The summer season is the time for vacations, trips, and outdoor activities. While it’s fun on so many levels, it’s not the busiest time of the year for retailers. Even eCommerce shops register lower revenues and a decrease in gross sales. That does not mean you can’t work on keeping your shop attractive and profitable! Here are a few marketing tips you can use to keep your eCommerce store thriving during the summertime.
Firstly, give yourself enough time to prepare your marketing materials and promotions. Work with designers to create nice and appealing banners, pop-ups and other artwork elements you can use on your website.
Secondly, depending on the nature of your business, start creating promotions, think about discounts you can use, shopping cart rules, try to promote slow inventory items to start with. The summer is also a great time to plan ahead for the rest of the year.
Reassess your inventory. Start planning your stocks for upcoming holidays and special days, such as Black Friday. Buy smart, negotiate with vendors and get your inventory levels ready for the second half of the year.
Marketing tips to prepare your eCommerce website for summer promotions
-
Launch summer products
You can create a line of products to be promoted especially during the summertime. Think about what would be appealing for the shoppers during this time and try to move your inventory items to the front line.
A well-designed banner and eye-catching artwork can do the trick. Place these on your homepage and make them visible for the visitors.
-
Create special deals
Nowadays, there are so many possibilities to create special deals for your customers, such as
bundles, discounts, BOGO promotions, holiday ideas, flash sales and many more.
Bundles are a great way to sell more items together at a special price and make your shoppers happy along the way. They are usually very profitable for merchants as well.
Personalize your special offers based on specific holidays, such as International Day of Friendship, World Chocolate Day, Independence Day, World Emoji Day. These are just a few examples you could adapt to your business. Be creative!
Here’s a link to the 2019 Holiday Calendar for inspiration.
Flash sales are perfect to promote and move limited-quantity items. You can set special terms for these sales (no returns for example), but be clear about these to the customers. Use urgency and strong messages.
Buy one get one (BOGO) promotions are very popular and very effective. The engagement rate with these is really high and you get to clear out specific inventory. They are a short-term strategy that can turn into a long-term one is built on the idea of a loyalty scheme. 66% of shoppers admit that they love BOGO the most out of all discount promotions.
-
Organize contests
Use social media to promote your brand. Organize contests and offer different prizes for your customers. For example, you can ask your shoppers to use your products and take a selfie with it when they go on holiday and post it on Facebook or Instagram. More contestants, more shares, more publicity = more traffic on your website, more sales.
Where to promote your summer sale
→ Social Media
→ Ads
→ Facebook/Instagram ads
→ PPC campaigns
→ Email marketing
Come up with original content for your summer sale marketing. Consider hiring a temporary content writer to help you with headlines, slogans, and email subject lines. Here are a few examples:
Headlines and Slogans
Hot Summer Sale
Summer Clearance
Summer Ready Bundle
Everything you need for Summer
Email subject lines
Summer Sale – Up to 50% off sitewide!
The summer sale starts now!
Don’t let the summertime slow down your business! Be creative and offer promotions that cannot be refused. Shoppers, after all, continue to look for hot deals even when they are away on vacation. Be prepared with new hot content and special deals for them. Use our marketing tips to attract new customers!
Need more information about how to improve your online shop? Talk to our experts – contact us!
