Introduction
As the holiday season approaches, consumer expectations continue to rise. For e-commerce oriented businesses, this comes as an opportunity.
In 2022, US holiday retail sales are expected to reach $1.3 trillion, a 3.3% increase over 2021. Holiday e-commerce is expected to grow 15.5% to $236 billion! This gives all the eCommerce businesses the opportunity to expand their customer base by driving traffic to their website.
Here are a few tips to help optimize your e-commerce website the right way and get it ready for the holiday season.
MOBILE-FRIENDLY Website
By the end of 2022, mobile commerce market is projected to touch 41.6 percent of e-commerce sales. It is estimated to touch 44 percent by 2025. More customers’ today are interacting with websites from a Smartphone of tablet than a desktop.
Just making your e-commerce website mobile-friendly is not enough as mobile shoppers are extremely finicky. More than 67 percent of mobile users have stated that pages and links are too small to click on mobile devices. They act as a barrier to mobile shopping.
ITXITPRO knows exactly how to rectify this anomaly and make your e-commerce site truly mobile-friendly. Its repertoire of e-commerce solutions will ensure your site will have a responsive theme and is fast-loading with clear and concise text; easy-to-click buttons; and well-optimized text and images.
SMOOTH CHECK-OUT EXPERIENCE
Hassle-free checkout process is vital for facilitating a smooth shopping experience; and eventually, purchase.
This can be guaranteed by:
- PAYMENT METHODS: The more payment methods your site offers, the more the customers’ will be delighted. 42 percent of customers’ are said to abandon purchase if their preferred payment method is not offered.
Prevent this from happening to your e-commerce site by including a variety of payment methods like wallet payments to debit-credit cards, etc. - SITE’S SECURITY: With hackers on the prowl during the holiday season, no customer will be prepared to shop on an e-commerce site if it’s not properly secured. Hence, secure your e-commerce site with an SSL certificate and use a PCI-certified solution.
- BROADEN CART MESSAGING ABANDONEMENT: Abandoned shopping carts create a bad impression and reflect badly on e-commerce sites. They also damage e-commerce business reputation. To keep such incidents at bay, broaden the abandoned cart messaging options, tailoring them to holiday shoppers’ preferences.
The messaging options can include discounts, follow-up emails, browser notifications, etc, all of which will remind shoppers to shop further rather than abandon the shopping cart.
CREATE GREAT LANDING PAGE
No e-commerce website can work its magic effectively without a great landing page. To cast an effective first impression, the landing pages should clearly promote holiday sales with the deals and savings being highlighted. This will make sure that the customers’ need not scroll or search for what deals your site is offering and what savings they can make.
The e-commerce website’s landing pages should project impactful headlines like ‘One-of-a-kind HOLIDAY SALE’, or ‘Get the Best Bargains This HOLIDAY SEASON’, and so on. They catch the audience’s attention instantly and get them to make a positive decision.
Aside from great headlines, the landing pages can also have a countdown-graphic that will clearly highlight the days or hours left for the sale to end; prominent call-to-actions like ‘Buy More, Save More’, etc; and positive product-reviews.
ITXITPro proficiency in digital transformation skills will ensure your e-commerce website generates such an impact. It’s designed landing pages have helped holiday shoppers to smoothly get through to e-commerce websites once they click the referral link.
PLEASANT USER-EXPERIENCE
The Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos had once said, “If you build a great experience, customers’ will get a good impression and tell each other about that.” Word-of-mouth can be very powerful in many ways, and when customers’ spread the word, the word will get around swiftly.
UI/UX design plays a pivotal role in this. It touches upon almost everything. From aesthetics to attractive product presentation, facilitation of easy payment flow and fast feedback, and a whole array of intuitive features, it makes the whole purchasing process as convenient as possible. Overall, the whole user-experience will be pleasant and hassle-free.
ITXITPro with its strong prowess in UI/UX, knows exactly what will deliver a great user-experience. Leveraging its in-depth skills, it has successfully transformed several e-commerce websites for the better, ensuring appropriate visual elements like menus, etc with operational simplicity; vibrant product promotion; robust security of users’ data; etc. Quick to load and easy to navigate, the websites made user-interactions positive and pleasant.
FLEXIBLE SHIPPING/RETURN POLICIES
Customers’ always want to know if they will receive their purchases by specific holiday dates. Additionally, they will be keen to know what options they have in terms of returns and exchanges if the purchased item does not work well for them.
Factoring in these aspects, the e-commerce website should have clear-cut shipping, returns and replacement policies. They should be outlined clearly; stay consistent; be customer-oriented; and be easily found and recognizable on the website.
PROMPT CUSTOMER-SUPPORT
Finally, customers’ should be made to feel like royalty. Aside from catering to their needs, their queries and suggestions should be considered promptly and responded back favorably.
Customers may ask questions anytime of the day. If answering them is not possible with a 24/7 customer-support team, chatbots can be added to the e-commerce website. They will answer frequently asked questions promptly thereby keeping the customers’ in the loop.
Apart from chatbots, FAQs landing page, help-center, and instructional product-videos, etc, should also made a part of the e-commerce website. They all will ensure that the customers’ get the appropriate answers to their queries as and when they want.
A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that by 2025, US$ 100 trillion is expected to be added to the world economy through digital transformation. Ecommerce websites are expected to play a big role in the same.
As the holiday season approaches, make sure your e-commerce website is well-optimized to cater to the diverse needs of its customers’, and also be a part of the impending economic boom.
Leading e-commerce solutions provider, ITXITPro is well-placed to not just provide quality e-commerce solutions but also well-placed to facilitate smooth digital transformation through robust UI/UX; web application development, etc, solutions. This can make all the difference when it comes to customer conversions for not only this holiday season but also for the success of holiday campaigns in the years to come.