I know that the "new normal" is tired and almost meaningless anymore, but there is a huge piece of the new normal that is about to hit the retail world right in the face! That is that Black Friday is dead and Cyber Monday is the new king!
All hail the new king right? All hail if you are a seasoned online retailer that is. Do you have a plan to put your store online? How much are you putting up there? Can you do it in time for Cyber Monday? Do you know how to retarget abandoned carts? Do you have a customer loyalty program set up?
Seems like a lot of questions doesn't it? Don't let them scare you away or scare you into paralysis. The good news is that all of these questions have been answered. You just need to know who to ask! 🔴🦁
So for the first step… let's decide on what gets put online? Know that you can organize your items into different collections so that you can arrange your store in a manner that is similar to how you would have put them in your store. You will need a text-based description of each item and high-quality pictures of each item. Your description should include the dimensions and finishes of the item, colors, sizes, age, etc. Whatever the website guest would need in order to make a comfortable and informed decision to buy. Another thing to consider is, would there be any items that you would consider to be related to this item? If so you can cross-sell items in your store.
You will want to consider the checkout process and if we can get your guests to sign in to your site vs checking out as a guest so that you can get their info for future promotions and sales. The idea here, much like your real store, you want to create brand loyalty. You are more likely to get returns from consumers that are comfortable with you and your products. Basically we can run this just like your actual store using a lot of the same principles. So that seems a little better, right?
So… marketing! Similar again to what you practiced before just colored a little different. You create landing pages with the different collections and post them in your social channels and even in some print if you can keep the URLs simple. You could also consider a QR code too as your guests become more comfortable with using their phones as menus. Another main avenue here is leveraging any existing email list that you may already have. You can create campaigns that target your guests in specific ways to guide them right to parts of your store that pertain to them.
The final few items to consider are retargeting and loyalty programs. We can set up automated emails that reach back out to guests that abandon their carts mid-purchase. There are some statistics out there that state that over 50% of users abandon their carts. Now that's a lot of sales out there left at the table. One way to overcome this would be if you have any kind of loyalty program giving your guests discounts and other benefits to getting them to complete the checkout.
So there you have it...the basic 30,000-foot view of moving to an e-commerce solution to make sure that you are ready for Cyber Monday in the wake of a dead Black Friday. Not so bad right? You need a trusted partner to help you through this, but it's completely manageable if you get moving now.
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