Summary:
? Are you ready for the 2020 Holiday Season?
Holiday Season for 2020 is not so far away and online stores need to buck up their inventory and supply channels to meet rising demands. Here are some smart tips to groom your store for this holiday season.
Introduction:
2020 has been a record-breaking year for online businesses. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, avoiding physical contact is a must for preventing the virus to spread more. This had an impact on many aspects of people’s lives and affected the buying attitude resulting in high growth in E-commerce sales.
The Holiday Season 2020 is fast arriving and is assured to be the big bash for E-commerce in its history. The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak will be seen in the shopping behavior of people, as more people prefer to buy online instead of going to the physical stores.
The major difference in this holiday season will be for the offline business. It will be the end of one of the holiday season’s biggest marketing occasions – Black Friday, thanksgiving where the vendors offer great discounts on their products. Many large business merchants have announced that their stores will be closed for the holiday season 2020.
E-commerce marketers usually determine their sales for the holiday season based on last year’s graph. But this time it will not be sufficient. The 2020 holiday season will be as crowded as ever and even busier in the matter of E-commerce demands.
Holiday shopping will be special this year so the following pointers will be of huge benefit to prepare your online store for the 2020 holiday season. Utilize this time to be proactive and take the necessary measures to prepare yourself and your company for the holiday season.
The Biggest Challenges for Online Merchants this Holiday Season
The effect of COVID-19 on retailers has been huge. The retailers saw a massive rise in E-commerce demand in 2020 but were not prepared to meet the demands and fulfillment.
Some physical businesses were forced to shut down, some have to launch an online store immediately for the first time, and the ones with already an E-commerce store have to handle their inventory and supply chains and Magento merchant need Magento 2 Extensions to enhance store performance. Store owners have very little time to update their inventory for this holiday season. Businesses with a single supplier face the problem of slow delivery times.
Regardless of these challenges, online merchants can turn this holiday season into a successful one with the right preparations and considerations. The online businesses need to have a strong E-commerce and fulfillment tactics.
7 Tips to Prepare Your E-commerce Business for the 2020 Holiday Season:
1. Widen your Supply Chains
Make sure you make use of various supply channels to get your products. Suppliers from different countries or regions will be helpful. If some suppliers terminate their business then you have the dependency of other suppliers to rely on. By diversifying your supply chains it can help you to deal with the order burden. Keep your plan b ready in case you face any supply chain issues. Dropshipping can be used to alleviate the load of shipment.
2. Plan and Stock Inventory beforehand
Predict the customer’s demands from the sales of the past holiday season and the first half of the year 2020. You can also research E-commerce growth depending on your product categories and people are looking for this holiday season. If you have awkward products that have chances of returning, consider pausing its selling for a particular period of time so that you do not have to face the extra headache of returning products at the peak time of your business.
If it is possible, buy products from the suppliers before the holiday season so you do not have to rush everywhere at that time. Shift your inventory near to the source of demand so that the supply becomes quick.
3. Provide both the options – Delivery and Pickup
Along with the shipping option, you can ask customers to pick up their orders from you quickly and conveniently. If you have a physical store, encourage customers to buy from the curbside making it safer for them. This will help to decrease the burden of shipping and fulfillment in the busy holiday season. Plan some incentives for the customers who use the pickup option so that they are encouraged to opt for it instead of delivery. Go for local delivery options from the local transportation platforms. So that the remote place delivery is not delayed.
4. Enough Staff and Fulfillment
Evaluate how social distancing and safety measures will affect your store performance, fulfillment operations, and staff. To maintain the local regulations of COVID-19, use precautionary measures for your staff. Hire new staff on a rotating basis to have enough hands-on work in order to fulfill the rising demands of this holiday season.
5. Make your E-commerce Website ready
Get your website ready with Ecommerce Development Company for the holiday season of the great year 2020. Make things easier for customers to find you and shop:
6. Ensure your Payment Methods are ready
If you are selling online for the first time, you need to ensure that the following points are fulfilled:
If you are already running an online business and willing to add new products in your catalog, make sure it is approved with the payment providers and added to the Terms and Conditions services.
7. Plan your Marketing Strategies
Schedule and execute your marketing plans to have a good flow of audience this holiday season. It will also result in ongoing sales instead of a whole lot of customers coming to you at the same time.
You can plan some rewards and incentives for customers who purchase before the time. This will make it easier for you to handle and fulfill orders and provide the services to customers timely. In the long run, it will help in retaining customers and build their satisfaction with your site.
Conclusion:
For some businesses, it was never as profitable as it is in this holiday season. Though, some retailers find it difficult to survive in this pandemic outbreak. In the darkness of COVID-19, the retailers with speed, value, and convenience to customers will be the champions of the 2020 holiday season. With proper planning and tactics, this sales season will prove to be successful for you as never before!
Author Bio
Gaurav Jain is a Co-Founder cum Computer Engineer with Extensive Marketing skills who handles all kind of customer Queries and his Happy & Helping nature makes customer’s day Delightful. When he isn’t working, you’ll find Gaurav Reading on Books or Traveling. Also, he is Speaker at Meet Magento India.