Creative Ways to Leverage Your Brand Store this Holiday Season
It’s officially the start of Q4, and with the Covid-19 Pandemic still looming, you’ll need to be prepared for the shift in holiday shopping habits.
Covid-19 has transformed consumer behavior. We’ve seen a surge in e-commerce, a decline in discretionary spending and overall reduced shopping frequency, which will no doubt continue into the holiday season. In the past, Amazon has exceeded their Q4 sales records. However this year might look a bit different – e-commerce holiday sales are expected to skyrocket as more shoppers are shopping digitally over traditional brick-and-mortar holiday shopping.
To meet demand and make the most out of this pivotal sales window, you’ll need to make sure your Amazon strategy is optimized in time. According to People, over half of Americans are already shopping online for the holidays, simply because they’re bored at home. Many retailers are also planning to start promotions as early as October this year, with Prime Day (October 13-14) being the impetus for the start of holiday shopping.
Put simply, if you haven’t already started prepping for this year’s holiday season on Amazon, it’s time to get the ball rolling.
An effective and relatively quick way to start holiday preparations is by creating a Holiday Brand Store. Having a curated holiday destination where shoppers can window shop and browse for gifts will not only improve the customer’s experience but drive conversion as well. A holiday brand store drives sales and increases brand awareness, while allowing you to show off your brand’s personality and get creative with your marketing strategy.
Here are a few festive ideas to get your gears turning:
- Holiday Shop: Create a dedicated holiday shop within your brand store. If you don’t have a large product assortment or catalog variety to support a full gift guide, this is a great opportunity to drive additional traffic to key styles.
- Gift Guide: If you have a large catalog, you have enough assortment to build a dedicated gift guide. Merchandise pages by gift type or recipient – for example “gifts for him,” “gifts for her” or “gifts for kids”.
- Cross-Promote Existing Pages: If you don’t have any holiday-specific initiatives in place, there are alternative strategies you can employ. One example is the utilization of existing brand store pages. Add a feature banner on your homepage to drive traffic to an existing category or subpage.
- Utilize Marketing Collateral: Repurpose existing holiday marketing materials from holiday copy to themed assets and imagery. If you don’t have the budget or availability of assets, get creative. Think of alternative ways to work with what you have.
- Holiday or Product Focus: Set up a featured subpage that can be easily adjusted or re-merchandised throughout the holiday season. Add visual interest by refreshing brand store creatives, adjusting the product assortment or updating the page for each “holiday” – the opportunities are endless.
- Kits & Bundles: Think of ways you can apply holiday themes to your existing inventory. For example, create a subpage with smaller items and market them as “stocking stuffers” or create bundles and direct the messaging toward the holiday gifting.
If you want to implement a brand store refresh in time for Prime Day on October 13th, we recommend keeping it simple, yet effective. There’s only one week left, so create a plan and execute. Remember: you can now create brand store versions, so try to front load and schedule as much as possible before the end of October.
Need help preparing for the holidays on Amazon? We can help: