Hardly any week demands more attention in ecommerce than Cyber Week. Website visits increase, sales grow daily. For you as an online retailer, it is now even more important to prepare for the strongest sales week of the year.
- Can your online shop handle the increased traffic?
- Do you offer the right payment methods for new customers?
- Do you have the right offers?
To make things even better this year, our technology partner Mollie helps you to optimally prepare with the following seven tips.
#1 Prepare your payment methods
Is your online shop ready for Cyber Week and the upcoming rush? When preparing, make sure that you offer the right payment methods and, most importantly, that all your payment methods work.
In the meantime, it is important that you offer a rough selection of payment methods in your online shop in order to satisfy not only your regular customers but also new customers. This includes implementing a functioning payment mix that allows you to reach many customers at the same time. The times when most shoppers paid by credit card are completely over. Today, it's all about variance and ensuring that every customer can pay using their favourite payment method.
#2 Optimise your checkout
Did you know that 39% of online fashion retailers indicate that shopping cart abandonment during the checkout process is a serious obstacle to increase sales?
That's what Mollie found out when they asked retailers about their biggest opportunities and challenges when it comes to growing ecommerce success. But have you ever wondered where shopping cart abandonment comes from?
Most customers abandon an online shop when the checkout process takes too long, their preferred payment methods are not available or there are simply too many extra costs in the final steps before the final purchase. And then? Then the road to a new online shop is not really long.
Make sure your shop visitors and customers stay by implementing our tips and tricks for higher conversion rates, especially during Cyber Week:
1. The fewer clicks it takes to make an online payment, the better the customer experience. This can be implemented with practical API interfaces, for example.
2. Boundless success needs customisation. This includes offering locally popular payment methods of one's own target market.
3. Keyword shopping cart: Selected products should be automatically saved in the shopping cart. This simplifies the payment process.
4. Mobile shopping is no longer a trend, but the future. An online shop should be just as appealing and functional on the smartphone as in the desktop version.
5. If you want to score points in the checkout, you should not list any hidden costs in the last step. Neither high shipping nor additional payment fees lead to the final purchase.
#3 Create a pleasant buying atmosphere
Did you know that you can actively work to increase your website visitors' willingness to buy by implementing super simple techniques?
These include things that have little to do with technology and more to do with emotion:
1. People are creatures of habit. Display the payment methods in a standard order. The local and most frequently used one should be at the top.
2. Personalise your checkout. This creates a more inviting, memorable and engaging experience for returning customers.
3. Customers appreciate localisation. Only show payment methods that are relevant to the country a customer is buying from.
And the best tip of all? Provide the best customer experience. Half of all shopping cart abandonments in electronics shops happen because of hidden shipping costs and delivery problems. Nothing easier than that, right?
#4 Integrate local payment methods
Mollie has found in several studies that local payment methods are especially popular. Dutch people, for example, prefer to pay via iDeal, while Przelewy24 is the favourite payment method of Polish people. To make this possible in your shop, you should choose a payment service provider that offers not only international but also local payment methods. This will create sustainable positive conversion rates and, above all, trust among your customers.
#5 Plan your offers early
To guarantee the highest possible turnover, your customers need to know what you have in stock. Which means customers will not hesitate for long when they wonder where they are going to shop next. Within seconds, customers must realise that your shop is the best address for what they are looking for.
For you as a retailer, this means that you have to inform your customers as clearly as possible about the discounts and promotions they can expect in your shop. This works either if you leave the exact amount of the discount as a little surprise or if you tease with "Secure 70% discount on TVs/vases/dresses/rings for Cyber Week now" or "The excitement is rising. Which products will have the biggest discount on Cyber Monday?" could be examples of appropriate strategies.
#6 Take care of the right marketing
Ultimately, all the channels you use to reach your customers are appropriate for Cyber Week marketing. Do you have your customers' email addresses? Then send them a newsletter with all the offers and a reminder that Cyber Week is coming up.
It also goes without saying that you should start your campaign as early as possible and not at the last minute. For example, a first reminder about four weeks before Cyber Week would not be bad, followed by weekly updates.
Besides email marketing, social media is of course a good place to inform your customers. Here it is important to write your messages in a way that they will be shared.
Are your regular customers interested in the posts on your channels? Then you will certainly share offers and discounts with friends and thus attract more attention.
Have you also considered whether paid advertising on Facebook would be suitable? If so, now is definitely the right time to use it to generate more traffic to your website. If you are now asking yourself what kind of content your emails and postings on social media should have, the answer is quite simple: First, it should be made clear that there are discounts and promotions. Only in the next step could this information be packed with more input. In doing so, you can highlight the products and post more details about the discount promotions.
#7 Check your service providers
We all love surprises. But not when we have to pay more than we thought. That's why unexpected and hidden costs usually lead to shopping cart abandonment, especially unexpectedly high shipping costs annoy online shoppers.
They prefer it when shipping is free. Offering free shipping is an obvious solution. But if you can't afford it or don't want it, you can consider one of two options:
- Build shipping costs into the price
- Introduce a standard charge
In any case, these costs should be transparent on your website. If you are open and honest with your customers, they are more likely to return to your online shop. Because by doing so, you give them the feeling that you really care about their buying experience. You should clearly state any additional charges, such as taxes. Because no one wants to be surprised by unexpected costs at the end.
Mollie: your partner for Cyber Week
Sometimes you don't have to wait long to make the right decision. With Mollie as your payment service provider, you are well prepared for long-term success in ecommerce - even in high-turnover weeks like Cyber Week.
Why? It's simple:
- You don't need any technical knowledge to use Mollie.
- Mollie offers you more than 20 local and international payment methods - in just one API.
- With Mollie, you can customise your checkout.
- Mollie is proven to reduce cart abandonment.
- Mollie always offers you the latest techniques to keep online payments as simple as possible.
About Mollie
Mollie B.V. is one of the leading Payment Service Providers (PSP) in Europe. The company was founded in 2004 in the Netherlands by Adriaan Mol and is headquartered in Amsterdam with additional offices in Belgium, France and Germany in Munich and Kiel. Today, Mollie employs around 500 people. More than 150,000 customers across Europe process their online payment transactions via the cloud-based Mollie platform. They range from regional SMEs such as Wickey and L'Osteria to global companies such as Drykorn and UNICEF.
Would you like to learn more about Mollie? Then contact our customer team now and let us advise you individually.
