The holidays are the best time of the year to boost sales, with customers eagerly looking out for the best sales and deals. And health and wellness brands can join in on the cheer and have great holiday season sales with the right strategies in place.
In this blog, we will tell you how to go about health and wellness Shopify store sale preparation.
Part 1: Preparing your store design for the sale season
Your health and wellness eCommerce brand’s performance during the sales season heavily relies on how well-optimized your store is. Here are a few steps to take to prepare the Shopify store for holiday sales.
Design a clear holiday-themed homepage
When the festivities of the holiday season start nearing, your website homepage should reflect this and join in on the cheer. Your homepage is the first thing that your customers see and the addition of on-brand, clear yet engaging festive touches can have a positive impact on holiday shoppers.
You can highlight bestsellers and seasonal products like themed gift sets or welcome customers with the best deals you have to offer. Without straying from your brand look, try to incorporate small seasonal details. For instance, for health and wellness companies, images with soft yellows, muted reds, as well as golds might be used to create a warm festive theme.
Here is an example from Lume:
Simplify navigation and CTAs
Around 94% of users are of the opinion that easy navigation is the most useful feature of a website, making it extremely important to simplify the navigability of your health and wellness Shopify store. A streamlined navigation structure along with clear call-to-action can play a huge role in making the holiday shopping experience you provide easy and enjoyable.
You can include holiday-specific categories on the main home page to help customers get the best prices and best deals easily. Your CTAs can also use holiday-specific wording like “Gift Now” or “Shop Holiday Deals” so that they are directly led to the relevant sections or product pages without any hassle.
Improve product pages with enhanced information
Detailed and well-organized product pages can sell better and that is an undeniable eCommerce fact. Customers are bombarded with a lot of options during the holiday season but they will only go with the product that they trust and to ensure trust it is important that you provide all the essential information on the product page.
Information can go beyond mere descriptions, so include user-generated and lifestyle images to enhance the product page. You can also list out the ingredients, benefits of using, instructions or suggestions on usage etc. to ensure that the customers are perfectly informed before they complete the purchase.
Have a look at how Golde is doing this:
Ensure a smooth mobile experience
As of September 2024, 66.3% of sales in the health and wellness market occur through mobile devices. So, by extension, a majority of your holiday shoppers will be browsing your store through a smartphone. Hence, it is important that your store is well-optimized for mobile users, especially at the peak of the holiday season.
Try to improve load times and optimize the speed of your website for better mobile performance. Features like expandable menus are a great way to provide easy access to important links and pages without excessive scrolling. Additionally, easy payment methods that streamline the checkout experience can make for a seamless holiday mobile shopping experience.
Prepare for last-minute purchasers with stock indicators
You need to be prepared for last-minute shoppers and have a way of showcasing your stocks during the holiday rush. Your health and wellness low store can display stock alerts such as “Low Stock” or “Only a Few Left” to not only alert customers of your stock but also create a sense of urgency.
You also need to highlight shipping deadlines by adding clear information about cut-off dates for holiday shipping, such as “Order by December 15th for Guaranteed Christmas Delivery.” This can help alert last-minute shoppers exactly when they need to complete their purchase.
Recommended reading: Shopify Design Best Practices for BFCM and the Holiday Season Sale
Part 2: Strategic tips to prepare your store for the sale season
Below are a few more essential strategies and wellness eCommerce sale tips to strengthen your Health store sales strategy and make the most out of the sale season.
Plan and manage inventory with an ERP system
If you have an online and physical store, make sure your inventory is synced between them to avoid overselling or unplanned stockouts. You can handle this more effectively with the aid of an ERP system that will let you centralize inventory management. This way you can gain real-time visibility into stock levels, manage supply chains, and sync inventory across all channels. An ERP system also reduces the risk of overselling and helps you proactively restock high-demand items.
You can also set minimum stock levels for popular products to account for unexpected spikes in demand. With an ERP system in place, you can set automatic reorder triggers, minimizing the risk of running out during peak periods.
Set up email marketing campaigns to drive repeat visits
Email marketing has a staggering average return on investment of 3600% making it a reliable way to encourage repeat visits and sales from your customers. Email marketing can be highly effective for retaining customer interest, especially during the holiday rush. Your emails can serve diverse purposes including “coming soon” announcements, sale launch alerts, special holiday content, post-purchase “thank you” messages and more.
Segment your audience and send personalized, targeted campaigns for the best results. For example, you can share early-bird deals and special sneak peeks into the sales for your loyal customers while offering unique greetings and coupons for relatively new customers.
Utilize discount codes and limited-time offers
One of the most important tips for health and wellness Shopify store sale preparation is to perfectly leverage discounts and limited-time offers. Incentives and special prices are what make the wait for the holiday season worth it for most customers. You can strategically employ different types of discounts to stand out from competitors during the holiday sale season.
Value-based holiday discount bundles of complementary products are a great way to increase average order value. Tiered discounts that offer better discounts for higher order values are also a great way to encourage more purchases. You can also implement limited-time offers with countdown timers on the site to create urgency for specific deals. You could highlight a “Deal of the Day” for a specific product category, and nudge visitors to make quick purchase decisions.
Prepare your customer service team for a higher volume
Starting around BFCM, there is a 79% increase in support tickets on average during the Holiday season, with the high volume persisting till the last week of December. This means that this will be a challenging time for your support team unless they are well-trained and prepared for this.
Start by training your staff on the key holiday policies such as return and exchange options, and shipping cut-offs. You also need to prepare answers for common queries in advance to streamline support and reduce response times. Live chat or AI chatbots can be used effectively for answering FAQs so that your team can focus on more complex inquiries.
Ramp up your ad spend and retargeting campaigns
Seasonal promotions for wellness stores can only have the desired results if they reach the right audience and engage customers. Hence you will need to increase your ad spending and refine your retargeting campaigns to ensure visibility and conversion during this competitive season.
Ads can reflect the holiday theme with holiday specific keywords, so as to easily reach the customers looking for health and wellness products within your niche. Users who have recently visited or left products in their cart, as well as previous customers who made purchases around the same time last year, can be sent promotional messages reminding them of special deals or limited-time discounts.
Track and adjust in real-time
Finally, the best tip for a successful holiday season sales boost is to constantly be on top of your strategies and campaigns. Monitor your performance and make real-time adjustments to help you swiftly capitalize on trends and respond to customer needs as they evolve.
Shopify analytics can help you track important metrics such as site traffic, product views, and cart abandonment rates, which will help you understand how shoppers are interacting with your store and quickly identify any bottlenecks.
It is also highly advised that you run A/B tests on different creatives, email subject lines, homepage banners, etc. to determine what drives sales and engagement effectively.
Recommended reading: Top Shopify eCommerce Holiday Marketing Strategies to Skyrocket Your Sales
Conclusion
It is usual to be stressed as the holiday sale season edges closer. But with the right strategies in place, you are all ready to face the peak season and increase your sales.
Too many things to take care of or need additional help? Our Shopify experts can help you get ready for the holiday season sales - from design adjustments, conversion optimization to marketing and keeping your site ready for the high traffic periods.
