Searching for ways to recover from the summer sales slump?
Every merchant is doing it.
When shoppers start soaking up the sun instead of reaching for their keyboards, it shows up on your bottom line. SumAll, a web analytics firm, did a survey on summer season shopping habits and found that gross online sales decline by 30% from December high, and AOV (Average order value) falls nearly 5% in August, below the annual average.
That said, consumers are still eager to buy, and ready to give you their money. It’s up to you to devise a strategy to increase your profits, summer or any other season. Here are some tactics to help you get your customers out of the sun and onto your site:
1. Offer a Variety of Payment Options
Merchants all over the world are seeing the benefits of integrating several payment options. Also, the concept of alternative payments is on the rise. This is especially important if you’re selling seasonal products to markets outside the US, such as in Asia Pacific and Europe. It’s not surprising that the alternative payments market is expected to be worth $ 83 billion by this year.
Because traditional payments and banks take some time to get established in some markets, offering alternative payments is the key to increasing sales and profits. According to Checkout.com, you can integrate an alternative payment platform’s APIs with your existing apps to offer alternative payments in new markets, including Latin America, China, Singapore and many more. Look for a solution that has industry leading approval ratios from credit card brands so that you can support transactions in multiple currencies.
2. Add Some Fun to Offers
Instead of trying to make sales in general, try something different with upselling, cross-selling or selling according to the summer theme. You can also create a contest, giving winners an opportunity to gain more discounts during the summer months. The contest can go on during the first few summer months and a grand event can be held when the season comes to a close to announce the winner.
Use social media for such contests. Instagram, for instance, is a hot channel to use during the summer season, when everyone is out and about taking snaps and posting beach selfies, sunset canvas, etc. You can create a hashtag for your E-commerce store and ask customers to include it with their submissions for the contest, which could be anything from a best photo contest to a scavenger hunt. There’s also the option to use Instagram ads to promote your contest, but a cheaper option is to partner with non-competing social media accounts and engage in cross-promotion.
3. Give a Try To Exit Lightbox
Integrating an exit lightbox with a last offer before a customer leaves can increase your conversions and boost profits. This is the practice of providing an opportunity for later savings, showing a pop up just before visitors bounce. This is a great way to convince the customer to enter their email address so they can receive a newsletter.
If they were interested in the pop up and submitted their contact information, you can offer discounts to bring them back and close the conversion. You can put exit lightboxes and A/B test to see the impact on conversions, because what works for some doesn’t work for others.
With these tips, you’ll be able to overcome the summer slum and go into the next season with a hefty profit.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community(83)
