The holiday season, especially Christmas, is the most lucrative time of the year for e-commerce businesses. With consumers looking to purchase gifts for loved ones and treat themselves, retailers pull out all stops to capture sales during this peak season.
One of the most effective strategies to boost Christmas sales and revenue is to provide generous discounts, deals and offers to shoppers. Not only does this incentivize existing customers to purchase more, but it also helps attract new shoppers who are deal-hunting during the holidays. Ultimately, this can lead to sustainable growth for e-commerce merchants if the strategy is executed well.
Drive Traffic and New Customers
The primary benefit of rolling out Christmas offers is that they draw attention and traffic to your online store. Depending on the type of deal, be it sitewide sales, bundled offers, free shipping, or buy-one-get-one deals, you can leverage them in marketing campaigns across channels like email, social media, and search ads. The compelling offers are hooks that pique consumer interest and bring in waves of new visitors to your site.
With more traffic, the likelihood of converting visitors into first-time buyers increases as well. The discounts motivate for people to go ahead and make purchases they were contemplating. If you manage to impress new customers, retain them post-holidays and turn them into repeat buyers, the Christmas offers would have served their ultimate purpose of sustainable customer base expansion.
Boost Order Values
In addition to new customer acquisition, another major objective of Christmas offers is to get existing customers to spend more per order. Rather than just 10-20% sitewide sales, you should utilize tactical offers like free gifts on purchases over a threshold, extra loyalty rewards points, and bigger discounts on bulk purchases.
The psychology behind this is that people don’t mind spending more if they feel they are getting greater overall value. That’s why complementary products as free gifts work so well – a $50 purchase feels worthwhile when you’re getting products worth $75. With customers adding more items to their carts to claim your Christmas offers, your order values, revenue, and margins can see a nice boost.
Match Competitor Offers
Particularly in the e-commerce space, you can never ignore what your competitors are doing. During peak Christmas shopping seasons when everyone is running promotions back-to-back, you have to stay on top of competitor offers and sales. If their deals seem more attractive than yours, you risk losing out on sales.
One effective strategy is to match select competitor offers so you don’t fall behind in the value you provide to shoppers. For instance, if another brand offers free shipping over $100, you can do the same. If they provide 20% off everything, you can match that sitewide sale too. The ability to replicate attractive offers preserves your competitiveness and prevents you from hemorrhaging hard-won customers.
Unlock Word-of-Mouth Potential
When crafted well, Christmas offers don’t just seem like run-of-the-mill sales. They capture attention for providing outrageous value and savings that shoppers cannot resist sharing with family and friends. This sparks organic word-of-mouth marketing for your brand, fueled purely by the merits of your deals for the festive season.
Savvy shoppers love scoring great bargains and passing on hot tips to others so they can avail the deals too. With each shopper who shares your promotions on social media or tells friends about them, your e-commerce business gains more eyeballs organically. This is the type of visibility that cuts through the clutter and noise in this highly competitive retail landscape.
Test Offer Performance
While the Christmas shopping frenzy focuses on driving urgent sales, e-commerce businesses should also utilize this time to test and experiment. With volumes surging, you have the enviable opportunity to trial multiple offers and discounts to gauge performance. Make the most of the influx of traffic to segment visitors, show them different promotions, run A/B tests, and closely track conversions.
Testing allows you to double down on the offers that work best and refine or eliminate those that don’t. For instance, you will be able to identify which product categories need better discounts for lifting sales, or which gift suggestions attract bigger order values. These performance insights can inform your promotional strategies year-round, especially for the next holiday season.
Be Wary of Markdown Fatigue
However, a sound word of caution when unleashing Christmas offers – avoid stretching yourself too thin with discounts to the point of eroding margins significantly. Shoppers love a good bargain but are also wary of brands that have constant sales, as that signals low product quality needing price cuts to sell.
Ensure your promotions are timed strategically and don’t result in markdown fatigue. Keep some powder dry for other holiday sales events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, post-Christmas sales etc. Instead of across-the-board offers, use targeted discounts on slow-moving inventories. This balanced approach allows you to profitably capitalize on Christmas sales mania.
Wrap Up
Christmas offers undeniably present lucrative potential for e-commerce businesses to unlock growth. Attracting new customers, boosting order values, matching competitor promotions, earning word-of-mouth visibility, and testing deal performance are key opportunities smart retailers can leverage with their festive season promotions. Just be cautious not to dilute brand value in the race to ramp up sales. Keep the bigger picture in mind and your Christmas offers will deliver rich dividends
