THE PAST 3 YEARS has seen a monumental shift in how consumers shop. As jewelry stores shuttered because of the pandemic, it was rare to be able to shop in-person as everyone’s focus went online. People who would never have considered buying an engagement ring or other high-ticket item online, quickly adapted to the “new normal” and discovered they actually liked it. Consumer purchasing behavior changed – and for the better!
Ironically, many jewelry companies have done extremely well and seen their biggest sales ever because of the pandemic. From 2020 to 2021, the National Retail Federation found that sales increased a whopping 14.1% year over year totaling $886.7 billion dollars with 2022 following the same trajectory.
There truly is a silver-lining in every adversity.
A recent survey by Numerator found that 85% of people expect to be able to fully gather and celebrate “as normal” by Thanksgiving and 92% claimed it would be by December. What a difference a year makes!
With the gift-buying season quickly approaching, here are 5 tips to help you prepare your ecommerce website for holiday traffic.
1. Plan your marketing promotions early.
Savvy consumers know that the holiday season is one of the best times to find a great deal on an engagement ring or piece of jewelry they’ve been secretly wanting. Consumers have been conditioned to start their holiday shopping on “Black Friday”, the day after Thanksgiving and continue up through the mad-rush to Hannukah, Christmas and New Year’s.
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For retailers with overstock, this is also the period when they clear-out their old inventory and jewelry styles that haven’t sold, so they can start fresh in the new year.
For consumers, their behavior is based on what types of deals they can find and which promotions you run. What you offer and how aggressive you market during the holiday period will determine how well your jewelry store does.
You’ll want to start by identifying your best marketing channels which have given you the most return on investment (ROI). From here you can analyze your past results and determine the best time to run your promotions and schedule your campaigns. You’ll also want to review other jewelry stores to make sure that your jewelry pricing and promotions are competitive. Think like a consumer.
2. Create dedicated landing pages.
Every campaign you run should go to a dedicated landing page that matches the style, tone, imagery and messaging of your advertisement. Feel-free to have fun with your landing page and include a holiday theme or special image. You never, ever want to push people to the main homepage of your site, where they can quickly be overwhelmed or get lost.
Your goal with every visitor to your site should be to steer them in the right direction to help them narrow their choices down quickly and ultimately to make a buying decision. Your sales funnel and conversion path needs to be clear. This sounds so simple, but many jewelry websites neglect even the basics of digital marketing.
Your advertising offer and landing page should always include a strong value proposition. What’s in it for the consumer? Do they get a free gift with purchase? Is there a discount if they buy a complete set of jewelry, such as a necklace with matching earrings? Are you running a time-limited discount on a popular engagement ring style? Whatever it is, it needs to be clear.
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Another great way to increase conversion on your landing pages are to include testimonials and reviews. By including real feedback from your customers, you show social-proof which builds trust and instills confidence to buy from you.
3. Have a cart abandonment strategy.
There are many reasons why someone will add items to their cart, but never check-out. For some people, they’re simply not ready to buy. They could be using the shopping cart area as a “wishlist” to save their items to view later.
For other people, they have every intention of making the purchase, but get distracted. Life gets in the way. Still others are put-off by unexpected fees or shipping costs which quickly sour their experience, making them search elsewhere.
With a well-executed cart abandonment strategy, you can save a lot of these lost sales. Something as simple as an automated abandoned cart email reminding the person of the items in the cart, can convert up to 10% of consumers. And, there’s no reason why you can’t follow-up multiple times. The best jewelry ecommerce sites send abandoned cart emails up to 3 to 4 times over the course of a few weeks. They know that people are busy, and it’s often the company that follows up who eventually captures the sale. When you know that a majority of the shoppers during the holiday season are going to buy something from somebody, a cart abandonment strategy is an absolute must-have. When they need a gift, you might as well get their sale!
4. Create a memorable unboxing experience.
Receiving a gift of jewelry is an experience in itself. It’s memorable and will always be treasured. How you package and brand your jewelry store actually impacts how the gift is received. Presentation is everything.
When you think of someone who buys a gift online, they haven’t had the opportunity to experience fully what your physical jewelry store has to offer. They don’t get to experience your showroom, wonderful staff, or the joy of simply browsing your showcases. A lot of the fun and excitement of jewelry shopping is gone. This makes the presentation and unboxing experience all the more important to your buyers.
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Some ways to create a memorable unboxing experience are to include festive touches to the box or an unexpected surprise inside, included with their order.
You can elevate the experience with branded collateral material, a special card, or hand-written note thanking them for their purchase. It’s the simple things such as a personal touch which people remember. It doesn’t cost much money to create a rich experience.
How you present yourself and your jewelry store leaves a lasting impression on your buyers and will determine if they decide to purchase from your jewelry store again.
5. Leverage paid advertising to drive sales.
Organic traffic which comes free to your website is always nice to have, but you can’t control it. To generate the most sales this holiday season, you need to invest in paid marketing. Digital advertising campaigns are extremely cost-effective and – if done correctly – will pay for itself. For every dollar you spend on Facebook, Instagram or Google advertising, you should be able to generate many times the amount in sales.
Other factors such as the size of your mailing list, jewelry store’s reputation, style selection, service guarantees and which special promotions you run
all have an impact as to the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Free traffic can only get you so far. To increase your sales, you need to increase the number of people who visit your website or walk-in your door. There’s simply no other way around it. Sales is a numbers game and the first step you should take is to increase the size of your audience. Paid advertising is an easy and very effective way to get in front of a lot of engagement ring and jewelry buyers quickly.
Remember, you only get one chance to make an impact each holiday season. What you do now will have a direct impact as to how well you do from October through December. With the right digital marketing strategy, the last quarter of the year could be better than your first 3 quarters combined.
