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12 tips to prepare your online business for the Christmas season


1. Start early and plan your marketing in advance

Marketing is usually a long run, so it's essential that you prepare your strategy well in advance before your customers even start thinking about shopping for Christmas. As the saying goes, "It was too late yesterday." So you should start planning sooner than you think. By early November, be ready to launch and have the information you need for your staff.

If you're considering marketing for the long term, SEO (search engine optimization) is undoubtedly something you won't solve overnight. If you want to gain domain authority and generate new, organic traffic through SEO, start now. The results of search engine optimization campaigns usually take more than 6 months to show up, with noticeable results usually taking more than 1 year.

Tip: Google Support also has advice on how to improve your performance over the holidays with new ad and stats features.

2. Create a Christmas theme across all channels

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, decorating it will create a festive shopping environment and get customers in the mood. However, since people spend a lot of time in the digital space these days, you need to make sure that the Christmas theme of your cannabis store/shop is consistent and well communicated across the website, social media channels and other third-party e-commerce sales channels you may be using.

Your e-store isn't the only area where you can spread the Christmas cheer. Think about other sales channels such as:

  • Social media: Upgrade your product catalogue and tag items to sell on Facebook and Instagram, but remember to keep up to date with current legislation regarding cannabinoids.
  • Stone Shops: Link your efforts across online and offline channels.
  • International sales: You can also consider cross-border sales.


 


3. Adjust your merchandising strategy and introduce your holiday merchandise

It's important to update your merchandising strategy and showcase your Christmas products. Determine which products you will sell this season. Do you have specific gift packages that your target audience requires? What about some popular seasonal products?

Think about how you want to display holiday items on your website. For example, you could create a navigation focused on Christmas, making gift shopping easier by directing them to one place. Sometimes online stores make the mistake of not creating separate landing pages for their special offers, which is a shame. You can give your landing page a festive touch to boost your digital marketing efforts. This will give customers a clear idea of your unusual offers and increase holiday conversion rates.

The layout and design of your site should include several search features: 

  • concise menus
  • a prominently displayed search bar (you may consider advertising best-selling products and high-converting categories right at the top of the home page)

The sooner you trap shoppers on what they want to buy, the better. Simply help them find what they need. The search data you use for SEO can help you with your site search. Make sure your site search results show the exact products to help shoppers find exactly what they're looking for. Customers will get to your products faster and their seamless shopping experience won't go unanswered. Consumers are loyal to brands that make their shopping experience easier, especially during the holidays. If they run into trouble and can't find what they need on your site, they'll go elsewhere to find it. 

Your website also needs to reflect your brand. Don't overwhelm shoppers with too many options or excess information. Keep your site as simple and easy to navigate as possible to give them a convenient and easy path to checkout. Modify the site for mobile viewing as well.

4. Offer Christmas sales and promotions

How can you give your customers the opportunity to save money and increase your sales at the same time? Offer promotions such as buying 2 free pieces of selected accessories, exciting discounts and seasonal sales. Many people start their Christmas shopping and bargain hunting as early as November because of promotions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You can also try out limited-time sales during off-peak hours to entice more customers by running some promotions for just 1-2 hours during the day or for a few hours in the evening/morning, for example. 

Referral marketing also works well, where you give the customer a discount for the referral. You will probably also want to run Christmas-themed promotions, such as new offers 14 days before Christmas, discounted product combinations or limited editions. For example, you could offer 2-for-1 shredders, 3-for-2 cartridges, a second CBD oil at 50% off, or a 10-day discount on the most popular vaporizers. These promotions will get your customers in the Christmas spirit and more importantly, secure more sales. Impress shoppers with your products and they'll stick with you until next year. 🙂

Also include a gift card program in your strategy for the Christmas season, as most people prefer to gift their loved ones with just a voucher so they can get themselves what they want.  It also pays to have a rewards or loyalty program in place before the holidays that is tailored to your brand.


 


5. Start email marketing 

Emailing is one of the most effective ways you can promote your cannabis business. You can regularly update your customers on your latest offers, promotions, new products and product launches. To make your email marketing make sense, also incorporate the different seasons of the year, including various holidays and events.

You'll probably want to start sending out Christmas-themed emails earlier than December. Send emails with fun and eye-catching items with a holiday theme to encourage customers to browse your offerings and start shopping for cannabis gifts. 

Another thing that works well is to send personalized greetings to your subscribers during the holiday season. Simply writing a simple email with the subject line, for example, "Green Merry Christmas" can work well, especially if you include their name in the subject line. Also consider giving them a discount voucher as a gift to encourage them to buy directly from you. 

To implement this idea, you need an email marketing system that can handle it left-handed. Modern email sending tools are so intuitive that you can send an email in minutes. All you need is registration with one of the software, internet access and a database of contacts. Popular email tools include SmartEmailing, Mailchimp, Ecomail and GetResponse.

6. Give your customers gift ideas

Usually, customers don't really know where to start because of the sheer amount of choice. This is especially true when it comes to products about which they are poorly informed. Help them by creating articles on your blog or videos suggesting gift ideas so that they are able to choose a cannabis product for their family members, partner and friends.

With posts focused on Christmas cannabis gifts, you'll alert potential customers to your best products and pique their interest to get them for their loved ones. Also promote the articles and posts through social media, emails and other marketing methods. 

7. Work on customer service

Expect some customers to contact your customer service about what to buy for their grandparents, parents and friends. Make sure your employees are prepared for the questions they ask customers to help them make choices and give them specific tips on the best gifts. Remember, if you also offer gift packages, you need to stress to your staff to offer them as a priority. 

It probably doesn't need to be explained at length that you're in for a busy period, as holiday shopping means increased traffic for your online store. There's certainly nothing worse than having a website outage during one of these prime periods causing you to lose customers and your earnings.

8. Check how your website is performing

To be ready for the holidays, you need your site to be scalable and stable to handle the increased demands on your web infrastructure. It's a good idea to work on speed and security, with a direct correlation between page load speed and sales. In short, your website must perform despite increased traffic. Check with your e-commerce provider for up-to-date statistics to see how you're protected.

Another thing you can do is enable cart abandonment notifications. There may be several reasons why a customer changed their mind and left your site with a full cart of items. If you send him a push notification, you will remind him of the products he left in the cart in order to persuade him to complete the purchase. Plus, abandoned cart emails have excellent conversion rates.


 


9. Make sure you have inventory

An increased number of shoppers means one thing, and that's an increased need for inventory. Want to avoid long wait times and frustrated customers? Don't want disappointed customers who freak out when their essential gift is out of stock or on backorder? Then contact your suppliers now to ensure you are adequately stocked, especially when it comes to specialty gift items. With us, you are assured of the largest selection of cannabis products, so don't hesitate to order your items.

Headset (a major source of data and analysis on the cannabis market) has reported that sales increase significantly over Christmas, with products such as refills, drinks and edibles becoming increasingly popular as a substitute for cannabis flower. Even in the weeks leading up to the festive season in 2019, sales of edibles increased by almost 40%. So it's crucial to pay attention to these trends and make the most of this festive season. So get a good stock of edibles and cannabis cosmetics ready, as they're likely to be in high demand.

10. Consider hiring additional labour

Do you expect your cannabis e-shop to be particularly busy? The Christmas rush can be hard to handle, so think about your staffing strategy.

For example, you can hire new reinforcements for your store, temporary workers to help with packing packages, and new customer service staff to take care of any queries and complaints promptly. Be in control of your preparations for the festive season.

11. Put together a plan for packing and shipping your packages

To implement a fabulous customer experience strategy, you need a clear plan on where to sell your products and how to ship and handle orders.

Therefore, determine how you will carry out the packaging and shipping of your products. During the Christmas season, you will most likely see a surge in orders, so you need to know how you will handle shipping and delivery.

You can choose from 3 options:

  • Arrange your own shipping and order fulfillment
  • Use an external logistics provider for shipping and packaging
  • Outsource shipping and fulfillment to a dropshipper

Preferably put together the process of picking, packing and shipping your packages right now. Focus on the parts you can automate, find weak spots for manual data entry and what can cause user error. 

Automate your shipping processes. With shipping software, you get access to a single dashboard where you can compare rates, print labels, manage orders, bulk print shipping labels, and reconcile shipping bills. You can also set shipping rules to automatically select the cheapest rate, fastest method, and more.

Think about different shipping options, too, given that some consumers shop last-minute and others purchase gifts months in advance. If you have this choice at checkout, it will make the buying decision noticeably easier.

The holidays are a time when you need to be a little more flexible with your return policy and provide convenience to your customers. This is simply because returns just happen (product is defective, expectations were not met). Build trust by making sure your return policies are completely transparent and fair. One survey revealed that 96% of consumers will return to companies that have made it as easy as possible for them to return and exchange goods. 


 


12. Bet on attractive packaging

Create a unique unboxing experience for your products. Try the following tips to amplify the delivery and unboxing experience:

  • Add a festive offline element to the online shopping experience. For example, include gummies, lighters, papers and other small items with orders over a certain price to engage your customers.
  • Spruce up the unboxing experience and plan to include some extras. Put aside plain brown boxes full of bubble wrap for now and try including some extras, such as cards with QR codes containing personal and holiday thank-you notes from you or links leading to product-related content.


Conclusion

If you prepare well for the Christmas season, before you know it you'll be rejoicing at the outpouring of positive customers eager to make their loved ones happy. If you're looking for a reliable supplier, turn to us. We have the largest selection of hemp products, a wide range of CBD products including cannabinoids such as THCV, THCP, H4CBD, HHC, HHC-P, HHC-O, CBN-P at great prices, from both foreign and Czech manufacturers. 

We wish you many happy customers and high sales this holiday season. Have a Merry Christmas! 🎄

 


 

Photo: Shutterstock

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