Santa may only have to work one day a year, but that doesn’t mean you can too. You’ve got to put in the effort if you want to receive the same level of success for your e-commerce site come Christmas time.
It’s the busiest time of year, which is great news for you and your site because it means more potential customers. However, to turn these potential customers into conversions, planning ahead is essential. A survey conducted by Yesmail Interactive found 38.1{3eb5e81dc2dbd5243766a445dfd7203b99614852f30724c0fcd7c1e47478fab9} of people start their Christmas shopping before November which then jumps to a whopping 69.8{3eb5e81dc2dbd5243766a445dfd7203b99614852f30724c0fcd7c1e47478fab9} before the 1st of December.
Much like your Christmas shopping, don’t leave your Christmas e-commerce plan to the last minute. Follow these tips to make sure you’re ready for the Christmas rush!
“Do you wanna build a snowman Christmas landing page?”
Christmas is a time for creativity and decorations, so why shouldn’t this apply to your website as well?
Giving your site a Christmas makeover helps show your customers you’re not just getting into the holiday spirit but also that your site is the place to be when it comes to shopping for Christmas gifts.
It’s also an opportunity to enhance the user experience by making their festive visit a memorable one. Little touches, such as a Christmas ‘fact of the day’ or an interactive Christmas calendar can give visitors a reason to come back to your site, increasing the chances of a conversion.
However, much like the perfectly decorated Christmas tree, too much decoration can ruin what made it great to begin with. Choose a nice festive design but don’t go overboard and make it difficult for users to navigate your site. If a user can’t find what they need quickly, they’re likely going to start looking elsewhere.
User experience
More people are shopping online than ever before, but this is because the online shopping world is easier, simpler and quicker. At Christmas time, people are likely to be even more busy and impatient, which means the slightest hiccup on your site could prevent a customer from reaching that checkout page.
It’s in your best interest then to enhance your user experience wherever possible. A great place to start is the optimisation of all your category pages. Ensure each link connects to the right category and that each category only contains the products relevant to that area. Mixing or combining categories is only going to make finding the right gift a longer process for your user.
You also want to keep your customers informed of what’s in stock, and the earlier you can do this, the better. If a product is out of stock, display this on the category page listing – not on the actual product page itself.
Better yet, provide an alternatives tab for out of stock products to tempt a user into purchasing something similar to what they were initially looking for.
The need for speed
Do you know how fast your website loads? If you don’t, you should. Page speed is vital as it’s the first thing your user will encounter upon accessing your site. If your site loads too slowly, or worse, not properly at all, then users aren’t going to wait around, they’ll simply go to another site.
This is even more important around Christmas time as you will likely see an increase in traffic, so you want to make sure your site can deal with the stress. To test page speed, as well as receive suggestions of how to improve the overall site speed, then be sure to check out Google’s Pagespeed Insights Tool.
Shopping on the go
The Pagespeed Insights Tool is also great because it allows you to check the speed on both desktop and mobile, but remember that optimising your e-commerce site for mobile is more than just making it load quickly. The amount of online retail spending has increased year on year since 2011, so you want to make sure you’re offering a great mobile experience during the festive period too.
Ensure everything is formatted correctly on the mobile version of your site, and that buttons aren’t too big or small to lead to accidental or difficult clicks. Using Flash can help make things interactive and fun for desktop, but mobile devices don’t always support it. If you are using Flash, avoid using it on mobile, or try to change it to a more mobile-friendly setup, such as using HTML5.
Need more help to ensure your e-commerce site is ready for Christmas? Get in contact with our experienced team today to find out more.
