(Finance) – While the summer period is always a bit slower for commercial activities, it can actually generate a great opportunity for e-commerce. In fact, summer is the perfect time to implement new online sales strategies and retain your audience both for the entire duration of the sales but also in the months when media attention is particularly high in view of the pivotal moments of the e-commerce world. expected between November and December: Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. According to the last study conducted by the Packlink PRO platformthe 18.7% of Italian e-commerce operates in the fashion sector (clothes, shoes and accessories). They follow entertainment (games, music, movies, books, sports) with 17.4% And technology at 14.3%. The food industry stands around the8.5% while pharmacy and beauty to the 5.1%.
Thanks to the strong acceleration brought about by the digital transformation, over the last two years more and more merchants have realized the advantages offered by e-commerce, first of all exponentially expanding their catchment area. Different – as Packlink points out – the strategies adopted by e-commerce during the summer to continue to exploit a channel that is now decisive for the volume of business of an activity. One of the first actions – the report reads – is highlight summer products. Obviously it depends on the product, but some are particularly trendy this season: for example fashion and accessories, beauty products, but also products related to leisure, outdoor, sports and gardening. Thermal steel bottles are another very popular product in Italy, where customers of all age groups tend to favor sustainable and reusable products, driving sales to an annual increase of 20%. A complementary move – continues Packlink – is focus on internationality, or broaden the sales possibilities, targeting markets in countries that are experiencing a different season of the year and that could therefore be interested in non-summer products (obviously doing appropriate research first, for example regarding trade policies). Some markets, such as swimwear or winter clothing, are in fact seasonal: internationalizing allows us to guarantee sales throughout the year and not just in a portion. Summer is also a great time for empty the warehouse: in addition to the occasion of the sales, it can always be a good idea to put the inventories on sale at a promotional price. Finally, many e-commerce companies use this period to make their business more efficient, questioning their own business model (for example evaluating between dropshipping and direct selling), making sales forecasts, drawing up a road map based on trends and planning targeted marketing campaigns.
“The buying experience – he says Noelia Lázaro, Packlink Marketing Director – it is increasingly hybrid also in Italy: awareness has matured regarding the indispensability of planning a sales and relationship path based on the integration between online and offline. Not being present online with your own sales channel actually means limiting the growth potential of your business “.
The summer vacation period – highlights the study – can also bring new customers, but it can be counterproductive if the usual ones are neglected. It is therefore essential to always take care of the relationship with the customer, not only through quality assistance services and convenient shipping and returns policies, but by taking advantage of the relative summer calm also to make technical improvements to the platform, especially in terms of user experience. To ensure that the user is encouraged to buy, it is important that the site is attractive and user-friendly, that is, that the on-site stay is easy, to prevent the cart from being abandoned. To ensure this, it can be useful to test how long it takes your website to load and how many visits it can receive without slowing down. It is also important according to Packlink to try to create one good internal link architecture through banners and pop-ups of trending products to ensure that the user continues to visit the pages of the site, without abandoning it.
In the summer people spend more time online one winning strategy also leverages the pervasive power of mobile devices and social media. In this sense, – explains Packlink – on the one hand, it is necessary to ensure that e-commerce is easily accessible even from smartphones, and on the other hand to create a fresh and fun social plan, designed especially for those on vacation.
“In many cases, – underlines Lázaro – companies have approached multichannel in a rather elementary way, with online interaction methods and acquiring orders through social and / or instant messaging platforms, therefore not strictly e-commerce. In order to grow it is necessary to keep up with the market, to be curious about the possibilities offered by technology, without forgetting the end user “.