One of Australia’s biggest online sales boosters is around the corner and will present a valuable opportunity for retailers to reach new markets, and increase their revenue in a matter of hours.
This iconic November shopping event is expected to attract millions of customers eager to snatch up a bargain. Customer traffic to the Click Frenzy site grew by 103 per cent last year compared to both the 2019 main and Mayhem events, attracting over 1.9 million online visitors looking for limited-time deals.
With hundreds of retailers participating in the 53-hour mega-sale, a massive opportunity lines up for local retailers. Here are 10 steps you can take to optimise your eCommerce strategy, maximise your Click Frenzy sales and create returning fans:
Leading up to Click Frenzy
1- More than just heavy discounts
Click Frenzy is all about the deals, your target customers know that, and will not settle for anything else than a steal. However, go in with your eyes wide open to avoid having the opposite effect on creating future predictable, consistent and reliable revenue. Are you running the risk of shoppers just waiting for your big sales in the future? Discounts have an immediate impact on margins so consider what your breakeven point is or if you are willing to position as a loss leader. To make the most of Click Frenzy consider taking a longer-term approach to your lifetime customer value.
Then, ask yourself these questions:
- What initiatives could you use outside of just discounting? Could you add a free gift to lessen the heavy discount, or add an upsell item at the cart that offsets the discount on the bought product?
- Do you have a powerful brand, for-purpose or sustainability story that you can bring to life to create customer loyalty and get out of a recurring price-led discounting approach?
- Do you have a VIP membership program with special offers, events, or pre-release notices that you can get shoppers to sign up for?
- Segment your customers: Which ones are your sale-only customers (e.g. only buy from you when you have large discount sales) vs. your loyal, repeat purchase customers?
- When you have an understanding of this, can you work to get more customers to purchase more regularly? More tips on this later.
Consider how you will incorporate all of these options in your Click Frenzy Mayhem campaign to optimise the surge in traffic and shoppers on your site for the longer term.
It’s great you have the traffic – but how are you going to maximise the value and return of this?
Consider adding a click frenzy bundle of products to grow the AOV, or have a “complete the purchase” for your products that naturally go well together using recommendations software like Searchspring’s Personalised Recommendations. Get creative and look at what items make sense to bundle together to upsell and cross-sell. This method will increase your margin (subject to the discounts you are applying) and grow the AOV. It can be as simple as recommending an item like a branded bag, water bottle, or even a gift card at checkout (replicate that in-store experience). Review what items make sense to your shoppers and remember not one size fits all.
2 – Create an omnichannel presence and buzz prior to the shopping event
As much as customers get their news from multiple channels, shopping is no different. With consumers hopping from one shopping channel to another, whether it’s Instagram on their mobile device, a website on their laptop or in-store at a brick-and-mortar, providing a streamlined shopping experience across all touchpoints will not only increase purchase intent but also establish consumer loyalty. While shoppers will see the deals on clickfrenzy.com.au, retailers can still break down the walls and show their human side by showcasing their brand story to establish a connection and build anticipation by featuring their deals ahead of time across their different channels.
3- Surprises happen: Have a contingency plan
Because surprises happen, whether we want them to or not, be ready for the unexpected. Much like double-checking inventory, this one extends to your overall eCommerce strategy. Prepare for the worst, and be surprised with the best. Inventory problems? Problems with third-party vendors? Shipping delays? A sudden surge in traffic your website simply can’t handle? Ask yourself every question in the book and have a contingency plan in place, including a communication strategy.
Searchspring’s easy-to-use search, merchandising, personalised recommendations and insights tools empower retailers to quickly respond to market disruption and supply chain issues. By deploying boost rules to automate sorting and arrangement of products, ensuring relevant, in-stock, and trending products are easily found on their eCommerce stores, retailers can easily get ahead of supply chain and inventory issues.
4- Conversion Rate Optimisation
As you are driving traffic onto your site it’s time to ensure you have a clear plan to optimise your conversion rates. What would a 1% increase in your conversion rates mean for your revenue numbers and ROI? Start working on your 1% increases and you’ll soon have a more profitable return from your website and traffic spend. Ahead of driving surges in traffic, have a plan to optimise that traffic by making products more findable online. Ensure you have clear call to actions, an easy-to-navigate site and then look at opportunities to grow the AOV.
Much like in-person first-time impressions, shoppers will only stay on your website for so long if their shopping experience is met with frustration – in fact 87 per cent of online shoppers reveal they would abandon their carts if the process was too difficult. Whether you create curated collection pages, group products together to help shoppers find the perfect items quickly, or offer relevant product recommendations, lean on search and merchandising solutions to create a smart, effortless and enjoyable shopping experience customers can’t get enough of.
5- Stop guessing. Start knowing
Using data insights and tools to understand shopper behaviour, product conversions and drop-off rates, you can easily boost sales by knowing your shoppers’ intention, what they are searching for, and purchasing.
A/B testing is the magic word. Not sure which campaign message is going to get the bigger conversion impact? A/B test your ideas in the lead-up to Click Frenzy so you are in the best position possible to take advantage of this. Is it free shipping or your for-purpose brand story that creates more sales? Test it! With money on the line, don’t leave anything up to chance.
6 – Let technology do the heavy lifting
It’s no secret that merchandising and ecommerce teams are stretched to the limit. How will your team keep up with further increased demand during busy sales peaks and maximise each shopping opportunity? Let technology do the heavy lifting. Tools like Searchspring give merchandisers superpowers by automating business rules and manual processes, whilst providing insights to make decisions based on data so teams can focus on driving purchases online.
Are you using automated product badges like “low stock”, “top seller”, “staff pick” and “top reviewed” to encourage shoppers to make the purchase decision? During Click Frenzy this can be a great way to make sure if products are selling quickly, shoppers don’t miss out before they sell out.
7- You sold out too quickly
A good problem to have right? Wrong. This is a missed sales opportunity.
Have you thought about your backup products to promote if they missed out? Have you got a waitlist to be next in line when products come back in? Can you notify disappointed shoppers first of your exclusive and limited-edition next products or collection launch?
Don’t let this traffic bounce disappointed without a plan to try and convert them. You spent time and money getting this traffic to your site. Don’t waste it.
8- Amplify, Amplify, Amplify
Your sales spiked but you still have the stock and capacity to do more orders.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Have you promoted the sale across all your channels (emails, social, etc)? You have 53 hours to drive as many sales as possible. Can you send a follow-up promoting a limited number of products left in stock? Is it worthwhile adding further discounts or adding a free gift to clear out stock? Or better yet, can you leverage the shoppers that have just bought to amplify your reach to their network? What can you offer them for their next purchase if they tell their friends or share your offer on their social accounts?
Perhaps a discount or gift on their next order or a chance to enter a draw to win some of your awesome products. You could also leverage this to build further brand awareness through user-generated content (UGC) when their products arrive. Brands saw over a 50 per cent conversion rate for visitors to pages featuring UGC, with 79 per cent of consumers revealing UGC highly impacts their purchasing decisions. This will go a long way with first-time buyers who haven’t established trust or loyalty just yet, and rely on peer reviews, photos and videos.
You made it! Now what?
9- After the sale the real opportunities start
Click frenzy was a hit for you. Sales went through the roof and you hit record-breaking numbers. Great right? Yes but now it’s time to focus on turning those shoppers into repeat, loyal customers. For new shoppers, it’s an ideal time to welcome them to your brand.
Have you got a first customer welcome email that has a compelling brand story, that will get them aligned and passionate about your brand? If not… get writing. Make it as unique and personable as you can. Whilst it’s always been said that people buy from people, in eCommerce customers buy from brands they love and respect. They make emotional purchases.
Following that first touch base with new customers, start thinking about using their purchase behaviour to drive your next communications to them. What did they buy? When are they likely to buy that product again based on that product lifecycle? Do you have an auto-email or SMS reminder in place before this date? What other products make sense for them to buy from you next? Now how can you make them your top customers? What do those customers buy and how frequently? How can you build campaign plans around this?
What about those that didn’t buy from you? If you don’t already have a way to collect email addresses online before visits hop off, make sure you review this prior to driving traffic.
10 – Reviews to drive future conversions
Do you have a review solution in place like Yotpo? We know that highly reviewed products are great for increasing conversions. Are you gaining reviews for your products? Now it’s time to ensure this is feeding into your merchandising strategy. Searchspring powers badges on products including “top reviewed” to further encourage purchase behaviour and will automatically boost highly reviewed products to the top of your results in line with your business rules, whilst demoting out of stock or low performing items – powering a more intuitive shopping journey for you and your customers.
As we impatiently await yet another successful sales event for Aussie retailers, now is your time, more than ever, to consider participating in Click Frenzy Mayhem. With eCommerce growing at such a rapid pace, speak up! Put your business out there, take active steps to improve the shopper journey by engaging your existing and future customers with these simple and easily implementable tips to help you along in your journey.
This article was originally published May 2021 and updated November 10, 2021.
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