The holiday season has officially kicked off and the forecast is brighter than ever with the latest
report from NFR predicting that holiday sales are expected to increase by 3.6% to $655.8 billion— well above the 10-year average of 2.5%.
In order for business owners to make the most out of this opportunity and help increase sales this holiday season, it’s important to first take a step back and assess all of the possible key dates that are included in the holiday period in the final three months of the calendar year:
- October—Columbus Day, Halloween
- November—Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, China Singles Day
- December—Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa
Pick the top holidays that matter most to your business and your customer base, and that’s where you should spend your time and energy.
Once you’ve done that, PayPal has put together a list of the top five essential tips for merchants to focus on as they make final preparations for the holidays, and to make sure they’re prepared heading into the busiest time of shopping season come November.
Whether you’re an online seller, brick-and-mortar retailer, a manufacturer, a distributor or a service provider, we all have the same objective: growing our businesses. Follow these essential steps to best position yourself and your business for a successful few months (and beyond):
Step 1: Be Mobile Friendly.
One of the most important features of your mobile-friendly site is an easy-to-use checkout process. Ensure the “Add to Cart” and “Checkout” buttons, as well as your shopping cart icon, are easy to find and read.
Step 2: Keep Payments Simple.
Ease of purchase is key; if they can’t buy it with a few clicks, customers will be going somewhere else and abandoning their carts. In addition, giving customers a choice to pay however they’d like is critical, whether this be by credit card, debit card,
PayPal One TouchTM, etc. The One Touch feature allows PayPal customers to activate One Touch and then gives them the ability to sign into their PayPal account easily from a merchant site and eliminates the need to enter credit cards or other additional information like the shipping address on their mobile phone for each purchase.
Step 3: Offer a Unique Sale or Discount.
Promotions are priceless…with the right timing. Holiday promotions are a great way to engage with customers, and keep customers coming back for more. Making last-minute shipping a bit more affordable through PayPal’s
Return Shipping On Us, which can refund return shipping costs to consumers for eligible purchases*, or upgraded shipping to driving incremental sales – can help you win customers’ business. Additionally, reduced shipping costs on initial purchases helps attract buyers.
*See Details and Limitations
Step 4: Protect Customer Data.
Offer your customers protection. When making purchases online and on mobile devices this holiday season, shoppers expect that their data will remain secure.
PayPal is a trusted brand in payments and does not share full financial information during a purchase.
Step 5: Don’t Forget to Check your Tech.
Having the right technology in place is probably the most important thing you can do to prepare for any holiday. An email marketing system is one example that can easily help boost consumer awareness of holiday promotions, while product retargeting ads help capture customers who may abandon their shopping cart. SEO and marketing also help boost awareness and sales. And above all else, having one platform to process payments keeps things simple for merchants.
PayPal, the global payments platform, has 188 million active customer accounts and is working with its more than 14.5 million merchants worldwide to help them prepare for the holiday season and get ready to service the masses. Learn more tips for how you can grow your business this holiday season on our merchant holiday resource site:
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-holiday