How Your E-Commerce Business Should Incentivize Holiday Shopping

Craig Kahl, President and CEO, Adventure Web Interactive

Whether or not they celebrate the holiday season, shoppers expect sales, deals, and discounts from the popular retail establishments around the same time the holiday jingles come across TV and radio. If you want your e-commerce business to increase sales and revenue, you must provide appealing discounts and sales to compete with your peers. The trick is to take advantage of the holiday shopping without cutting your profits. Here’s how your e-commerce business can approach discounts and sales this holiday season without losing revenue.

Biggest End-of-Year Shopping Holidays

The first thing your online business should consider is that there are already official and unofficial shopping holidays you can leverage. Since many shoppers expect deals around the holidays, you will only have to invest a little in marketing to advertise to your customers that they can save big. Pay attention to the biggest shopping holiday:

While U.S. Thanksgiving is a family-oriented holiday, it has also become a significant international shopping holiday because of its proximity to Black Friday. Since retailers know how busy Black Friday can be, many have started offering massive holiday sales a day or even a few days earlier to catch people who plan ahead.
Black Friday is perhaps the most well-known shopping holiday. It usually conjures images of long lines of shoppers searching for the season’s lowest prices. With the introduction of e-commerce, shoppers can find the same deals online without battling thousands of other shoppers, traffic, and the cold.
Once e-commerce took off, online retailers developed their Black Friday holiday with the addition of Cyber Monday, the first Monday after American Thanksgiving. This is when online consumers expect the best online deals on goods they want to purchase for the holidays.

Best Practices for Giving Holiday Sales

Check out some of these best practices to consider when setting up holiday discounts and deals for your online shoppers:

Besides past data, view recent trends in consumer products so you can predict which of your goods may be in higher demand this holiday season – that way, you know where to focus your most significant deals.
Ensure your online business will still earn a worthwhile profit from each purchase, including a discounted rate. Also, determine how significant of a discount you may offer to attract buyers while still making enough that it’s worthwhile for your business.
A great deal is worthless if nobody knows about it. So, make sure you take the time and effort to promote your sales via email, social media, or SMS. You may also invest in digital advertising around your sales if you believe that will attract shoppers from your target audience.
It’s essential to inform shoppers early on whenever you are running your sales. This way, they are aware and can plan accordingly. Otherwise, they might buy from your competitors first.

Enjoy more sales during the holiday shopping era by planning your promotions, discounts, sales, and deals ahead of time. The good news is that collaborating with an accomplished e-commerce web design company can help make your customers’ holiday shopping slightly easier.

Craig Kahl is the President and CEO of Adventure Web Interactive. AWI has been recognized as Baltimore’s Top Web Design Firm by The Daily Record and named one of Silicon Review Magazine’s Top 50 Most Admired Companies in the country. Before founding Adventure Web Interactive in 1997, he was VP of Operations for Campus Concepts, Inc., and the youngest division head in history for Pitney Bowes at age 24. He has a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Loyola University. Craig is a member of the International CEO Club and Rolling Road Golf Club and loves spending time outdoors with his wife and son.