‘Tis The Season - Turbocharging Sales for the Next 100 Hours
Each year businesses of all sizes spend much of their summer and fall preparing for that one magical weekend that may make or break their financial performance for that year. That time is now finally upon us.
The Black-Friday-to-Cyber-Monday-100-hour-shopping-bonanza has become the undeniable pinnacle of the holiday shopping season, and the data proves it. Nearly 2-of-5[1] U.S. adults start their holiday shopping online and in November, more than ever before, according to the Consumer Technology Association.
Yet as shopping gets earlier and more digital, these trends must be understood and acted on by businesses that want to keep up. In a recent study, PayPal partnered with Koski Research to ask 1,000 people how, when and where they plan on making their holiday purchases.
In light of these findings, here are three things businesses can do to maximize their annual sales during this peak holiday shopping window.
- Ensure your online store is in ship-shape: As we all know, traditional brick-and-mortar stores are not driving the greatest growth in shopping. Forecasts of non-store-based (direct to consumer, kiosks, and online) sales show growth of 7-10 percent to as much as $117 billion,[2] with online and mobile sales likely driving 10-20% growth rates, much faster than the 3-5% growth expected in physical stores. But businesses that want to capture their fair share of this digital growth need to get ahead of the game. For example, make it easy for consumers to digitally “save your product” in their holiday shopping ideas (for example, via Pinterest). You will also want to distribute your most compelling offers through email and digital advertising ASAP, so consumers can discover these offers in time for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. But don’t forget about the fundamentals of upgrading your online store (whether you have time this year or need to invest for next year). You must maintain clean navigation, clear images and descriptions of products, and streamlined payment options like digital wallets. You may still have time to make last-minute changes this year, but also start to identify the opportunities to invest and improve for next year.
- Make the mobile customer experience one they won’t forget: Deloitte expects mobile commerce sales to grow 42 percent during the 2016 holiday shopping season alone. With this rapid pace of change in mobile shopping, many businesses are falling behind. But you can truly differentiate from your competition, attracting and converting customers with a great mobile shopping experience. As such, you will want to invest to make sure your online store is ready for consumers with a mobile-optimized experience. Also remember that especially for consumers shopping-on-moble, digital wallets can be especially powerful drivers of conversion. One simple way to achieve this is with PayPal One Touch™, which lets customers pay with their PayPal account from your site without requiring them to enter credit cards or other additional information from their mobile phone.
- Offer easy-to-access credit: Many consumers seek a payment solution that helps them spread payments out over time. Some stores offer payment options like layaway, where you pay a small deposit to secure an item for later purchase. Many online storefronts make PayPal Credit available to shoppers, by just by adding PayPal into their checkout. By choosing PayPal Credit, consumers can apply for credit during checkout, and where available, choose to use PayPal Credit’s Easy Payments option to spread the price of their purchase payments over time. Helping consumers discover these options is a proven method to help increase sales and drive repeat visits.
For more holiday tips and ideas, visit the PayPal
holiday hub.
Merry selling season to all!
Dan Leberman, VP and GM, NA Small Business, PayPal