Throughout the Covid crisis consumers have either learnt new buying habits or have increased their use of new buying models. Current research confirms that on-line food sales were up 62% in June compared with February 2020. Although consumers are now, hesitantly, returning to shopping in stores, it seems very likely that on-line buying will continue, especially if there are further outbreaks of Covid in the Autumn (as the Government seems to expect). We can help you with any or all of the following recommendations which we advise as important in the upcoming season:
- More engaging content on web site
- Keep stock levels optimised and maintained
- Encourage customers to place Christmas orders earlier in order that you can forecast demand and prepare accordingly
- Web site preparedness – busy periods will ramp up traffic – your web site must be able to withstand such periods to provide the best customer experience – so preventing system crashes, outages, and slow load times.
- Consider Omnichannel marketing – make your services flexible by giving customers the option to buy across all channels; offer multi-channel options such as click and collect, purchase from mobile apps, purchases via social media. Omnichannel shoppers have a 30% higher lifetime value than single channel shoppers – a significant statistic in terms of customer retention
- Look at promotions using social media – do individual and partnered campaigns. Partner with other companies to deliver exciting competitions which will deliver good numbers of entrants (can be used for database building and re-marketing). Joint marketing with suitable partners also opens up their social media followers to your products.
- Curate your products on line – customers are becoming more savvy – ensure that the products you want to push are at the forefront and that the on line experience is easy to navigate and convenient; put together a concise selection of products that you believe customers will love for the Autumn/Christmas and back yourself – this minimises the amount of decision making a customer needs to make.
- With curated selections provide clear, concise information on what the selection of products contain and feature great imagery (typical customers using the products in a seasonal setting is good) and look at how you brand selections and make them highly visible.
- Leverage customer data – as in 6 above, continue to build your customer database via individual and partnered campaigns, and leverage the data to identify the most valuable customers and offer them the most substantial discounts or offers first (priority customers). After this open up offers to all consumers.
- Consider PR if you are offering new products/selections for the upcoming season.
