By: Janet Couperthwaite

Throughout the pandemic, the shopping habits of American consumers shifted even more to online out of necessity, but this trend will not be changing any time soon. Shopping online is no longer just a more convenient way to get goods delivered to your door. It’s also where shoppers are discovering new products and finding inspiration.

Consumers are counting on convenience even more today than ever and to be prepared for the upcoming holiday season there are certain requirements needed to capitalize on the holiday spending that will occur over the coming months. Some areas to focus on for YoY increased sales are refining your search strategy, creating specific holiday offers, developing intentional cross-sell opportunities while shoppers are active and optimizing the sales funnel to streamline the user experience.

· Refining search: Looking at last years trends and the current state of your industry will allow for your brands products to be top in search and that drives consumers to your site first. Some keywords are worth more than others.

· Holiday offers: Create holiday special “bundles of products” that are only offered together during the holidays. You are doing the work for the consumer and every way you can lower the consideration of purchase for a consumer the closer you are to a sale.

· Intentional cross-selling: You know your customer and look through your sales data. Map complimentary options, guide the user to those products that have been purchased by other customers and plan the timing of when that will occur in the sales experience. Ideally increasing AOV (average order value) and customer satisfaction with their purchase.

· Optimizing the sales funnel: This is critical in user experience and for companies who have barriers within the funnel, an illogical or clunky experience certainly will experience drop-off from customer frustration. This has been noted as one of the main reasons consumers drop out of a purchase – make sure to address this before it becomes a problem and impacts your sales during one of the highest consumer spending periods every year.

Ideally, as marketers, we should look at every channel and point in the customer sales experience throughout the year to continually improve UX and conversion. Understanding this is easier to say than to do sometimes but it is critical prior to the holiday season to make sure a review and assessment is completed and optimized to ensure you have a successful holiday season.

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