Black Friday and Cyber Monday is just around the corner (two days from today) to be exact. Is your e commerce store ready? Are your campaigns planned out to the smallest detail? Yes? No? If you are ready then you can sit back relax and skip this article. However if you’re not, not to worry! You have landed yourself onto the right page. We have put together some helpful tips that will help you maximize your revenue this holiday sale season.
Cross Selling
Cross sell is when you persuade your customer to purchase an additional product that will compliment their current purchase before they check out. You could create combos of 4-5 complimentary products that will match well together and offer the whole package to the customer at a discounted price. An example would be, if you are a fashion e commerce store and a customer buys a dress from you, before checking out you could bundle up accessories, bags and shoes that might go well with that dress and cross sell it to them. Most customers who are shopping during the holiday sale season is a bargain hunter and a bargain hunter can not refuse a good bargain. Not to mention that the Christmas is also right around the corner and many people are doing their Christmas shopping too. Combo promotions like this often work very well during big sales such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when people are actively hunting for a good deal!
For InstanteStore users make sure that your cross sell feature is turned on.
Enter “Cross Sell” into your admin panel search bar.
Click “Here” to see if the cross sell has been activated.
If it has not been turned on, tick the “turn it on” button.
Once it has been activated, you can start adding products that you would like to cross sell to your customers.
Pop Up Lead Generator
A lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest is you company’s product or service. An example of lead generators are offering coupons for new customers in exchange for their email addresses. Have you ever entered a website and a pop-up pops out as soon as you enter offering you a “50% Off Your First Purchase”? This is a great way to get new customers to shop with you. New customers are often unsure about your business and your products. Offering them a discount will give them that extra push to take a leap of faith and make a purchase from you this holiday sale season.
Set up a special Black Friday and Cyber Monday automated e mail that will be triggered when customers decide to abandon their cart. Don’t just let them get away that easily. Sending you customer follow up e mails will only remind them of your presence and drive them back on to your site to complete the purchase.
InstanteStore has a bunch of new newsletter templates that you can choose from to help you promote your products better this holiday season!
Discount Codes
A great feature to add to your holiday sale season campaign. If there are items that you are looking to quickly sell this is a great way to give your customers the extra push to buy it. You can give your customers tailored coupon codes that will only be valid for the span of your sale period. In addition to that, you can also offer your most engaged subscribers or top purchases a deal specially for them. Offering your regulars an exclusive deal is guaranteed to have them buying from you and even maybe telling their friends.
During the holiday sale season, send out email updates to let people know how many of your top selling products are left in stock. This will create an urgency for customers to quickly go on to your e commerce store to grab it quickly before its gone. If you can trigger someone’s fear of missing out, then this will definitely help boost your sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Holiday season is just around the corner, can you smell the pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks already? Mmmm.. Retailers are all gearing up for two of the biggest shopping events of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday is when most retailers earn back their yearly profits. Also, these two sale days are perfect for people who are looking to save some money on their Christmas shopping. Here are some tips to help your business stay competitive in this very popular sale season:
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
People today enjoy shopping from the comfort of their home, instead of lining up outside a mall right after Thanksgiving dinner. More and more customers are shopping online and on their mobile devices today. With the most recent Singles Day Sale just passing, Alibaba reported that 90% of its sales came from mobile devices which is higher compared to 82% in 2016 and 69% in 2015. According to an article by Forbes, they have predicted that smartphone and tablet visits to retail sites will account for 54% of all visits.
As you can see purchasing through mobile is a familiar option to many shoppers today. Because of this, a mobile friendly site will play a huge part in helping online businesses benefit the most from the Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic.
Whether they are waiting for the train or riding in a bus, there’s plenty of reasons for them to buy stuff online. So, with more consumers than ever before planning to make the shift towards mobile this holiday season, be sure not to ignore the mobile commerce wave! InstanteStore is already mobile commerce ready. All you have to do is ACTIVATE it. If you haven’t done so for your store, it’s pretty easy.
Here’s how:
Login to your admin, search for Mobile Commerce. Next step: Click on Activate and your mobile store is ready to go. Simple! Anyone could do it.
E commerce giants like Amazon are offering its customers FREE next day delivery or same-day delivery if they were to order before a certain time. They have definitely spoiled the market for other businesses. Customers today are expecting the same level of convenience from the other retailers. At the end of the day everyone loves free stuff! This will give your customers that extra push to make a purchase during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Here’s how:
Offer your customers free delivery with no minimum purchase for the holiday sale season or an option to pay less for next day delivery as an incentive to get them to buy more.
If you have a brick and mortar store, give your customers a click and collect option with same day pick up.
Treat The Black Friday Sales and Cyber Monday Sales Like A Product Launch
With all the hype that is created when it comes to discounts and offers during the holiday sales season, more companies all over the world are joining in every year. It is easy for customers to get lost in the shuffle.
However, if you take a different approach and treat the sale like a product launch and build excitement around it, this will definitely set you apart from your competitors.
Here’s how:
Send out newsletters to customers who you want to be the first to hear about the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales . Offer these special customers a head start on the discounts before everything is sold out!
Instantestore has a feature where you can customize who you want to send your emails to.
Create excitement around the launch of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale with a countdown clock or calendar on your e-commerce site.
Create a social media campaign around your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale and get your customers to share what they bought on their social media sites.
Live chats are especially great during holiday sale seasons. Why? Because there are going to be customers who have never bought from you before entering your website with no clue about your your business or your products. An online chat system will provide these customers an immediate access to any help they need. It is much more convenient compared to a call center. Also, customers can multitask when waiting for a reply.
It is great to have someone online who can immediately walk them through a sale if a customer becomes confused or has a question that could potentially make or break a sale. A live chat will help eliminate shopping cart abandonment this upcoming holiday sale season.
InstanteStore has its very own free live chat software that can be downloaded and applied onto your e commerce store.
The Microsoft .Net Framework is required for the installation. Windows Vista and Windows 7 should already have this installed. Some versions of Windows XP may require you to install this separately, though. If you have any issues installing or running the live chat software, then click here to go to Microsoft’s website to download and install it.
Once installed, double-click the InstanteStore Live Chat icon at the desktop, or click on ‘InstanteStore Live Chat -> InstanteStore Live Chat’ from the Programs folder to launch the live chat application.
The first time the live chat software launches, the LiveChat Signup page will be displayed. Just fill in the necessary details and click the SIGNUP button to register your Live Chat username.
Once you’ve signed up, an email containing the activation code will be sent to the email address you used to register. Copy and paste this activation code into the Activation Code field at the live chat window, then click on the ACTIVATE & LOGIN button.
At the Install livechat code page, copy the displayed code.
For InstanteStore Users
Go to your store’s administrator control panel, and go to ‘Manage Your Store -> Design/Customization -> Customize Template’.
Click on the Click to Edit button at either the left or right border of your store’s template, depending on where you want your live chat icon to be displayed.
Click on the Additional HTML tab at the following page.
Select the Add Extra HTML: radio button and paste the code at the appropriate text area, depending on whether you want the live chat icon to be displayed at the top or the bottom of the left/right border.
Click the PUBLISH CHANGES button to finalize your changes.
The live chat icon will now be displayed at the appropriate location on your store template. Click on the GO CHAT NOW button to start taking customer requests.
For non-InstanteStore Users
Just paste the livechat code from Step 6 above at the appropriate location at your website.
The live chat icon will now be displayed where you’ve placed it at your site. Click on the GO CHAT NOW button to start taking customer requests.
Retailers who invested in a marketing strategy which includes mobile, email and social media last year did 30% better compared to their competitors who didn’t take advantage of all their marketing platforms during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
However, its not all just about the number of channels used. It is more of how you use these channels to reach your audience. It is important to know where majority of your audience are, which platform they are using and from there pursue them. Your goal here is to consistently message your followers and remind them to buy from you this holiday sale season. According to research, it takes at least three repetitive marketing posts to capture someones’ attention.
How to:
Use your existing followers/audience to spread the message
Offer your followers incentives for helping you share the messages with extra discounts or promos.
Make sure all of your marketing channels are sharing the same message and is following a strategic flow.
Everyone loves a good discount, I know I do. You’re probably wondering how offers and discounts can be an advantage you. Yes, your profit might not be that much. However, at the end of the day you’re still profiting (at least a little) from the sale. Which is not completely a bad thing! And here’s why…
Good news for all our merchants! The team at InstanteStore has come up with brand NEW Newsletter Templates that will help merchants promote their products and services better to customers.
One of the biggest challenges faced by online sellers is sales conversion. With so much effort put in to build an online store, it needs to be worthwhile for your online business to take off.
Here are some crucial and practical tips to retain and grow your customer base.
So you’ve finally gotten your online store all set up. It was quite a feat but your store has now been populated with products, you’ve tested it out and you’re happy with the overall look of your site (yay!).
Now start using these 20 ecommerce features to help you sell online.
Customize Abandoned Cart Feature
Make sure you configure your abandoned cart first as your store will begin to receive traffic and exposure from all the SEO efforts and blogging that you’ve been doing.
Image credit : Vitacost
If you’re not sure about whether you’ve set up your store’s SEO properly, please check out these practical ecommerce tips for first time sellers which covers the overall work needed to get your store ready to sell online.
Being able to reach customers who have made it all the way to your store’s checkout process is a priority.
Create some discount coupons as a way to reward first time buyers who sign up or register at your store to purchase something. It’s a great way to encourage them to complete their first purchase at your store.
Image credit : Gemfive
You can offer different types of discount coupons ranging from percentage to dollar value or even free shipping with our ecommerce shopping cart.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and decide which is the best that you can offer them to complete checkout.
Offer Gift Certificates
Look at the yearly calendar and mark down the different holiday seasons or special occasions where you can offer discounted gift certificates to customers who could purchase them to give away as gifts.
Image credit : BerberTrading.com
Gift certs can be made available all year round but remember to set a reasonable validity time frame.
Creating a digital gift certificate is easy with our ecommerce solution.
A reasonable validity time frame is a way to encourage customers to utilize them soon.
Send Out Newsletters
Collect all those emails of customers that have registered in your store as you’ll want to send them periodic newsletters of your latest products, promotions and blog posts (which contains useful advice that will teach and add value to your customers).
Image credit : Zalora
Make it worth sharing to their other friends by including some discount codes for first time signup and purchase.
Creating newsletters is an easy process provided you’ve planned out your outline and have prepared all the relevant links and images.
Our ecommerce software makes it easy for merchants to create and send out newsletters to their subscribers and registered customers.
You can have a test copy sent to your email to see what it looks like first before blasting it out to your subscribers and customers.
Sell on eBay
Select some of your products to sell on eBay. Post them easily from your store to your eBay account if you want your product to be available in the marketplace.
Image credit : eBay
InstanteStore is integrated with eBay so all you need is an eBay account to link your store and start posting some of your products direct to eBay.
You don’t have to post your entire store’s products on eBay. Only selected ones will do.
Sell Wholesale
Offer special wholesale pricing to customers who wish to purchase in bulk from you. We offer 3 different types of wholesale feature. Pick one that’s suitable for your online business.
If you have plenty of wholesale customers, our personal wholesale feature allows up to 9 different pricing tier per product.
That way, you can allocate different pricing to different customers depending on the different quantities that they want to purchase from you. These tier prices are not available to normal buyers.
Put Products On Sale
Put your store’s products on sale. Customers love a good sale. Do your price comparison with competitors taking into account shipping and tax to see whether you can match their pricing or offer a better deal for customers.
According to Nielsen, 41% global average of consumers will switch brand, retailer and service providers if there’s a better price offered. Makes sense as people are always looking for value.
Image credit : Nielsen
Besides, who wants to pay more when they can get a similar product or service at a lower price.
All small business shopping cart software will enable you to put your products on sale.
Ours will even allow you to put entire categories or your whole store on sale.
You’ll have complete control and can even upload the On Sale image of your choice.
Cross Sell Your Products
Always add some similar or related products as cross sell.
Image credit : Skechers
That will serve as relevant suggestions to customers who are looking for the same type of products in case the initial product was not exactly what they were looking.
Being able to offer cross sell on both your product page and final checkout page will help to increase conversion.
Switch To Mobile Friendly And Responsive Templates
Google announced last year that mobile friendly sites will rank higher in search results.
To find out whether your site meets Google’s mobile friendly criteria, just enter in your URL in the mobile friendly test.
Image credit : Google Mobile Friendly Test
It makes sense as your site should load fast and properly across all devices so that users will get to what they’re searching for fast.
You’ll also want to make sure your site loads fast enough to meet Google’s Page Speed Insights :
Image credit : Google PageSpeed Insights
If you need help configuring your store’s site but don’t know how to get it done, please contact us and we’ll help you out.
Switch On Ratings And Reviews
Switch on ratings and reviews so that you can share your customers’ positive shopping experience on your store.
Image credit : BeatsByDre.com
Having positive customer ratings and reviews is part of a good ecommerce solution onboarding process to convince customers of the quality of your products and shopping experience.
Our small business ecommerce software allow merchants to set their own review settings.
Merchants can even upload a list of offensive or censor words as part of the filtering process.
Sell On Facebook
Pick some of your most popular products and sell on Facebook.
Image credit : Victoria’s Secret Facebook
Just follow the setup Facebook Social Store steps to make your products available for purchase on Facebook. Customers get to complete the checkout within Facebook without being bumped around to other sites.
Offer Reward Point System
Give customers an incentive to redeem free products from your store via a reward point system.
It needs to be attainable as a way of rewarding loyal customers.
Image credit : Marriott.com
Keep the conversions simple and intuitive as you want to give a very good first impression to customers that you’re rewarding them from the very start.
Just activate the reward point system and decide which reward type you would like to set for your entire store.
Setting up a reward point system is fast and easy. Just be sure to inform customers of your reward point conversion rates upfront.
Offer Free Shipping
Did you know that 77% of online shoppers say that free shipping remains the most important option during checkout??
Image credit : BestBuy.com
Customers are usually attracted to free shipping. It will encourage them to spend more to qualify for free shipping.
Any shopping cart software for small business will allow merchants to configure and offer free shipping to their customers.
Link your social media accounts to your store and turn on social media sharing so that customers can easily share what they like or what they’ve purchased from your store.
Social recommendation by trusted friends will definitely go a long way to market your products for you.
Offer Or Sell Downloadable Products
If you’ve got some really awesome advice, tips or how-to instructions on a particular subject which you think your customers will find really helpful, you can offer that as a free or paid downloadable product.
Image credit : Hubspot.com
It can be in the form of a pdf file or document which users can download from your site.
Be creative as downloadable products are not just for those who are selling digital products, photography and software files.
Image credit : UnSplash.com
Downloadable products could also be digital files, serial numbers and license keys.
Our ecommerce shopping software allow merchants to upload their text file of serial numbers or license numbers easily.
When a buyer makes a purchase, the number will be marked as purchase automatically so there will be no duplicate purchase.
Use The Content Slider
You’ve got awesome products that you want to highlight and bring visitors’ attention to. Put them on your main page using a content slider.
Image credit : NuaBikes.com
Customers who are interested in a particular product can go straight to the product page by clicking on the respective slide.
Feature Certain Products
Configure your store to show certain featured products which could well be your best sellers and products that you want to draw customers’ attention to.
Image credit : RiverIsland.com
These featured products will normally appear on the main front page of your site.
Add these featured products easily and arrange their sequence on your store.
You can configure them to appear on every single page of your site to keep the customers’ focus on the products that you wish to promote to them.
Offer Affiliates
If you need help getting the word out about your product or services, you can offer affiliates to influential sites or bloggers.
It’s a win-win as you get to promote your site and product on their site and they get paid for successful referrals.
Our affiliate feature is quite comprehensive so you could configure and specify how and when you want to pay your affiliates.
Create your own affiliate banners or our designers can come up with something creative and amazing for you.
Create Auto Responder Campaigns
You’ll need a few to cater to the different visitor response to your site.
Image credit : ZohoMail
This will require you to customize your email messages that can be automatically sent out at specific time frame to different customer segments.
Use Free Live Chat
Being able to communicate with your customers directly to answer any question they may have about your product is important.
You could also find out what are their needs and interest to recommend different types of products and suggestions to them.
There are many different types of live chat software in the market. Some are free while others are chargeable.
Image credit : Tawk.co
Our InstanteStore Live Chat Software is absolutely FREE for anyone to download and use. And when you’re offline, customers can easily send you an email direct from the chat box.
This is one of the ways to improve communication without having to speak over the phone.
Start Selling Now
Utilize all these features with our ecommerce solution software to help you sell online. Treat these features as your arsenal and implement them on your store.
Some may work better than others but make the necessary changes and adjustments as you go along.
Constantly work on promoting your site and products to your target customers and existing customers.
The important thing is that you start selling now with all these features so that you can tweak them better to suit different shopping seasons and occasions.
Don’t have a store yet? Start building your store with a free 15 day trial on InstanteStore.
Mobile penetration continues to accelerate globally compared to tablets or desktops. While not everybody needs a tablet, laptop or desktop, majority will need a mobile phone to communicate. And with smartphones being so readily available and affordable, getting connected to the internet is easy.
I almost always choose to receive newsletters from the online stores I buy from. I don’t just do that so I can share what I’ve learned with you guys. I genuinely want to know when they have exclusive offers and be notified when new products are about to hit their shelves. I love to get invites to exclusive sales and I appreciate it when they send me Free Shipping discount codes for my birthday, because shipping anything halfway round the world costs a lot of dough.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and decide which is the best that you can offer them to complete checkout.
A reasonable validity time frame is a way to encourage customers to utilize them soon.
