We’re coming up to a busy time for online shopping, and this year is shaping up to be bigger than ever, as customers start hunting for promotions early. A study by Yotpo in August 2020 revealed that nearly 40% of customers planned to start holiday shopping in September, October or November, and 20% claim they’ve already started. 

The overall eCommerce conversion rate is up 6% from last year, and daily online fashion and accessory sales are up 10% year on year for early August, according to another study. So clearly people are in the mood to shop! 

Capitalize on this moment by making sure your eCommerce store is up to standard. Here’s a checklist of tips for how fashion eCommerce websites can prepare for and make the most of the holidays.

Create a special holiday promotion page

51% of online shoppers consider “free products and buyer perks (secret sales, free shipping, promo codes)” as “the best ways for brands to show they care,” according to a new global study. Show your customers you care—and get that holiday buzz going—by creating a special web page for your holiday promotions. This could spotlight deals on specific products, or it could focus on exclusive access or the introduction (or reintroduction) of rare or high-demand products. Focus your promotions on where you’ve done well and where you want to improve. If you want to increase items per order, consider offering a bundle deal. Regardless, ensure you have a solid inventory of your most popular items. And consider organizing these products into new categories like “gifts for women” and “gifts for men.”

Promote your upcoming sale or special

When you’ve decided what your holiday promotion is going to be, ensure you share it widely through social media, emails and paid advertising. Generate a sense of urgency by communicating the limited nature of your promotion. This means communicating the end date of your sale, or the limited availability of particular styles that you won’t be repeating. Well-designed timers and countdown clocks on your holiday promotion page can be a great way to add a sense of urgency and increase conversions.

Collect email subscribers by offering early access to sales

Turn one-time shoppers into long-term customers, drum up excitement and grow your mailing list all at the same time. Nurture leads with content that builds excitement and tells your brand story. Your emails could count down days to your sale, hype up particular products or even drop hints about what special offers will be available. Promote this special newsletter-only content on your social media by letting your followers know that by signing up they will get access to exclusive information and offers.

Offer gifts with gamification

Stand out from the crowd by offering a range of different gifts, for example a different free item with a certain dollar-amount purchase every day or hour. A timer on your website could indicate to shoppers how long they have left to make the purchase in order to get that gift. You could also offer certain gifts only with certain items that you’re trying to push, or present an array of gifts that the shopper simply chooses from at checkout.

Take care of any overlooked areas of your website

Optimize and streamline your cart and ensure everything is in working order. Ensure that your website can handle increased traffic, that your navigation is in shape and that all of your pages are optimized for mobile. Your search bar should always be highly visible and well configured, but in the high-traffic holiday season it’s more important than ever. Make the most of past and present popular keywords to drive shoppers to important products. And, of course, be ready to offer and promote gift cards and gift wrapping on your holiday promotion page, on product pages and at checkout.

Get your abandoned cart strategy ready now

Not all shoppers will commit to buying straight away—some may browse your products for a while and then leave, others may get as far as adding products to their cart and then exit your website. That’s why you should have a series of both browse abandonment emails and cart abandonment emails ready to go, so that you can win these people back. A series of well-timed emails with short but compelling copy in the body and subject line will help you to convert any browsers into buyers. This is another opportunity to create urgency by reminding of the limited nature of your promotion.

Have a solid post-purchase communication plan

Get ready to welcome your new customers with great emails after they’ve made their first purchase. Introduce a loyalty program that rewards customers any time they make an additional purchase, and share your compelling brand story and content to keep them engaged and invested in your brand. Also make sure you follow up with first-time purchasers to ask about their experiences. Encourage them to review the products they bought on your website, and ask them to follow your social media channels.

Continue to nurture your community

Engagement is more important than ever, so don’t neglect your core community. Keep engaging with your audience as you normally would, while also driving home your holiday campaign. This will be an unusual holiday season with emotions running high as people reflect on the challenges of the year, and their purchases will likely reflect that. Consumer behavior might be unpredictable these holidays, but remain consistent with your brand and provide messages that resonate, reflect and inspire.

Spruce up your homepage

A special holiday-related landing page is important in this very competitive time for eCommerce, but not all of your shoppers will see it. Many people still go straight to the homepages of stores they’re interested in shopping at, so it’s important that this part of your website is not overlooked in your holiday overhaul. Ensure your homepage is up to date and includes all of your holiday specials and announcements. For more advice, check out our recent blog about how to optimize your homepage design.

Conclusion

Getting your eCommerce store holiday-ready requires a juggling act of creating and maintaining content for your website, emails and social media, and this needs to excite and engage customers both old and new. InteractOne is well versed in managing these needs and can help you with every step of the process. Reach out to our team to put your holiday goals in motion today.

Pop-ups get a bad rap, but that’s when they’re overwhelming, unhelpful and irrelevant. Those kinds of pop-ups can cost you customers, as they get frustrated by the interruptions and invasive shopping experience and swiftly leave your web store. What’s more, Google can also punish your site if it’s deemed to provide a poor user experience by displaying pop-ups that cover up crucial information, or arrive too quickly. 

However, when they’re used correctly, pop-ups can be very beneficial, helping to grow your audience, drive sales, improve your customer experience and guide the customer journey. According to BigCommerce, the 10% highest-performing pop-ups have a conversion rate of 9.28% on average. That proves there’s a lot of value to be found in the humble pop-up. 

If your fashion web store isn’t using any pop-ups, now is the time to get started. Here are four kinds of pop-ups, with examples of how you can utilize them on your apparel eCommerce website.

Greet your customers & grow your email list

A pop-up upon first visit to your homepage is a great way to greet your new visitors and make them feel welcome. Think of it like how you greet customers in your physical retail store: providing a warm welcome into your space. When this kind of pop-up is combined with a newsletter sign-up CTA and a discount, it can be an excellent method for growing your email list (which might otherwise languish in the footer of your homepage).

Pop-ups that offer a tangible financial incentive perform well, as they often prove irresistible to shoppers. Often they read something like this: “Welcome! Subscribe to our email newsletter and receive 10% off,” or “Stay in the know and receive 15% off your first order.” Even if you don’t offer a specific discount, it can be beneficial to mention that an offer will be available in the future for those who enter their email address. Aerie opts for this approach, with the following message: “SIGN UP FOR EMAIL! Get an exclusive offer when you sign up, plus insider access to even more offers, new arrivals, style tips and more.”

Discounts for first-time buyers have become de rigueur in fashion eCommerce—to the point where brands now stand out if they don’t serve pop-ups featuring some form of this offer, according to the website Glossy, so it’s wise to try it as part of your marketing. And if you’re concerned about coming off as aggressive or potentially overwhelming your prospective customer, you could try an extended timed pop-up that appears only after the visitor has been scrolling or had the website open for a number of minutes.

Drive sales

While the above “welcome” style of pop-up certainly helps to drive sales, there are more direct approaches that your apparel eCommerce brand can take, if that is your top priority. One way that pop-ups can drive conversions is by announcing a sale starting at a certain time, using an animated ticking clock or a countdown to build excitement and provide a compelling visual representation. Uniqlo has an interactive pop-up that presents the opportunity to obtain one of three types of discounts, with the CTA inviting visitors to “Spin to reveal your offer.”

Another tactic is to share a special discount code that’s available for a limited time only or that’s available only on certain popular products. For example: “Save up to 50%, today only,” with a CTA that takes them to a unique sales page.

To achieve even more success with these pop-ups, use personalization to speak to the visitor in a compelling way. Acknowledge and welcome first-time visitors and provide a concise introduction to your brand; and welcome back returning customers and encourage them to check out your newest offerings that have been added since their last visit. Regardless of whether you want to steer them toward hero pieces or new collections, ensure you have a clear CTA that compels them to click. And when you do so, use micro copy below the CTA to tell users what will happen when they click the button. For example: “Clicking ‘yes’ will open another page.”

Improve your customer experience

Sometimes your sales are ticking along nicely and you want to ensure it stays that way. Nurturing your community of customers can take many forms, from customer service to social media and email marketing, but it can also take place in pop-ups.

On your website, install pop-ups that are helpful, educational and supportive. One tactic for achieving this objective is to provide timely and relevant information, or offer personalized help for shoppers who may have questions but not a burning desire to initiate contact with customer service. A simple, friendly and polite pop-up that reminds customers of your store’s extensive size chart, FAQ and/or virtual assistance can go a long way in increasing their trust in you and your products, and build credibility. Meaning, they’ll recommend you to their friends.

The copy should be simple, cheerful and helpful, for example: “Need help with sizes or styles? Chat with a stylist!” or, “Wondering about how to style this look? Talk to a stylist!” or even more simply: “Talk to a stylist.” This could be accompanied by a CTA button that launches a chatbox with one of your customer service and styling associates, or directs visitors to another page in order to connect.

This kind of pop-up works best when it’s delivered as a delayed pop-up, after the visitor has been on a product page for a while. Perhaps they have selected a size and color option of the product, but not added the item to their cart yet. In this case your pop-up would also work toward combating exit intent and cart abandonment.

Guide the customer journey

This form of pop-up is perhaps the most innocuous of all, but no less important. Simple pop-ups that occur when a visitor adds an item to their cart may seem standard and uncontroversial, but they are still worthy of calling out for the crucial UX function they perform. “Added to cart,” “Edit cart,” or “Checkout now” pop-ups all serve to show your visitor that their action was completed and that they are progressing through their shopping journey. Like the “sign up and get a discount” pop-ups, they are very commonplace, yet if your store goes without them it runs the risk of standing out for the wrong reason.

Make your customer’s journey clear and straightforward. Show them their cart’s status, including the number of items and total dollar amount, to allow them to continue shopping without having to leave the page to check their cart’s status. You could add “Continue browsing” to this pop-up message for that purpose. And most importantly, for these and any other kind of pop-ups you install, make sure they work on mobile, as this is how most of your customers are visiting you.

Conclusion

It should be noted that all of these points are subjective, and different websites have different needs and styles. For best results, you should always A/B test to find out what works best for your brand. But generally speaking, pop-ups have become everyday tricks for the vast majority of savvy eCommerce websites, so your web store could likely benefit from utilizing at least one of the above kinds of pop-ups.

InteractOne works with a number of fashion and apparel eCommerce brands to build pop-ups into their websites, with amazing results. If you’d like assistance  with building pop-ups into your website, set up a time to talk with us about how we can help you.