Increase Cyber Monday Shopping Sales

Cyber Monday Shopping Sales 🛒

In 2021, Cyber Monday promises to be a different kind of shopping season due to the widespread closure of physical retail stores across the high street.

As brick and mortar stores continue to close, consumers are naturally looking towards the world wide web to fulfil their purchasing demands and businesses are moving towards a virtual form of operation to keep up with these requirements.

With that being taken into consideration, it’s no surprise that much of Black Friday shopping is expected to take place online over the Thanksgiving weekend and of course Cyber Monday will inevitably lead to further online sales.

As we mentioned in our previous article ‘10 Creative Black Friday Campaigns For 2021’ this holiday season is expected to be unlike any other, but for the merchants who are planning on taking part in the Cyber Monday shopping event, one thing still holds true - experience will make your store stronger when it comes to the new ‘normal’ of navigating through Cyber day events.

If there’s one group of people who are highly experienced in their understanding of the realms of ecommerce, Shopify Partners are the ones who you should look to for guidance and we here at Karmoon are proud partners of the platform.

Our team has formulated based on individuals who are highly skilled professionals with adept expertise for ecommerce with Shopify, which is why we’re excited to be able to share our insights and advice on how to best prepare for Cyber Monday shopping for 2021:

N0.1: Delight Customers

As we all know, things across the globe are feeling very strange at the moment, like everything is always just one step out of place. With the frustration of the pandemic and that of what lies in its wake, it’s the job of a merchant to ease consumers in every way possible when shopping for goods online.

Trust us when we say that going above and beyond will delight your customers to the point where your brand could just become the shining beacon that everyone is looking for.

So, if you want to stand out from the growing crowd of competing merchants this holiday season, we’d recommend taking the time to slow down and connect with your customers on what feels like a one-to-one basis.

Consumers are looking for connection and inspiration when shopping online so, to be able to build that sense of rapport with your customers. Online retailers shouldn’t be afraid of showing their customers that they’re buying from a real person or group of people as opposed to a faceless corporate entity. Realistically, would you be able to make a connection?

We guess that the answer is no, so it’s time to move away from hiding behind brand logos and guidelines and start showing who you and your team are behind the screen.

One way to do this is by leveraging the different surfaces customers interact with to share messages of gratitude. We believe that incorporating a note of thanks to your customers with Shopify order confirmation emails is a great way to thank your customers for continuing to consider your store when they want a little indulgence.

Or you could even get a little more creative with new ways to reach and delight your customers by incorporating meaningful copy into the different areas of your virtual storefront?

While you probably won’t need to remind anyone of recent events, it’s unlikely that this would have been forgotten so, taking the time to consider the messages and copy that you’re sharing with buyers can create a sense of camaraderie and a genuine connection which will go a long way during peak shopping events like Cyber day.

Additionally, thanking customers individually for shopping with your brand shows true gratitude. Many ecommerce stores send out emails as part of their marketing efforts to retain and remind customers of their business, but there are several other ways to show your thanks to existing customers.

For instance, sending out a gift, sample or handwritten thank-you note within each order is a nice way to show your appreciation. Why not try offering post-purchase discounts too? These are all great methods to execute during the Cyber Monday shopping event.

How you decide to show your thanks will depend on your business type and strategy, but the benefits of doing so will extend well beyond the holidays, so be sure to choose your weapon wisely to reap the most success from Cyber day and beyond.

N0.2: Swift Loading Speed ⌛

A swift loading speed is vital when it comes to increasing conversion rates. The faster your store loads, the more sales you’re likely to make. Ensuring that everything is running quickly and smoothly is paramount and you can take this as a fact from our group of Shopify developers.

Let us put it this way, given the number of consumers who are shopping online, it’s only natural that these users and then some will turn to the internet on Cyber day and since the event is focused solely online, we’d recommend sharpening your efforts on-site optimisation.

To start, evaluate what is essential and how you can improve performance on key pages that users visit most frequently. Then, move on to your site’s visuals by optimising your store’s images.

One top tip that we can pass from our ranks to yours is to ensure that images across your store are what we call ‘lazy loaded’ so that they only load when a user sees them. This may not seem like a big deal, but images that load only when seen will decrease the initial page loading speed and will make your site feel more user-friendly and efficient, plus it gives a subtle nod to SEO too.

Additionally, images should load at the right size for each device. In short, optimising your store’s images means reducing their file size without sacrificing image quality, so that visual elements on the web page will load faster and look great, no matter which device your customers are browsing with.

Ultimately, one of the most important aspects of site optimisation is loading speed so, be sure to pay attention to the aspects listed above alongside the unnecessary apps and scripts that are running on your store.

Elements such as this can slow down a site’s loading speed, which is not the right approach to keep customers happy during busy sales events like Cyber day.

To avoid consumer frustration, why not collaborate with a developer to remove unessential apps before the arrival of Black Friday or the Cyber Monday shopping event?

N0.3: Straightforward Product Search

The easier it is for your customers to find exactly what they’re looking for, the better. In 2021, consumers have many brand and product options when browsing for goods and services online so, don’t make things more difficult for the customer to be able to locate and choose your store through the wave of other options.

Online users are conditioned by marketplaces to expect a personalised experience and providing consumers with such an experience will require an understanding of what it is that they need and want from a store like yours at every single stage of the buyer journey.

If you’re not sure where to start, try focusing on these specific areas:

Top-of-The-Funnel Product Visibility: Make sure that your store’s full product catalogue can be found in Google Shopping and that your email cadence with customers includes inspirational shopping messages with personalised product recommendations.

Product Discoverability: Use personalisation to put the right products in front of the right customers so that they move from browser to buyer in fewer clicks. This can be achieved with personalisation apps that are downloadable from the Shopify App Store.

It is important to remove any cause of friction between your customer and the products that they're after on any day, but on days like Cyber day, clearing the way is key.

A retail website should be; clear, fast loading and easy to navigate during the purchase experience. If your ecommerce store doesn't currently tick all of these boxes, it's time to optimise your site’s functionalities and design.

By working on one aspect, you'll assist in the optimisation of the others so, don't be afraid to reduce the clutter. At the end of the day, the cleaner the experience, the higher your chances will be of making some sales.

N0.4: Consider the Timeline 📅

It’s important to remember your timelines and get started early. See, customers will start their shopping early by doing research and buying experiences will originate on the likes of search engines such as Google, or via email marketing messages.

So, the aim here for many merchants is to be highly visible in these areas. Given financial realities, customers are likely to carry out more research upfront to optimise Cyber day deals and with investigations starting early, customers will need to be able to find your store easily.

We’ve touched on optimising your Shopify store for Google search, but don’t forget about the importance of getting your email marketing strategy ready in the lead up to Cyber day.

When it comes to the preparation of Cyber Monday shopping, managing timelines is key, specifically from a technological perspective. If you've been working on a new and more complex feature or a website upgrade, we’d recommend holding off on releasing this until after Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed.

Why? Well, from a developer’s perspective, we think it would be wise to limit the number of things that could go wrong when it comes to a site’s code, especially when dealing with high traffic that’s expected during busy online shopping events.

In Layman’s terms, now wouldn’t be the right time to introduce big changes to your store, instead, spend this time running tests on your site, to be sure that your customers won’t run into any trouble when shopping.

This can be achieved by placing a test order, which will help merchants to ensure that their store’s; checkout, order processing, inventory, shipping, email notifications and taxes are working accurately.

N0.5: Be Prepared

As we’re sure you’ve all realised, commerce is an ever-changing game and this year, it’s changing faster than ever since the initial events of the pandemic.

We’re confident that our top tips will help your business to prepare for one of the biggest shopping events of the year. All you’ll have to do is take the time to delight your customers, speed up your store, optimise their shopping experience and get started with the process.

So, is your store ready for the rush of Cyber Monday shopping sales? Reach out and let us know if you’ve found these tips useful. If you’re actively looking to work with a Shopify agency designer or developer to assist you with your business, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch to get started!