Top Most eCommerce Website Fixes To Prepare For Cyberweek 2022
Top most eCommerce website fixes to prepare for cyberweek 2022
Cyberweek 2022 is just around the corner. As it approaches, ensuring that your eCommerce business is ready for the busy season must be on top of your mind. Holiday sales make up the biggest revenue of the year for almost all online retailers.
Research by Reuters states that online shoppers spent $8.9 billion on Black Friday and a whopping $7 billion on Cyber Monday. With that said, online retailers need extra caution to ensure that their stores do not crash in the holiday rush.
Ready to get started? To make sure that your website achieves peak performance in Cyberweek 2022, here are some website fixes you must cater to.
Table of Contents:
- Every Minute Counts During Cyber Week Sale
- Evaluate App Experience Before Cyber Week
- Ensure Products on Sale are Easy to Find During Cyber Week
- Take Benefit of Impulsive Shopping With a Simple Checkout
- Personalized Experience To Reduce Cart Abandonment
- Make Sure Products are Delivered Before the Holidays
- Make Amends to Your Return Policies Before Cyber Week
1- Every Minute Counts During Cyber Week Sale
Don’t Jeopardize Customer Experience with Website Crashes!
The biggest nightmare for any eCommerce store owner is a website crash. Think about it: a customer coming to your website and isn’t able to get any further because of a crashed page is going to make a far worse impression than bad customer service.
A simple surge in traffic can strain your website and jeopardize the customer experience. According to Blue Triangle, a 5-minute site outage can cost retailers over a million in revenue. That said, don’t give your customers a reason to begin with, your website but end their shopping journey with the competitor.
Loading speed is another factor that must be considered part of good site performance. Research by Digital commerce 360 states that a 1-second site slowdown can cost eCommerce businesses 6% to 13% of the total revenue. Therefore, with many consumers landing on your page for the holidays, slow site speed is something you cannot afford.
Read More: 7 Key Ways To Speed Up Your WordPress Site and Improve Performance
A good assessment of website fixes may take some time, but even doing it late is better than never. Double or triple your baseline infrastructure levels for the holidays. It can boost your website speed and be able to handle traffic spikes. You can benefit from tools such as Google’s TestMySite, and PageSpeed Insights can give you an overview of issues you need to fix before Cyber week 2022.
Here are some fixtures that can help with your site performance:
- Use a reverse proxy server and load balancers
- Cache the necessary sections of the website. Storing and releasing data and files can induce server lag. Caching data will help with specific requests and fasten page loading, ultimately affecting the speed performance.
- Properly optimize all third-party tags and services on your website. Doing this can prevent them from loading before the website page, block other elements from loading on the page or delay overall site performance.
- Evaluate the site’s JavaScript errors and long-running JavaScript functions that may contribute to the site’s instability and slowness. Make sure to eliminate any errors and avoid website crash this sales season.
2- Evaluate App Experience Before Cyber Week
A simple Traffic Spike can Crash your App, Causing Millions Worth Sales!
Needless to say, mobiles are the most convenient method of online shopping. About 37% of the digital sales last year came solely from mobile phones. With that said, if your website is not made for mobile users, chances are the visitors will switch their preference to your competitor. Therefore, providing them with an interactive and easy mobile shopping experience to the customers is imperative to hook them to your online marketplace.
You may think your website is mobile responsive, so what could go wrong? Know that a mobile responsive website design and a mobile website are two different things. A responsive website resizes and modifies the website design to make it look good on the mobile screen. On the other hand, a mobile website is made with a different UX, designed keeping in mind the shoppers’ usability requirements. Consider adding features such as easy view to the cart for easy checkout and simple login. It can turn out to be advantageous for the holiday rush!
Where a mobile site benefits you in its own way, having a mobile app can take you a level higher. Research states app downloads spiked almost 50% in 2021. So, if you have the time and resources, you can invest in having your ecommerce store application before Cyber Week 2022. Keep it simple, optimize the speed, integrate social media channels and see your sales soar!
3- Ensure Products on Sale are Easy to Find During Cyber Week
Take Inspiration from Big Names in the Market
Imagine a customer wanting to buy a perfect gift for his family at the last minute of the cyber sale Monday. But he struggles to navigate through your site to complete the purchase before the sale ends. It is likely to end up a frustrated customer leading to an abandoned cart.
Also Read: 7 Effective Ways to Improve Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates
This is not just for cyber sales, but improving your website navigation can increase the conversion rate by 18.5%. Similarly, about 80% of the visitors will abandon their carts if the navigation is not on point.
To make navigation easier, make sure to declutter your main menu. You can also categorize it into different sections to make it easier to find a product. If you have a wide selection of products, don’t list it all in a drop-down menu. You can introduce dedicated pages to show categories — but keep in mind that a dedicated page may take more time to load than a drop-down menu.
Amazon is an amazing example in the case of good navigation. They categorize their products on the basis of discount offers and price caps which makes it easier for the user to search for an item based on price preference.
Navigation is not limited to the website only. It also means optimizing the website for the search engines so the user can find exactly what they’re looking for. Make sure that the search engine results display the products according to their relevance — it should even compensate for the spelling errors.
A strategic site map can assist your customers with navigation during their shopping spree while providing a smoother shopping experience.
4- Take Benefit of Impulsive Shopping With a Simple Checkout
A long Checkout Process Can Add to Customer’s Frustration
Impulsive shopping is a common thing during the sales season. In order to boost this “shopping impulse” and make more sales, a simple checkout process is a given. A one-click purchase option on the product page can assist a buyer with immediate checkout.
Make sure your buyer doesn’t have to go through several steps before they actually checkout. If a customer comes back to your website, make sure you have their information saved, so they don’t have to fill it in again.
That’s not it. Make sure you also have multiple payment options at the checkout so it can speed up the process. A preferable payment method can influence the shoppers’ buying preferences. A dynamic checkout button that is present with the customer’s preferred payment method, such as BNPL, or pay in 4 by PayPal, etc., can work miracles for your online store sales during the cyber week.
The sales season is the time when the number of abandoned carts increases. According to Statista, the worldwide cart abandonment rate is almost 70%. During the sales season, it spikes even more for many different reasons.
A simple abandoned cart popup message is not enough to retain the customers to complete their shopping venture. Why? It is because shoppers today simply ignore them. An excellent way to get the visitors to complete a purchase is by offering them a special deal or discounts on the popup message, so they are intrigued to avail it.
5- Personalized Experience To Reduce Cart Abandonment
Applying Traditional Recovery Methods May Not Work This Sales Season
This further extends to abandoned cart emails. The offer must be mentioned in the subject line itself to make sure the customer opens the email. Take a look at the customer’s shopping trails and preferences and offer them personalized discounts. Other than emails, some customers also purchase through Facebook shopping sites, so make sure to revert them through messenger. To make it simple, integrate automated solutions that identify potential leads and send offers via emails or messages.
6- Make Sure Products are Delivered Before the Holidays
Quick Shipment Plan Can Influence Customer’s Purchase Decisions
Quick shipping plans can make a positive impact on the buying decisions of the customers. At the time of cyber sales, customers are usually making purchases for the holidays. So, it is obvious that they want their products to be delivered before the holidays begin.
In this case, let your customers know if their products can be delivered in the time range or at least by the expected delivery date. You can add a category of items that can be delivered in the time before the holidays. However, if certain products cannot be delivered before or during the holidays, make sure to alert the customers before they checkout.
Free shipping is another aspect that influences the purchase decisions of the buyers. According to a survey conducted by Forbes, 84% of customers purchase online specifically because of free shipping. To make sure you are not at a loss, check your profit margin and set your prices according to the threshold.
7- Make Amends to Your Return Policies Before Cyber Week
Easy Return Policies Can Help with Customer Retention!
Sales season means impulsive shopping, which often leads to more returns. Poor return policies mean more disappointment for the customers. However, eCommerce stores often have difficult return policies during the sales, like delayed pickups and returns or no return on sale products, which can prevent customers from returning to your store.
To avoid this, make sure that your return policies are customer friendly. Research states that 80% of shoppers expect a free return. This is something that you must keep in mind and make amends to your policies before Cyber week.
Conclusion
To say the least, there are many preparations involved in optimizing your eCommerce stores for the cyber week. Experts predict in favor of heightened sales and transactions. With that, there is also a risk of site crashes and other detrimental issues. Make sure to take time and understand the fixes required before the peak sales time and streamline your checkout process to be better equipped for Cyber Week 2022. Contact us for eCommerce Development services, to get critical tasks done before the season begins.
