If you are an eCommerce retailer, Thanksgiving is the time to create irresistible offers. You can easily win over your customers as they are looking to buy gifts for those they love. Thanksgiving is when people are away from the daily drudgery of work, spend more time with their friends and family, and look for the best eCommerce deals.
What’s special about thanksgiving for retailers?
It is an excellent opportunity for businesses to increase revenue. With thanksgiving, the holiday season is officially starting, and people are planning to spend more on friends and family. Retailers are open on this holiday to give their customers a head start on the holiday season shopping. Most retailers offer special discounts and promotions on Thanksgiving.
Ten steps to get your eCommerce store Thanksgiving ready:
- Create holiday-specific landing pages:
Want to create an immersive holiday experience for your Thanksgiving customers? Have a separate retail destination for your home page, including unique landing pages for exclusive Thanksgiving-related products. Your home page for Thanksgiving can include some of your highest-selling products each year during this time.
Direct your shoppers to other Thanksgiving-specific products and the special landing pages you have created. Create Thanksgiving gift guides, unique product selections, and online-only exclusives for your holiday shopping.
- Plan email marketing campaigns:
No matter what you do, investing in email marketing campaigns is a must. Use these campaigns to tell customers that you are ready for Thanksgiving and have special offers to pique their shopping curiosity. If you have a lot of data at your disposal, you can even send customized offers and promotions. You could even come up with unique products just for the occasion.
Come up with special discounts, promo codes, free shipping offers, and so on to attract the Thanksgiving crowd. Ensure you send reminder emails to those who have abandoned their shopping cart. People can get cold feet while buying items due to the added pressure of having a perfect holiday. Most end up abandoning the carts to visit a different store, i.e., your competitor. Reminder emails are great to give that much-needed push to complete the buying process.
- Use a holiday calendar:
Thanksgiving is followed by a series of other holidays: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day, Christmas, and New Year’s. Thanksgiving is a great time to prep yourself for the holiday season. You need a strong sales plan to make the most of this holiday season. Holidays are the best time to attract new customers and re-target your old ones.
Create a holiday calendar and the series of engagement tactics you should be indulging for each. Plan everything in advance, including the on-page design elements, sales banners, unique products, promotional offers, gift guide graphics, and your content calendar. Having such a plan and following it to the T ensures you can meet or exceed your targets.
- Offer gift cards:
Gift cards are one of the biggest enablers for the spikes you see in shopping during the holiday season. It offers a world of good for both the consumer and the retailer. These cards are a life-saver for people who do not know what to buy, and retailers get paid in advance without even having to move their inventory.
Another remarkable fact about gift cards is that you might be welcoming new customers who are recipients of the gift card. It is an excellent opportunity for you to welcome and impress them. With the right strategy in place, you might be able to add them to the list of loyal customers.
- “Make your own gift”:
People love gifts that are customized. Custom-made presents have an emotional appeal to them, and what better opportunity for your customers to show their loved ones how much they care about them.
Come up with campaigns where you tell your customers how they can create their own products using what is available at your store. Prepare a repository of ideas to encourage them to spend time making their own gifts. Either they could invest their own time, or you can have employees who will take care of it.
Ensure that the ‘’Make your own Gift” program is as seamless and easy for your customers to participate in.
- Set up a referral program:
Make the holiday season attractive for your existing customers by rewarding them for recommending your business to others. A good 30-45 days before the holidays, start creating campaigns with information about the referral program and its benefits and incentives. Once you launch the referral program, increase your campaign frequency for more signups to boost your sales.
- Optimize your online store:
Your shoppers want a fast-loading website that makes it easy for them to find the products they are looking for. The first thing you need to do is to optimize your online store for mobile devices, desktops, and tablets. Reduce the instances of cart abandonment and drop-outs by providing them with a smooth and easy-to-navigate shopping experience.
Here’s one more thing you must do– optimize your online store for terms specific to holidays. Add popular keywords such as ‘Thanksgiving offers,’ ‘Thanksgiving promotions,’ ‘‘Thanksgiving gifts,’ and so on. Ensure these keywords are added to titles, descriptions, and product listing pages.
- Create a Thanksgiving gift guide:
There are times when customers are confused about what to buy. This is where gift guides are game-changers. It can take them to a path that you intend to. Make the gift guide as comprehensive and organized as possible to ensure that they get to where they want to go within a few seconds.
Separate the gift guide into different sections and present the ideas in an interesting manner. You should also provide a guide for people who want to create a customized present.
- Have a flexible returns policy:
Your customers should get a clear idea about your return policy. Ensure that the return policy is pro-customer. You don’t want to give them unfavorable terms as it might even stop many of them from shopping with you. Be as liberal as possible. Only a few customers will abuse your return policy if it has a no-questions-asked return policy. If a customer wants to exchange a product, make it as easy as possible.
If your return policy is too strict during the holiday season, it can even repel your most-loyal customers. The holidays should be a time when you should be more gracious with your policies. If there are issues, resolve them immediately. Hire more customer support staff if it were to help you with handling a load of returns during the holiday season.
- Create a memorable unboxing experience:
eCommerce companies should certainly invest immensely into the brand experience that they offer. Your brand needs to tell a story- it should reflect how you communicate, website design and copy, social media channels, and your packaging. Provide festive offline touches that offer a cohesive brand experience that will last beyond their purchase.
Make the unboxing experience special by adding extras. Give your customers more than what they are hoping to get from you. Personal video messages from the gift giver, hand-written notes, or even extra gifts from your brand.
Wrapping up:
The Thanksgiving season is a money-spinner for eCommerce retailers. We hope this article has given you the right set of ideas to make this holiday a successful one for your eCommerce store. With the amount of competition right now, it is imperative that you strategize months ahead to get the best results for your brand during Thanksgiving.
If you are looking to provide gift cards and a loyalty program for your customers, 99minds would be delighted to help you set things up. Get in touch with us to understand how we can help you during this year’s Thanksgiving.
