The run-up to the festive season brings challenges and opportunities for direct to consumer (D2C) businesses, and Christmas can be pivotal in determining how successful the business year has been.
Businesses can move confidently into this period and the New Year by preparing well for winter commerce and laying solid foundations.
From working with a wide range of D2C companies, we've seen a wide array of challenges and intelligent ways of overcoming them.
Here are five key things that can enable your business to thrive this winter.
1. Don't underestimate sales before and after Christmas
Christmas doesn't stand alone in driving revenue. Halloween kicks off high-season for online shops, and with events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, consumer activity switches up before Christmas shopping begins.
2. Optimise user experience
Your website must look good on mobile and web, load fast, and provide a simple, intuitive journey for customers to find and purchase products in a few clicks. Positive experiences bring people back, so focus on ease of use.
3. Maximise marketing opportunities
Use all available channels and keep messaging straightforward with a direct call to action driving customers to purchase.
Product bundles can be attractive options, removing some of the stress from buying gifts. Bundles increase shoppers' basket size and sales volume, in turn increasing turnover.
Perceived time pressure encourages buyers to order quickly. Using countdown timers showing the last order date for Christmas delivery can be a helpful nudge, and consider making the current stock level visible on your website. Use early discounts for long-lead products; promote fast-moving and quickly deliverable products later.
4. Prepare fulfilment
Plan and account for all eventualities. The better prepared a business is, the smoother it'll operate in periods of raised demand.
Busier sales periods have notable impacts across businesses which can stretch personnel and lead to errors. Utilise data intelligently, forecasting and building resilience into operational aspects of the company. Manage stock levels closely and advise third party logistics providers of expected upturns.
Don’t overlook the post-Christmas period; effectively manage product support inquiries, returns, and exchanges to maintain a positive relationship with customers and brand awareness.
5. Creatively and continuously improve
When things don't go as planned, learn from the lesson! Regularly revisit your customer experience, both the happy paths and those that went wrong, examine each analysing potential areas for improvement. Be flexible and seek to find solutions that work for your customers and your business.
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