The biggest days for the eCommerce companies, that is, Black Friday and Cybe Monday is over. The sales season will extend till the commencement of New year. However, this will be followed with the post-sales slumps. The steep decline in the performance of the sites is unavoidable, but there are ways to deal with the same. Although there are some savvy shoppers who would even shop in January, most of the sites are expected to loose the chunk of their traffic in the months to follow after Christmas and New Year. The busy season is still on and the entire focus is on making the full of it, but a good marketer should always be prepared for the consequences. The monitory fallout is tough to get to rid. However, with a bit of preparation, you will be able to handle it well.
Whether you are an e-marketer or an owner of the online shopping site, staying in sync with the repercussion is important. Here are some of the tried and tested method that can help you deal with the post-holiday glitches efficiently. Take a look.
Handle return/refund request efficiently
Once the holiday sparkle is over, it will be time for you to see the darker side of the season. January is called bad times for the sales. This is the time when you need to handle the post-holiday slumps. While the sale statistics must have been satisfying, it will surely turn out to be a tough time for the support team. The negative reviews and the tickets generated must be intimidating, but it can be even viewed as an opportunity. Not more than two out of ten customers would take an extra effort to leave their positive review. However, the customers who have issues with the product or services would definitely turn up to your store again. Resolve their problems and use their return for your benefit. Provide them the assistance that they are looking for. Offer them proper return/refund as required. In addition, you can re-market your products to them. Provide additional benefits as an apology for the inconvenience. This might get you some conversions which is otherwise difficult after the sale season.
Do not stop the deal instantly
The sales season surely creates a sense of urgency in the minds of the customers. However, most of the eCommerce sites extend their deals even after the holidays. This trend has been there for years and a lot of customers tend to wait for the sales season to get over. Invite them to your site by offering post-holiday deals. The website traffic and sales is bound to see a downfall immediately after this season. Hence, not offering any deal may kill the chances of conversions even more. Extend your offers and discounts and motivate the customers to return back to the store. You can even reward the loyal customers and provide them with the compelling reasons to browse your store yet again.
Acknowledge your customers
The memory of the online shoppers is strong when it comes to any negative experience. However, they easily forget when they are satisfied with the online experience. So, it is your duty to keep them reminded about the same. Send out thank you emails to the customers who completed their transaction. In additions, you can even offer them coupon codes as a token of appreciation. Clear off the leftover inventory by triggering the purchase intention of the customers. The follow-up emails should include the targeted deals for the products in which your customers are interested in. Make sure that they don’t forget about you. Remind them of your presence and the readiness to interact.
Let the reviews pouring
You can even send them reminder emails asking them to drop their reviews. While this might be tedious for some of the customers, you can motivate them with incentives in return. This would enhance the review/rating of the products and may even get you some conversions. Not just the positive, but even the negative reviews of the existing customers are important.
Go for new launches
Launching new product is one of the ways to entice the customers to return to the store. Send them a wake-up call with something new. Although the purchase tempo will decrease, the chances of getting something different when they were least expecting this might compel them to reconsider. Moreover, the new products may prevent the sales from sinking to a very large extent.
Focus on self-improvement
The negative reviews can always provide you the path to improve yourself. Use the complaints of the customers to enhance their experience in the future. The online contest are one way to engage your eCommerce customers. While they might not consider shopping anymore, this is one of the ways to keep up with the interaction. Launch a poll and send them reminders to participate in the same. Ask them what they liked and what they disliked. You may even hit the social media for the same. Take their review on the social platform and act on the same. Spot the bottleneck of your eCommerce site and gear up for a better user engagement in the future.
Make use of the abandoned cart and wishlist
With the huge traffic, there is a possibility to get huge real-time user data. The abandoned carts and wishlist of the customers has a huge potential conversions chances. Prestashop store owners can easily keep track on their carts with the help of Prestashop abandoned cart module. Similar plugins are available for the Magento, OpenCart and other eCommerce platforms. Make use of this data and send them personalized emails. These triggers can surely help you get over some of the slumps.
Final Takeaways
- The return/refund requests are inevitable. So, instead of getting intimidated, handle it efficiently.
- Use the post-holiday customer data to segment the market and for re-targeting.
- Do not stay silent for long. Stay in touch with the customers even when they are not paying much attention.
- Analyze the performance and work towards excellence.
- Post-holiday deals should be targeted in order to trigger the purchase intention of the customers.
