Preparing Your eCommerce Site for Cyber Monday Traffic

$1.74 CYBERMONDAY BILLION → PREP CHECKLIST SALES IN 2013 In 2013, Cyber Monday became the biggest online shopping day in history. THE NUMBERS IN 2013 POPULAR CYBER MONDAY SITES www.cybermonday.com 20.6% increase in online Average Order www.gottadeal.com 20.6% $128.77 sales. www.blackfriday.com Highest five day online sales period on record. UP 16.5% FROM 2012 www.cybermonday2014.com (Thanksgiving – Cyber Monday) www.theblackfriday.com/cyber-monday DOES SOCIAL MEDIA MATTER? GOING MOBILE of consumers plan to use social media sites for holiday shopping 44% Mobile traffic grew to 31.7% of all online traffic, 45% increase over 2012 will use social sites to 57% find discounts will read 51% reviews Mobile sales exceeded 17% of total online sales, a 55.4% will use social sources 49% to find gift ideas increase over 2012 BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME Smartphones drove 19.7% of all online traffic Tablets drove 11.5% of online traffic 19.7% 11.5% Smartphones drove 5.5% of all online sales Tablets drove 11.7% of all online sales 5.5% $106.49 11.7% $126.30 PER ORDER iOS PER ORDER ios Smartphone users spent an average of $106.49 per order Tablet users spent an average of $126.30 per order Traffic was accounted for over 50% 11.6% more higher than Android sales than Android ARE YOU CYBER MONDAY PREPARED? YOUR 9 POINT CHECKLIST THE CHECKLIST 1. RESEARCH What promotions did they do and how successful were they? #1: RESEARCH 2. PROJECTIONS Review Best Practices: What worked and what didn't work last year? 3. MARKETING 4. RESOURCES 5. WEBSITE 6. DEVICES 7. SALES PROCESS SALES PROMOTIONS MARKETING CUSTOMERS COMPETITION 8. PRE-SALE READINESS How did you promote your Cyber Monday Review the What did you Who was your Were your customers new or repeat and where did they Cyber Monday sales from last do and how successful 9. SELL! direct and indirect year and the year prior to that. offers and how competitors last year and what were their were your come from? How did your efforts? successful was it? customers sales? shop? What are competitors doing on social media? How can you compete with them? #2: PROJECTIONS Determine your sales targets for this year. FOOD FOR THOUGHT Here's what other e-tailers are doing: Sales: Determin what would be your projected sales for Cyber Monday 92% of online retailers are offering deals over Thanksgiving weekend, 80% linked to Cyber Monday Market Share: What additional market 45% offer coupon / percent-off deals share can you obtain this year? 38% will offer limited-time promotions 30% will promote free standard shipping with conditions Resources: Do you have the capacity to aggressively increase your sales? 15% will include a free gift with purchase #3: MARKETING 2. DETERMINE LENGTH OF PROMOTION WHO SHOPS AND WHEN Determine what enticing promotion you will launch to achieve your sales targets. Cyber Monday – Cyber Week? -50 36% 31% of men will shop early. of women will shop early. 30 3. ESTABLISH MEDIUM 1. CREATE A PROMOTION Email Marketing: Make use of your mailing lists for targeted marketing to customers. Discount: 10. 25 or even 50% off Social Media: BOGO: Buy-one-get-one Free or Buy-one-get-one half off According to Deloitte, 44% of consumers are using social media sites for holiday shopping and 57% use social sites to find Freebies: discounts. Free gift with purchase, free shipping, free gift card with purchase, free gift wrapping or free gift bag with purchase Teasers: Lead up to Cyber Monday by posting teasers on your Facebook and Twitter pages. Promotion Length: Extend your promotion to Cyber week/weekend Offer Exclusivity: To social media followers 29% of consumers will shop between 10 and noon Promo Variety: Different promo every hour, unique promos for different audience segments, elite programs and benefits for loyal customers, social media only g Google AdWords: Use the Pay-Per-Click system and set yourself a budget each day. 18% will shop between noon and 7pm Advertise Yourself on Cyber Monday Websites: For example, cybermonday.com features Cyber Monday deals 33% will be early birds and shop between 5am and 9am promo Coupons: Coupon codes in an email blast # 4: RESOURCES CHECK #5: WEBSITE CHECK Optimization Test Better optimize your site with these tools - www.websiteoptimization.com or www.google.com/webmaster/tools CHANNELS Have you considered a cloud Identify all necessary channels that the promo touches in the organization and communicate what is needed from each server environment or hybrid? Is your site well department. optimized? Did you know that 40% of users will abandon a page that doesn't load ALIGNMENT Ensure that the departments are aligned – is Operations aware of what Marketing is doing? three seconds? Is your site fast Web Page Test Can your site handle the Ensure you don't FULFILLMENT have a slow website enough? Determine if supply meets potential demand - Do you have enough product? potential spike in traffic? - webpagetest.org. Hosting Provider Check-in with hosting provider and notify them of potential spike in traffic. Ensure that your provider has CUSTOMER CARE redundant network with a good track record to reduce chance of downtime. Manage overtime – will you need to extend their hours or bring in additional head count for the week? Infrastructure Resources Security Load Testing + Emergency Plan Subscriptions #6:DEVICE CHECK #7:SALES PROCESS CHECK Test website on all browsers, mobile devices, devices and operating systems Go through the entire sales process as if you are your customer. Rate your experience by noting the following: (UX) User Experience Google 8 Analytics Clarity: Is it clear what I'm supposed to do next? Browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera NO Confusion: Are there any confusing or potentially misleading elements that might interfere with a purchase completion? Bounce Visual Mobile Devices: Rates Design Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry Metrics: (UI) User Interface Content & Typography Review your shopping cart abandonment rates. This can identify Devices: Tablets problems in the funnel Operating Systems: Windows, Mac Structure & Information NO Breakage: Try to "break" the process. Enter data incorrectly or incompletely and see if the order will still go through. Try to abandon your cart. Usability Architecture #8:PRE-SALE - GET READY TO SELL #9:GO OUT THERE AND SELL! • Load promotion and update new product images, descriptions, alt tags and captions > Launch marketing campaign > Make any last minute improvements to your site applied SOURCES: Statista, IBM, PriceGrabber, Deloitte LP Infographic Created by Applied Innovations | http://www.appliedi.net/ innovations 0000