According to Adobe Digital Insights, consumers spent $125.9 billion online in November and December in 2018—a 15.2% increase over the 2017 holiday season. And on 26 of the 61 shopping days between November 1 and December 31, consumers spent upwards of $2 billion per day. It’s expected that the 2019 holiday season will continue this record-breaking online sales trends. Now is the time merchants should be preparing. So what can they do to capitalize on this billion-dollar opportunity?                   
E-commerce specialists offer these practical checklists, eCommerce strategies, and tips for different phases of the buyer journey.

Checklist For The Pre-Journey

Before a customer even decides to make a purchase, merchants vie for their attention across myriad channels, from social media, to search, to email. Of course, the experience must be seamless across each channel and form factor to ensure that maximum “wow” factor and better conversion rates.
As shoppers browse their mobile phones on-the-go and surf the web during their lunch breaks, merchants must ensure sites are optimized for discovery, the search experience is friction-free, and customers are engaged across channels in a personal and authentic way.
In this pre-journey race for customer attention, the key to success is personalization. Because Americans are exposed to up to 10,000 ads each day, personalization across discovery, site search, and omnichannel engagement is a must in order to cut through the noise and resonate with buyers.
Consider:
Discovery

• Gather and analyze behavioral and contextual customer data to understand customer intent.
  
• Adopt multipronged discovery strategies (e.g., continue shopping recommendations and targeted pop-up stores).
  
• Add personalized product recommendations and content to capture attention.
  

Site search

• Use business relevance to order search results.
  
• Personalize site search results to give customers a notion of discovery.
  
• Enable voice search (and new alternative) capabilities.
  

Omnichannel engagement

• Think mobile-first and always start with your data.
  
• Avoid batch-and-blast communications. Segment and personalize to stand out from the crowd.
  
• Up your email game. Set up welcome and abandon cart programs for quick wins.
  

Checklist For A Smooth Journey

When customers find their way to a merchant’s e-commerce site, customer experience takes a leading role. In fact, according to Gartner, 64% of people find the customer experience to be more important than price when it comes to making a purchasing decision.
Ensuring a secure, friction-free checkout experience is fundamental to capturing as many customers as possible during the holiday season. It’s especially important to pay attention to the mobile experience since 62% of all e-commerce visitors come from mobile—though it only accounts for 23% of dollars spent.
Finally, as a special touch for cash-strapped shoppers over the holidays, merchants should consider consumer credit options—especially when average order value is over $99—to alleviate high credit card usage at a time of year when money is tightest and card limits are maxed out.

Source: https://magento.com/blog/best-practices/e-commerce-strategies-and-tactics-2019-holiday-season