How to make the most of key retail sales periods

JANUARY

Christmas gift returns

Not everyone is a gift-buying god. Sometimes people need to return Christmas gifts and that can cause retail customer service teams a whole host of problems as they try to marry up products with orders not placed by the person returning the item. Returns are a logistical nightmare at the best of times and take up valuable customer service time at a net cost to your business. Automating the returns process can play huge dividends in time and cost savings, ensuring your team can focus on revenue-generating activities. 

January sales

Every month shoppers abandon carts worth almost £30, adding up to a potential £18bn in lost sales every year, according to a 2018 Barclaycard survey. Recovering lost carts can be a tricky task, requiring some compelling messaging to get buyers to revisit their potential purchase. Knowing who the carts belong to is essential in order to retarget them. Equally, maximising the volume and quality of data you hold on each of these customers is essential to give you the best chance at retargeting them successfully. To do that, you need to ensure your data is comprehensive and, most importantly, well organised. Organising your data in a single platform provides easy access for your whole business and makes targeting and retargeting customers simple. 

FEBRUARY

Valentine’s Day

Finding the perfect gift for your other half is difficult enough, but doing it in the pressure cooker environment of Valentine’s Day is another altogether. But Valentine’s is big business and any brand that can tap into the collective panic-buying that occurs in the run-up to every February 14th can reap the rewards. Being able to quickly recommend products and convert on one platform is the holy grail of digital marketing, so you’ll need a tool that allows you to create bespoke product pages on a familiar messaging platform, such as SMS, that integrates with an ecommerce offering. Giving your customers the ability to buy on a platform they’re familiar with makes moving them down the funnel quickly much easier.

MARCH

Mother’s Day 

Mum wouldn't allow your gift to turn up three days late so when it comes to sourcing the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, there’s extra pressure to get it right. Once your customers have found the perfect gift, ensuring it arrives on time is the final piece of the puzzle. Helping your customers avoid a Mother’s Day failure by checking in real-time where their orders are provides peace of mind, and is guaranteed to generate a positive customer experience. 

APRIL

Easter Sunday

When planning an Easter Sunday feast, preparation is key. Making sure food orders are placed promptly is key to ensuring you’re not left with scraps come Easter Sunday. Just as important is making sure your customers can keep tabs on where their order is with timely updates to ensure there are no red faces around the table on the big day. That leaves more time to focus on the all-important Easter Egg Hunt. 

JUNE

Father’s Day

Inspiration for Father’s Day gifts can strike at any time and, chances are it’s most likely to happen at exactly the point your customer service team are tucked up in bed. Delivering truly 24/7 automated customer service means you can be there to answer questions even when your team isn't, pushing those crucial extra sales over the line while you sleep. 

JULY

Holiday season

The holiday season is a busy time of year, with millions of holidaymakers setting off to enjoy a well-earned break. Sadly, that means that customer service agents often get nothing of the sort as they field hundreds of queries and concerns from irate, upset, or just plain confused customers. To ensure customer satisfaction, being able to effectively answer and provide solutions for any issues before, during, or after a holiday is critical, but that often means having thousands of intricate pieces of information to hand. Making sure your customer service team has everything they need at their fingertips to deal with a mountain of customer queries this holiday season is essential. 

AUGUST

Back to school

The end of the summer holidays come around quickly, and the list of things to prepare ahead of the new school year is lengthy. Items such as school shoes, bags, lunchboxes and uniforms all need to be procured ahead of the new school year. Help stressed-out parents navigate their back-to-school shopping list with timely reminders and ensure you’re at the front of the queue for their custom. 

OCTOBER

Halloween

Pulling off a spooktacular Halloween takes some planning and the competition for scariest house decorations or most terrifying fancy dress is fierce. Ensuring the various elements of your celebration come together is crucial, but mistakes do happen. Allowing your customers to quickly amend any incorrect order information could be the difference between a disastrous Halloween display and a truly wicked one. 

NOVEMBER

Black Friday

Black Friday gets bigger every year and the overwhelming number of deals means it’s easy for customers to miss the things they’re interested in – and some they hadn’t even realised they needed. Being able to segment your customers means you’re able to target them with knock-out black Friday deals and reach directly into their inboxes instead of relying on them to spot your deals amidst the Black Friday noise. Not only does this mean a more effective sales funnel for you, but it also puts you in the box seats for any additional purchases they happen to make…

Cyber Monday

It’s become one of the busiest times of the year for retailers. Cyber Monday follows hot on the heels of Black Friday and demand for products is particularly high. Ensuring you’ve got a handle on your stock is key so quick efficient communication between different parts of your business, and your retail partners, will allow you to take full advantage of this potential sales bonanza. Efficient inter-team communication is child’s play if you have the right messaging platform.

DECEMBER

Festive Season

With presents to buy and celebrations to organise, customers are trying to tick things off their to-do lists at breakneck speed. Thanks to the always-on nature of online shopping your customers can squeeze in gift purchases whenever they have a spare second, but when you’re buying for multiple people, a bit of retail advice is always helpful. Make it easy for customers to get in touch with burning questions at the moment they’re ready to convert and alleviate the pain of recovering abandoned carts. 

During the busiest times of the retail calendar make sure you take full advantage of the opportunities to increase your revenue with customer service, marketing, and AI-driven technology. Download our ecommerce infographic to find out how.