As the world becomes more rapid, the respect of time becomes more important, just as the desire to become faster, higher, stronger. eMarketers have studied the influence of the pandemic on shopping tendencies and forecast a significant shift to online shopping and the growth of 0.9% for the total holiday season sales.

What does this mean for you as a merchant?

More shoppers who value time and timeliness will come to your e-store, so you should make it more welcoming. 

Countdown digital timers go beyond sell-sell-sell and creating a sense of urgency only. Let’s dig deeper and figure out what true value they can add. 

Goal #1: Bring useful information

1. Inform customers about upcoming events

Workshops, webinars, e-classes, hosting an event… There are a great many online activities today that are aimed at bringing value, educating about service, and promoting what you are offering.

Here, countdown timers help inform site visitors that the event registration time is limited, and the visitors should hurry to sign up before the guest list closes.

2. Notify shoppers about end of sale

This marketing tactic of using countdown timers is probably the most common reason for adding such functionality in an eCommerce business.

Here’s why:

Sellers naturally want to emphasize the sense of urgency. In fact, most platforms (such as Magento or Shopify) would require you to opt for third-party sales extensions to bring such features to your critical site destinations.

Let’s confess.

Most of us just love putting things off until they are really urgent or until we have that queer feeling in the pit of the stomach―the fear of missing out. That’s when we as buyers can become spontaneous.

3. Inform site visitors about delivery options

Delivery dates are often one of the major concerns for the shoppers when gift hunting. When the desired item is found at the desired dimensions and price, it’s vital to have it at the customers’ doors when needed.

Here, countdown timers go beyond being a sales technique. They allow merchants to clearly articulate information about how much time is left before a specific delivery date stops being available.

For example, often, merchants offer same-day delivery for products that get ordered before 12 am. Countdown timers can help visualize such information beautifully.

Goal #2: Visualize finiteness

1. Think through timer design and position

Commonly, we are used to placing sales announcements on the:

• Main page
• Category page
• Menu
• Product pages
• Landing page
• Newsletters

Conversely, you can even use checkout pages to sell your product.

Countdown timers are no exception.

You can even come across such blocks placed in the mini cart in case of flash sales with a limited number of items that become unavailable when the time runs out.

Thus,

When looking for a solution, consider the ability to integrate the functionality smoothly and easily in the required CMS blocks and position countdown timers as you wish.

2. Choose solutions with design galleries

Not all businesses have a fully-fledged marketing department with an in-house designer and front-end developer.

If you are unable to get such creatives prepared quickly and professionally, consider some integration with a pre-designed animated countdown timers gallery.

Make sure to study the available templates in advance, including their customizability. Countdown timers may look like HTML text or beautiful animated images. In any event, it will help you see if those countdown timers can blend in with the site style, or you still need to build the functionality from scratch.

All in all, will custom development be worth the candle?

3. Personalize

If we go by the book, then the timer count downs should be made unique for each new visitor. In the perfect world, it doesn’t sound like a big deal. But in the real eCommerce world, it is much more complicated.

And the good news?

Most CMS platforms allow targeting different customer groups and store views. As the result, most third-party solutions offer the functionality to create multiple simultaneously running countdown timers that are visible for specific customer groups or store views only.

Goal #3: Get customers to act

1. Use CTA buttons with countdown timers

Now, as you’ve added clocks ticking down and the feeling of urgency, it would be a crime not to place a well-coloured CTA button somewhere around the countdown timer’s area. According to the stats, well-placed CTAs increase the conversion rate by 22%.

Be it an animated banner with countdown timers for websites, or a clock in the mini cart, consider offering your shoppers a quick way to access the hot deal.

Want to know the best part?

If you have a separate page with holiday sale deals, you can use countdown timers to lead the customer to that dedicated page by opening it in a new window.

2. Add CTA messages

As we all know the power of call-to-action, don’t forget about powerful well-written messages above or below the area with countdown timers.

You might want to consider combining such CTAs with brief informational text.

For example,

• Hurry! Only 10 are left in stock
• Discounts end in
• Time left before losing access:
• Limited-time deal!
• Offer ends in…

But wait,

Make sure to avoid placing extra links within such CTA messages as they can distract your e-store visitor from completing the main goal―placing an order. In case you do add a button within the area with countdown timers, let it be the only object with a link.

3. Avoid ongoing countdown timers

If you want to make your sales campaign, go viral, it should be unique and bring true value.

Yes, Captain Obvious. Nevertheless, this marketing tactic gets overused often. As a result, the customer does not see the deal as truly:

• Honest
• Not pushy
• Useful

Thus, to enable the sales-boosting powers of countdown timers, make sure to run them on specific occasions and limited-time only.

For the Finale

When not overused, countdown timers online are a great way to show shoppers that if they want a product, they must act.

Countdown timers are an interactive and highly engaging means to inform the site visitor about the campaign and thus influence your conversions positively.