6 tips to prepare your website for the Christmas shopping season
There are only a few weeks left until Christmas and many consumers have already started shopping for gifts from their favourite retailers. With the restrictions that COVID-19 has created, the number of people going online to make their purchases is only expected to increase.
So how can retailers ensure they’re fully prepared for the busy festive shopping season and make their online experience as inspiring, convenient, and seamless as possible? We asked Martin Newman, consumer insights expert to give us his expert advice.
1. Inspire customers with gifting categories
“Retailers need to understand consumer buying behaviour this time of year, and the better they can make the gifting proposition the better they can sell,” says Martin. “Bear in mind that every product you sell may be thought of as a gift and that people are looking for inspiration”.
Creating categories of gifting options is one way that retailers can make online Christmas shopping an enjoyable and simple process. Clearpay retailers such as Marks and Spencer, for example, have detailed gifting categories by price, recipient and occasion which make finding a gift quick and easy.
2. Make your customer service as personal as possible
“Customer service is hugely important,” says Martin. “A big mistake that online businesses make is that they think they can use tech instead of people and many brands are turning off the ability to call contact centres as they face rising demand”.
Martin explains that in the UK, 95% of brands treat customer service as a cost rather than a benefit, over-focusing their efforts on acquisition and short-term profits. How can you avoid this? Try to recreate the personal in-store experience with customer service over the phone, given by real people that know your brand well. This will help you maintain good communication while keeping on top of teething problems in the supply chain.
“Gift buying is more convenient for online shoppers as people are able to select everything in one place.”
3. Focus on convenience
“Gift buying is more convenient for online shoppers as people are able to select everything in one place,” explains Martin. “People choose one or two online brands where they can do all their gifting, and often want to have their items wrapped and sent directly to the recipient”.
Delivery is obviously integral to this so retailers need to make sure they are always meeting expectations and not making false promises. “Customers want to know that their gifts are guaranteed to arrive before Christmas,” Martin continues, so delivery windows and expectations need to be made clear through your on-site messaging and product information.
4. Make payment easy and flexible
“Payment solutions like Clearpay make the whole shopping experience so convenient, which is important when we live such hectic lives. We are all task rich, time poor,” says Martin. Clearpay allows customers to have greater control and flexibility over how they pay for their shopping with interest-free payment schedules, estimated spending limits, and the option to change payment times or pay off a balance in full.
5. Ensure returns are convenient
Martin advises ensuring your returns process is just as seamless as the purchasing experience. “Think about the entire issue with the proposition of returns,” he says. “Retailers have to think through the whole proposition and how easy it is to return, how long it takes, etc. Additionally, if consumers are buying a gift and sending it straight to the recipient, they want to know the gift receipt doesn’t have prices”. Not getting these practical details right, he says, are where a lot of online shopping experiences fall.
6. Be prepared for early-bird shoppers
It’s been a tough few months for everyone across the U.K. and with so much pandemic-related uncertainty (such as whether families will even be able to celebrate Christmas together this year or how long it will take for items to be delivered) many shoppers will want to get organised early.
“My instinct is that people will start shopping earlier this year due to concerns around the supply chain,” says Martin. “There is also the feel-good, pick-me-up aspect of shopping that will be especially needed this year,” says Martin. “I predict that buying for others, and self-gifting especially, will rise”.
Find out how to make your online shopping experience convenient this Christmas by booking a meeting with one of our Retailer Team Members today at [email protected]
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