Holiday Season Shopping - MGR Blog

For marketers, “Christmas in July” means nothing more than a reminder to start planning about the Holiday Season right away if you want to stay ahead of the game.  What used to be Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas shopping, has now expanded into Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Green Monday, Boxing Day and every shopping day in between.

If you own an online eCommerce business, (or a physical retail store for that matter) you already know that this is the time of the year that can determine whether you end up your fiscal year successfully or not.

While these wider variety of retail days have effectively spread the holiday rush across a wider range, they’ve also made planning ahead for your holiday campaign a more complicated affair.

However, the more complex things get, the more opportunity you have to jump ahead of your competitors.  Below are twenty critical facts and figures that will help you focus your ecommerce efforts in those areas that you feel apply more for your particular store.

  1. Mobile takes the lead. In 2016, mobile accounted for 50.3% of all e-commerce traffic. Surpassing desktop for the first time ever.
  2. Be ready early. 25% of shoppers said they did some holiday shopping before Halloween.
  3. Plan ahead. 49% of e-commerce marketers will have created and launched a holiday marketing campaign before Halloween.
  4. Will you be ready? The National Retail Foundation reports that over 40% of people plan to begin their holiday shopping by October.
  5. 12% of people plan to begin their holiday shopping before September.
  6. Move swiftly. The average online shopper spends $380 on Black Friday.
  7. Use a variety of channels. Email marketing drove 27.3% of orders on Black Friday.
  8. One influencer sharing your content can lead to a 31.8% increase in social shares.
  9. Make it a frictionless shopping experience. In 2017, the Baymard Institute looked at 37 cart abandonment studies and found that the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69%.
  10. Free shipping is key. 61% of shoppers abandon their cart because of extra costs such as shipping, taxes, etc.
  11. Allow for “Guest Check Out.” 35% abandon their cart because the website asks them to create an account
  12. I.S.S. 27% abandon their cart because the checkout process was too long and complicated
  13. If Amazon uses it works. Adding user reviews to your website can improve conversions by 161%
  14. Free shipping was deemed the second most important factor for shoppers when purchasing online. See #10 above.
  15. 93% of shoppers take action for free shipping.
  16. According to a Nielsen study, over 90% of consumers trust recommendations from strangers and influencers over those from brands. 
  17. Encourage Word of Mouth promotion. 95% of shoppers say their most credible source of information is their friends.
  18. For every dollar brands spend on influencer marketing, they can see $6.50 in return.
  19. Across all industries, people who look at user-generated content convert at a 161% higher rate than people who are not looking at UGC.
  20. Keep it Real. If the feedback on a site is entirely positive, 95% of visitors believe the reviews are fake or company-screened.

In sum, planning early is critical. Today better than tomorrow and now better than later. The more effortless and frictionless you can make your shopping cart shopping experience and check-out process, the lower your shopping cart abandonment rate will be, and that in itself is a moving target too. You don’t have to match Amazon.com’s budget to create a simple and efficient shopping cart that makes buying your products a breeze for your customers.

If you have any questions or need help setting up your online shopping cart, be sure to contact our Team at MGR Consulting Group and we’ll help you get started with the right solution.

 

Until next time, this is Manuel Gil del Real (MGR)