It’s the holiday season! And you know what that means for many people—it’s time to shop! This is the best time to amplify your holiday-related initiatives and campaigns to attract more customers who have more purchasing power. What’s crucial to making this happen, however, is getting them into the holiday spirit and making sure that your brand is doing your part to get them there.
(Confused about UI and UX? Here’s a rundown of their similarities and differences.)
Good thing, this is something you can do through your website—specifically, by ramping it up for the holidays. It’s about making sure that you’re ready to accommodate the influx of customers looking to buy and getting your piece of the pie.
And with this, we at Amber Creative came up with 5 UX design tips that eCommerce stores can do in time for the holiday season!
- Highlight your holiday-related offers on the homepage.
- Do up holiday content.
- Make gift guides and catalogues for easy access.
- Hook them with free shipping and multiple payment options.
- Curate product pairing and gift bundles.
Highlight your holiday-related offers on the homepage.
Just as people are decorating their homes in time for the holidays, you can also do the same for your website or mobile app. You can begin by making sure that the homepage design reflects the “holiday cheer”. This means, in part, making design adjustments by putting related themes to the forefront of your visitor’s experience. Imagine the sections of your homepage and think about how best to amplify the holiday messaging with it. This could be many things, including:
- An interactive hero banner with your most enticing seasonal products or service deals and discounts;
- Themed landing pages for seasonal campaigns, complete with CTAs and share buttons;
- A simple font change to something that’s more festive;
- Some animation for an added, pleasant effect;
- Website copies that embrace a more cheery tone; and
- Small layout adjustments and maybe additional colours that make your products pop.
Just remember that the key here is about setting the right atmosphere and tone right at the very beginning to encourage visitors to browse more of your web pages and then possibly, shop.
Do up holiday content.
Holiday-related content is in demand during this season and helps make you appear more relevant and fresh. This cues visitors that you’re in on the season’s latest trends and can offer what they may possibly need to lessen the stress that comes with all the holiday shopping. Not only can you use content to remain relevant, but it is also a great way of showcasing products you want readers to focus on during this season. It’s free promotion for your inventory and services, if you know how best to highlight them. And of course, it’s a chance to update your SEO keyword list. SEO is crucial during this time and does more than just boost your SERP ranking; relevant holiday keywords can direct your visitors to holiday items they needed to see from you, so make sure you’re using the right ones.
(Click here to read how valuable blogging is for brands)
Make gift guides and catalogues for easy access.
Everybody loves gift guides! (Trust us on this one). Think of gift guides as literal gifts for users who wish to experience the least amount of hassle when they’re online shopping. You doing it for them instead of them having to go over everything on your product list makes the process simple. And simple works and gets them closer to completing the sale. Themed gift guides are always welcome and allow you to highlight products targeted at different customer groups. Just take a look at Nike’s organized and segmented gift page:
Hook them with free shipping and multiple payment options.
Free shipping options or shipping discounts are yet another way of enticing visitors to order, especially if they’re thinking of ordering in bulk. Shipping charges can get so expensive so fast and offering free shipping or at least discounts with bulk orders will be much appreciated. People are also susceptible to last minute shopping, so make sure you have that covered with same-day or next-day shipping options if you can. Aside from shipping options, you can also look at adding multiple payment options to your eCommerce storefront (if you haven’t already). Keep in mind, however, that while it’s lucrative, you have to make sure that you’re actually able to ship in time or at least inform customers of possible delays so that they can manage their expectations.
Curate product pairings and gift bundles.
In the same vein as gift guides, showcasing the best product pairings or gift bundles is great if you want to make the shopping experience easy for customers. It’s also a good way of pushing, albeit subtly, the related or complementary products that go well with their first choices.
Changing for the holidays doesn’t have to be big or profound enough that it’d be difficult to revert to your default “look” after the season. It can always be small, simple changes. The trick is to not overdo it; to make calculated changes that you can seamlessly integrate with your brand.
When designing with UX in mind, it’s good to remember that it always comes down to how usable and easy to navigate your website or mobile app is. User experience is key, and that is a staple, no matter the season.
While simple, it could get a bit confusing to keep all these in mind. Good thing there are tons of digital marketing and design companies that can help with these. You still have time. Ask us today to begin!
