The end of the year means holidays, and holidays mean sales. When businesses ring in the new year, however, sales are at an all-time low. With all the major commercial holidays done with, it’ll be another year before any storefront sees traffic that high, even online. Many businesses struggle through the post-holiday period with poor sales, so how can you make the most of it? Here are our favorite tips and tricks to make the most of this year’s post-holiday eCommerce slump:
What is the “Post-Holiday eCommerce Slump?”
Before we start strategizing, it’s important to know what exactly this “post-holiday eCommerce slump” is and how it’ll affect your business. Generally speaking, the “post-holiday” portion refers to days after January 1st. Beginning on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the holiday shopping season begins: stores are flooded with customers looking to buy gifts for the holidays they celebrate, and business booms up until around mid-January. The drastic drop in sales is a bit jarring for lots of businesses, especially small ones that rely on consistent sales to survive.
1. Refresh Your Marketing
A drop in customer traffic means an increase in free time, making the early days of the post-holiday slump perfect for refreshing your business and getting it ready for the new year. If possible, we recommend taking a few weeks at the very beginning of the year to prep for the upcoming months if you haven’t already. Now’s the perfect time to update your website, refresh your marketing strategies, and maybe start a blog!
Part of these new marketing strategies should always include checking in with customers. Emailing shoppers who may still have items saved in their cart and just sending out some “thank yous” can help draw back traffic. If you have a membership or account program for your business, send out a “happy new year” newsletter to ensure your customers know you’re still working hard to give them the best stuff possible.
2. Analyze Your New Data
One of the best indirect benefits of holiday sales is the influx of new data. For the first part of the post-holiday slump, it’s always good to take the data you’ve just received and put it to good use. The extra time you’ll have now that the busiest days of the year have passed is excellent for taking a good hard look at some new information.
This tip ties in nicely with the first one since all of your new data can easily be used to predict upcoming trends in your market. Maybe you’ve found an unexpected target audience, or perhaps you’ve got customers turning towards certain products more than others. Even the amount of time someone spends on your site and how they found it in the first place can help you plan for the rest of the year. Incorporate new data into your eCommerce strategies for the future, and you’re sure to succeed.
3. Segment Your Customers
With the influx of customers and the need for data analysis, the post-holiday slump is also a great time to get into customer segmentation. This process revolves around looking at your customer base and organizing them based on various identifying factors, like their average income, gender identity, age, or political views. Effective customer segmentation helps your marketing team determine the kinds of ads to put out or how to visually organize your storefront. They can also help you find a new product niche to fill.
4. Clear Out Limited Items with Discounts and Sales
Having extra time to market is excellent, but you’ve also got a bunch of products left over from the holiday rush, and you need to get rid of it! Providing customers with post-holiday discounts and sales is a popular tactic and for a good reason! Lots of consumers expect post-holiday sales nowadays, too, so they can stock up on gifts for themselves or take advantage of a good sale when exchanging something they don’t like.
5. Launch Something New
Our final tip for you is to use the off-season for hype. Advertising and launching a new product is a great way to drum up sales outside of the holiday season, and you can spend the following months before Thanksgiving analyzing product performance and sales. Product development and promotion take a long time. This tip is best for businesses that are in the midst of developing a new item: why not launch it a few months after the holidays?
Get the most out of the post-holiday eCommerce slump by revamping your eCommerce storefront and implementing some new strategies. If you don’t know where to start, that’s no problem! Contact us at Wagento for a consultation.
