Christmas and New year's holidays are knocking on the door. Though it is only around 2 weeks away, you will notice that all the stores and big markets dressing up for the event just after their black Friday sales. If you have not followed the same with your store, customers will think you do not have anything to offer. Holidays are the time of the year when you can make the most sales and profit.
To get you prepared, I have created a checklist so that you do not miss anything while you are busy. I have focused this article totally on our Dokan plugin users based on common trends and some ideas of my own.
Going with the Festivity
Probably the first and the easiest thing you can do is to update store graphics. You can use alternative colors or add elements to your store logo just for December. You may try to nail it for both Christmas and new year's eve or plan totally different for New year if you have time. You can even tweak up your market theme to make it some similarly colored or styled for Christmas (you will need to ask your market admin for that). For the Dokan theme, the admin can change the color in a minute by going to wp-admin > appearance > customizer.
Dokan admin can also use the announcement feature of Dokan to remind vendors, or just contact them directly.
Slash the Price Tags if possible, Offer a Sale!
This will be the second obvious choice you will be bumping in. While most markets offer certain discounts during the holidays, it might be hard for you. It is quite understandable and a common dilemma. So, you should put a Christmas discount on the products which you have lying around for a long time. You should not put a discount on your prime products and sacrifice profits in the face of getting a bigger sales figure. After all, it is a holiday for you too and you want to make it a good business. But we need to realize that not all stores need to go all out on discounts. Not all stores can afford deep discounts, especially smaller stores or stores that have a very limited inventory. Luckily, there are alternatives which I have discussed below.
Reduce Shipping Charges or Provide Free Shipping
The next or probably the best thing to do is offering a flat shipping rate for your market. That way any customer do not need to worry about unexpected shipping rates. No matter how much discount or other incentives you offer with a product, a customer will forever be reluctant from shipping charges. Setting a flat rate may offer them some comfort. You can even try covering the entire shipping cost for checkout that went above, say 10$. Customers will be very happy if you can afford such an offer. Also keep in mind that some products need special shipping due to their price or dimension, so take care to exclude them from such offer.
In Dokan, you can easily change the shipping settings from wp-admin > woocommerce > settings > shipping.
Buy Some – Get Some
“Buy one, get one free!” – this is probably the most common type of offer that you see on the web. It does not make any sense and I suggest you should never do it. What you should do instead is to offer something when the customer is buying in several quantities or in bulk. That way it is fair to the value of the product as well as profit and marketing. Also, try this for low priced products, say pens, candies or accessories like ties socks etc which people usually buy in numbers.
You can choose the same product or another product with goes with the product bought. While selecting your product which you will tag the offer with, keep in mind usually what people are supposed to buy more frequently during this time and you should be just fine. You really do not want to ship a can-opener when someone buys five shirts, right? A tie with shirts would be perfect. If you have too many products lying around your warehouse and desperately want them away, you can add this offer or do a similar stuff to get rid of them as well.
Bonus on Checkout
This offer is interesting. The customer will get the bonus if he/she reaches the a certain amount in the checkout to be eligible. If you set the starting limit at for example 100$, the customer will get a 10$ discount, and so on. You can easily set a coupon for this which will automatically be added to the checkout when it meets your offer validity. This compels the customer to buy more from your store just to get that discount. A 10$ waive may sound too much for you, so you can go with less, but it will be a hefty attraction to the customer to top off ten dollars from the total bill. This is more beneficial for your market because you do not need to waive the cart for all purchases.
Another thing you can do is that, you keep that 10$ credit for the next purchase he/she makes. This way, you had made it sure that your customer comes back again and you can show your newest inventories. A high chance is, the customer will comeback to spend that 10$ for buying something for new year's eve and if you have products lined up just for that, you are a lucky man!
You can use this add-on WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing and Discounts to use its “Conditional Discounts” feature to create an offer like this.
Send Gifts
You can surprise your customers by adding a small gift with your shipping, say a cork opener when someone orders bottles of wine or it can be just a greeting card written by you! Keeping it simple is the key, keep it a compliment, give the personal and human touch. You can also use decorative packaging to make your delivery look more like a gift than a purchase to make things interesting. Creative wrapping will cost you almost nothing extra but time and you will be able to get a nice impression with it. People love to buy from vendors who can make them feel special.
Not to do things – Email Spamming
Email is a powerful media, but during holiday season your customers are more likely to not check emails, specially emails which look like marketing missiles. If you send too many emails you are not only annoying your customer now, but also closing your door for the future. We at weDevs try to follow an idea of emailing our customers only when it is necessary and important. I hope that will work with you too.
GOOD LUCK!
Now, you can use any of these or combine these techniques to create an offer for your market. I am not a marketing or eCommerce expert, I learned about these myself from reading related blogs. If these tips help, thank me later. If not, please do not charge a lawsuit against me, I am too young to go to jail.