The holiday season is a golden opportunity for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands to shine. According to Adobe, online shopping for the 2024 holiday season is projected to hit a record $240.8 billion, with 53.2% expected to be mobile transactions. With nuanced consumer behavior and the continued surge in online shopping, it’s crucial to continue to refine your retail ecommerce strategy.
Follow these 7 essential steps to navigate the holiday rush & maximize your sales:
1. Review past performance
Take a moment to analyze last year’s performance. Identify which media channels and retailers generated the most sales and which fell short. This data is invaluable for shaping your inventory and promotional strategies. Knowing what worked (and what didn’t) will help you allocate resources more effectively, ensuring you’re prepared to meet consumer demand year-over-year.
For example, you can build an audience of shoppers that already interacted with your brand across various channels:
- Your onsite Store Locator
- Your Product Detail Pages (PDPs)
- Offsite social media & more
Then, you can rapidly retarget before BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) with connected commerce to get the sales rolling in.
Path to Purchase Institute reports the trends in social media advertising during BFCM:
“As Black Friday approaches, fewer impressions may be generated, but they result in higher engagement, according to Emplifi. Brands can get more value from their ad spend closer to the event when consumer urgency is highest.”
Instant ad shoppability is one of the easiest ways to support consumers’ sense of urgency this holiday season. Reduce friction in your paths to purchase with in-ad unit shoppability.
2. Assess your main risks
The holiday season can come with its own set of challenges. From distribution hiccups to supply chain delays, potential risks abound. Start by identifying these challenges and developing contingency plans to address them.
Some risks might include:
- Logistics challenges: Transportation delays and increased freight costs can affect product availability.
- Demand forecasting: Inaccurate predictions can lead to overstock or stockouts.
- Technology integration: You need reliable data and analytics to improve supply chain visibility.
Using a dynamic inventory provider can make a huge difference in efficiently handling inventory concerns and order fulfillment. Offering omnichannel shoppability at retailers near your shoppers can also reduce potential shipping challenges. By leveraging real-time insights, you can respond promptly to changing demand and streamline operations.
3. Prepare your website and shopping tools
As traffic surges during the holiday season, your website must be equipped to handle the influx. Review your site under the lens of a seamless user experience.
- Implement tools like a Store Locator with daily inventory updates to help customers find your products easily.
- Get creative with how you present your products for the holidays. Utilize shoppable recipe pages to encourage retail purchases directly from your site.
- Invest in engaging seasonal media campaigns that resonate with holiday shoppers.
- A visually appealing, user-friendly website, landing page, and PDP, can significantly boost conversion rates.
4. Perform market research
Understanding the competitive landscape is vital for crafting effective offers. Review your competitors’ approach and analyze your click-level shopper insights to tailor promotions. Use this information to create a competitive custom audience for targeting via social commerce.
EMARKETER reports, “Social commerce sales are growing as buyers spend more. Gen Z are most likely to purchase holiday gifts via social commerce.”
By starting this process early, you’ll be well-positioned to create personalized campaigns that resonate with your target audience, particularly this newer segment of shoppers.
5. Engage price sensitive shoppers
With inflation affecting many consumers, price sensitivity is at an all-time high. Emarketer’s article How retailers can navigate disruption in the 2024 holiday season, confirms that the economy isn’t stopping holiday spending, just altering it:
“…Consumers’ spending behavior tells a different story. They’re spending, but focusing on value and finding deals… US holiday retail sales will grow 4.3% this year to reach $1.353 trillion, according to EMARKETER’s forecast. Retailers will need to lean into value messaging to resonate with cautious, but active consumers.”
To attract budget-conscious shoppers, offer personalized deals and value-based promotions. Highlight the benefits of your products, such as wholesome ingredients, delicious recipes, and eco-friendly packaging. Creating value can help persuade consumers to choose your products over competitors.
6. Innovate with seasonal product lines or pairings
Stand out by highlighting specialty products or collaborating with complementary brands. For instance, if you’re a beverage brand, consider partnering with a snack brand for a joint promotion. Such collaborations can create buzz and offer consumers exciting new ways to experience your products. Innovation not only attracts attention but also keeps your brand fresh and relevant.
7. Track your campaigns and shopper behavior
To optimize your holiday marketing campaigns, leverage UTMs and pixels to gain valuable insights into shopper behavior and campaign effectiveness. By adding UTM parameters to your URLs, you can track where your traffic is coming from—social media, emails, or ads—allowing you to analyze the performance of different channels, mediums, and specific campaigns.
Additionally, Pear integrates any of your ad platforms’ tracking pixels into your shoppable tools, firing back full-funnel data on user interactions and conversions. This combined approach enables mid-campaign optimizations , empowering you to adjust your strategies dynamically for better engagement and higher sales during the holiday season.
TL;DR: Review performance, optimize your shoppable tools, instill your brand value, use dynamic online product media to captivate customers, & track shopping insights for years to come.
In their 2024 Holiday Shopping Outlook infographic, Bain and Co. supports steps like these for consumer sales:
- Emphasize value, no matter your price point
- Entice consumers with intuitive search tools, personalized marketing, relevant gift lists, and timely promotions
- Showcase exclusive products, collections, brands, and partnerships
- Delights shoppers during a stressful season with more fulfillment options
- Make omnichannel easier–utilize excess store capacity to meet digital demand
By teaming up with an omnichannel platform like Pear, CPG brands can solidify their ecommerce strategy for the holiday season. Capitalize on the holiday rush and make a lasting impression. Refine your strategy ASAP (if you haven’t already) by making all your brand assets shoppable, and set yourself up for success this holiday season! Our team wants to see you succeed.