2008 was a tough year for retailers, both online and traditional brick and mortar stores.
Although there have been a few encouraging signs that things won’t be quite as challenging this holiday season as last year, you should still be prepared to work a little harder for sales.
There is much to be learned from ecommerce statistics from the holiday season of 2008. Here are a few highlights that will help you prepare for this season’s holiday sales:
- Consumers gave convenience and free shipping as the key drivers for shopping online.
- Around 43% of consumers started shopping before November, but almost 2/3 of them didn’t finish their shopping until the last two week before Christmas.
- Gift finders and gift suggestions on websites went almost completely unused. Instead, shoppers went to the featured sale pages.
- Over 1/3 of shoppers used customer ratings and reviews, while an additional 30% said they referred to these things at least occasionally.
- Approximately 70% of shoppers went to a website because they had been there before.
- Gift card purchases with values under $10 were up considerably over 2007. But gift cards made up a little less than 25% of online gift purchases.
Here are some things that online merchants observed during the holiday shopping season last year:
- More than 80% of merchants cited email advertising as the most effective online marketing method.
- As far as promotions went, about half of online merchants said that free shipping (with and without conditions) and percentage off coupons attracted the most customers.
- Paid search was first among marketing channels, accounting for roughly 40% of customers who actually made a purchase.
Here are some things to do and not to do this holiday season to make the most of your ecommerce website sales:
- Offer good limited time offers. Most consumers respond well to these. Don’t over-do the hype until it’s hokey sounding, but do impart a sense of urgency to your limited time offers.
- Don’t make the mistake of extending your shipping deadlines. Do this and you will get burned! Make sure that you are allowing ample time for packages to reach the customer before Santa Claus makes his run, or you will face the wrath of some extremely irate and disgruntled buyers. This is not good PR, and those people would never buy from you again.
- Tap into social media and work it hard for the holidays!
Even during economic downturns, you can be proactive in managing your online sales!
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