According to Statista Valentine’s Day is predicted to be worth nearly £1.5b as shoppers spend on this romantic occasion. With approximately £391 million expected to be spent on dining out, and jewellery, sweet treats, clothing and lingerie and cards taking over £500 million.
So with people ready and willing to spend on their loved ones, what opportunities do you have to boost your sales at this time of year?
Here are some tips to help you make the most your online and in-store multichannel selling this Valentine’s Day:-
Ensure your products are found
The Ecommerce Foundation has advised that 88% of US consumers will research their chosen products online first, before coming to buy in-store (also called webrooming).
So when a customer is searching online for that perfect Valentine’s Day gift of course, you want your products to be found, but how can you do that?
We know that most users will now have their location or GPS enabled on their phones and this will allow Google to automatically detect their location and present them with the most relevant and localised search results. By making sure your Google My Business account is up and running for your own shop and adding your opening and closing times will be extremely helpful. Remember to review the content and update where necessary.
If you haven’t already set up an account then here’s an overview of the benefits of how Google My Business can help with search engine optimisation for your local shop, along with how to set up your own account.
And make sure those important urls, meta descriptions, title tags and product descriptions have all been optimised, so having an ecommerce system that has search engine friendly urls and gives you the ability to update those fields are very important in helping you with your website search engine optimisation and getting the right information across to Google.
Offer click and collect
And what about the 81.4% of internet users worldwide that want to order their products online but then go in-store to collect? By offering Click and Collect you’re not only giving the customer their preferred way to shop ie convenience, speed, avoidance of shipping fees and to save time, but the customer may also be more inclined to purchase additional goods and make an impulse buy when in-store.
It’s the perfect chance for them to view and purchase additional products and generate more revenue than simply making the initial online sale.
Be consistent with promotions, discounts and gift vouchers
Keep any promotions and discounts consistent across your shop and ecommerce website, as having different offers in-store and online can be seen as unfair and can alienate your customers.
Gift vouchers that can be purchased online and then redeemed in your shop can be extremely beneficial for the consumer that finds it hard to find the right gift for their loved one.
And remember to set any start and end dates for your offers so that you don’t have to worry about your promotions being seen after the date or finding the right time to update them, so saving you valuable time in the long run.
Use social media
For retailers, one of the great benefits of Social Media is that it can generate great exposure for your store, from brand awareness to reaching a wider audience, so it really is a great way to market your online and in-store business.
Another superb benefit is that you can promote your products on Facebook and Instagram. By automatically loading your products from your ShopTill-e catalogue into the Facebook and Instagram Catalogue Manager you can tag your products on Instagram so that people can tap on them to shop and see prices and descriptions, as well as create dynamic ads to promote your products on these platforms.
Is your ePOS and ecommerce website ready for Valentine’s Day shopping?
It’s not long to go now until Valentine’s Day so why not give your ePOS and ecommerce website some TLC and put some or all of these ideas into action and make the most of this gift buying day.
ShopTill-e can help retailers this Valentines Day, as the all-in-one retail system powers both your in-store and online sales, keeping everything consistent across both your ePOS and ecommerce website. Manage all your multi-channel selling from one place.
