How to serenely manage your digital absence and prepare your online store for the vacations?

The end of the year is approaching, the shopping frenzy is fading and the vacations are coming.

Usually, Christmas is a lull for consumers and merchants who want to disconnect and take a break.

With the context, chances are that many of your loyal and potential customers will be actively connected and more alert than usual during the holiday season.

In order to avoid a significant drop in your business and thus not risk losing sales opportunities, being present even indirectly can make a big difference.

This new year has only confirmed the importance and the growing need for interaction and proximity of customers with their brands, hence the importance of focusing on the customer experience.

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We have put together some tips and strategies to prepare your online store Panierdachat for your absence and be serene for the Holiday Season..

Why manage your digital absence?

By communicating transparently beforehand, your customers will be more understanding and patient and will be more willing to receive their order upon your return.

• You will avoid frustration
• You will be far-sighted
• This demonstrates professional communication on your part

Inactivity and total lack of communication can be detrimental to customer trust.

As merchants, it is essential to stay in the minds of your customers, who once they are ready to store again, will consider your store as a priority for their purchases.

5 Tips to prepare your online store for the vacations

1. Inform customers of your absence

Several choices are available to you.

If you wish to take a more or less long break, you may have the desire and the need to block the access to your online store while allowing the display of an informative page that you can customize to mention the reopening date.

If you want to take a short break, without losing momentum or sales opportunities, you could keep your online store active and just let your customers know you’re away:

• Thanks to a banner on your home page
• Via a pop up window that will automatically appear when visitors arrive on your online store
• Via  a message in the shopping tunnel to indicate your date of return and therefore of shipment of orders.

Tips: We advise you to avoid temporarily closing your online store at the risk of losing in search engine optimization (SEO).

2. Automate and Customize Email Responses

Rely on automation to save time and increase efficiency and productivity.

• Schedule an automated email via Mailchimp to inform your customers. Remember to personalize your emails, especially for your VIP customers, by segmenting your customers in different contact lists beforehand
• Schedule an auto-reply in your messaging system or integrate your message directly into your email signature.
• Schedule an auto-reply Specify in your order confirmation emails  the exact date from which orders will be shipped again.

Advice: We advise you to allow extra time after your return if there are any hiccups that need to be dealt with.

3. Anticipate and Program your communications

Automation does not only concern e-mails and can also intervene in the programming of your communications such as :

• Newsletter Programming
• Blog Article Programming: you could create a short blog post informing about your vacations and return dates.

4. Maintain your presence on social networks

Schedule publication on social networks for regular presence and visibility on a continuous basis.

Some tools exist to allow you to set up a strategic reflection of content and to communicate in a relevant way by limiting the too robotic effect of automation.

For the best known and most intuitive :

• Hootsuite
• Later
• Buffer etc.

Create content in the spirit of the vacations, keep your customers on the edge of their minds about what’s coming next are all ideas you might want to consider.

Tip: Pin a Facebook post to highlight Important Information.

5. Define a winning marketing strategy

Anticipate Boxing Day and consider offering special offers to compensate for your absence and longer delivery times.

Tips: Remember to check that your inventory is up to date to avoid stock-outs while you are away. 

How to take advantage of the vacations to optimize your online store and marketing strategy?

This period a little more hollow can be an opportunity to establish a new digital strategy, take care of your image or simply improve your online store Panierdachat.

• Optimize your ordering and delivery service
• Rework your content, especially in your product sheets
• Establish a Year-End Balance Sheet via the Sales Reports available from your administration that will allow you to identify the marketing and communication initiatives that have generated the most returns; the products and promotions that have generated the most interest
• Take the opporunity to collect detailed information about your customers in order to establish more personalized campaigns
• Take the opportunity to conduct market research to identify new potential suppliers and enrich your product catalog.

Don’t be passive and start at the end of the year to anticipate your future Sales Marketing actions that you will be able to set up on your return!

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