August is in full swing. While the majority of school-aged youth want nothing more than to enjoy the rest of summer, business owners have something else on their minds. It’s back to school season! In about one month’s time, classrooms all over Canada will be filled again. Naturally, this is the perfect time of year to launch back to school promotions.
In our last blog, we listed some ways that you can prepare your online store for the back to school shopping rush. They included turning up the heat on social media, offering a minimum purchase discount and sending out cart abandonment emails.
Here are three more ways to make your website a hot back-to-school shopping spot:
1. Ensure your online store is mobile-friendly.
Keep in mind that today’s consumers regularly utilize their smartphones to both research companies and make purchases. If your e-commerce site isn’t easy to navigate on a mobile device, it won’t get much traction. Be sure to confer with your website’s graphic designer about the site’s mobile-friendliness.
“E-commerce spending is up over 30% (since the pandemic), and businesses have had to quickly adapt,” Splitit informs, “Consumers want access to stores on their phones, whether it’s books or beauty products, and this trend is likely to continue as the new school year approaches.”
2. Make your offers visible on all channels.
Your high-quality products and competitive pricing won’t garner much attention if you don’t go all out with promoting them. In today’s world, you have many different channels that you can use to advertise your back to school offerings. Utilize your email subscriber list by sending out a newsletter. Alert all of your social media followers through attention-grabbing posts. As Anna Baluch of Forbes points out, social media marketing helps to generate leads.
“Thanks to features such as appointment booking and call-to-action buttons, Facebook and Instagram shops, and direct messaging, you can generate leads and conversions through social media,” she writes, “Leads and conversions are a sure way to increase your revenue.”
3. Update your site with back to school messaging.
Perhaps, it should go without saying. But let’s say it anyways. Update your website! Make sure there is plenty of back to school imagery and messaging throughout each page. Make it clear to each and every visitor that your e-commerce site is the place to be for back to school savings. Splitit shares a number of ways to do this.
“Some ideas for websites involve using popups (also known as overlays or dialogue boxes) to bring attention to new sale items added or encourage an email signup (you’re only limited by your imagination when it comes to popups),” informs their website, “You could also run special promotions or incentives for back-to-school merchandise. You could even try using callouts for items such as ‘perfect for back to school’ or ‘get back-to-school ready’ with specific items.”
Are you all set up with an e-commerce site?
Syncing your payment processing with your online shopping cart is now easier than ever with Unity Payments’ e-commerce payment solutions! We provide a direct connection to our powerful and reliable processing network, which can help eliminate the costs and complexities of dealing with a third-party gateway provider. To learn more, call us at 1-800-661-3761 or email us at info@unitypayments.ca.