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The holiday season is still one of the most anticipated seasons for any brand. Even with the pandemic changing the way customers do their shopping, the game has been changed on how to capture their interest best with these new challenges. Now, small business websites have been created especially this time because they can build easy websites. We can take a look at the learnings from the past year on how to prepare for the most exciting time of the year for brands and retailers.
Digital taking the place of stores
When before, in-person shopping in stores used to be an immersive experience. Digital has slowly taken its place. There have been stores that tried hybrid solutions such as buy online and pick up in store (BOPUS) and these have changed the game when it comes to customer expectations and convenience.
Digital shopping has evolved and has begun to resemble the store experience even from home — from creating how-to videos, to virtual reality, personalized recommendations, and live chats with sales representatives. What characterizes online shopping now is the seamless, convenient, and omnichannel presence that elevates the digital shopping experience like no other.
Try out these different additions that you can add in your e-commerce website to further enhance the experience for your customers, now that digital is taking the place of store purchasing.
Social media in e-commerce
With so many choices in the market, it can be difficult to make a decision on what to buy. Enter the discoverability that social media can bring — personalized inspiration ideas and curated recommendations based on the past likes, interests, and activity of the users.
Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram have adapted to now show product listings to help aid customers in discovering products that they can purchase without leaving their social media apps. Data has shown that more and more people are purchasing via these social media apps, with 11% of global retail revenue in E-Commerce in 2020 coming from social apps.
Leverage your social media not just for posts, but as an extension of your online shopping. List some of your best selling items to help users discover your brand more.
Extended holiday season for E-commerce
While Christmas doesn’t fully kick off until a few months, it is best to start holiday related efforts as early as October. Based on 2020 data, shoppers have also started their holiday shopping earlier than they did before the pandemic hit.
It is not surprising to see how digital acceleration shaped the holiday shopping season into an extended one. With the demand set to go up, expect earlier activity from your customers sooner. It’s time to put your best foot forward and start planning today for your holiday campaigns from your website to your social media accounts.
How holiday-ready is your business?
Now that you know what to do this coming holiday season, how ready is your business? With the help of easy website builder, e-commerce and digital marketing, it’s not enough to just meet the expectations of your customers, but to be one step forward and anticipate what they would want. Let your products and services be their next discovery online.
When it comes to all things digital marketing, e-commerce, website design and website development, contact our digital marketing experts at iRepublic to help grow your business during the holiday season. iRepublic is an affordable website builder in the Philippines that can help you with creating your dream website. See how we can work together to build you an affordable website design!