Published on December 08, 2013 6 website marketing ideas for your online store
How do you increase spending in your online shop?
Whether you’re a new or an existing online store, increasing the amount of in-store spending as well as growing term sales is always an important objective. Right now, with Christmas right on our doorstep, online shops will be ready to try and grab as much of the Australian Christmas shopper dollar as they can. If you have a website with online shopping cart, or have just set one up with Ozcart, here are some non-advertising based promotional ideas that you can use in your online store this Christmas.
Get 20% off a particular category
For your Christmas, boxing day or clearance sales, a quick 20% off a particular category or category and subcategories allows you to run “fire sales” for hungry bargain shoppers. With these types of sales, the original price is shown as a strike-through with the new, reduced price shown in a different colour. If you’re also using Ozcart’s built-in website stickers component you can show a “sale” overlay over your product images.
How to set up this promotion in Ozcart:
In your store admin, you can turn on product stickers first and then go into the promotions screen of your shopping cart admin and choose to start a new catalog promotion. Choose the categories you want the promotion to apply to as conditions and the bonus as the percentage off, and you’re away. Don’t forget to set a beginning and end date for your promotion or it will either end too early or run forever.
How much off should you offer? This depends on what your customers are used to, what your profit margins are on your products and what your competitors are offering in current or recent sales. Everything is relative.
Gift Giving – spend $50 get a $10 gift voucher
Offering a gift voucher for orders over a particular amount will encourage spending, build loyalty and generate new business. Ozcart allows this kind of promotion to be set up without having to use a discount code, which makes it easy for your customers to take advantage of the promotion and for you to promote on your blog or Facebook page.
How to set up this promotion in Ozcart:
In the admin panel of your site, choose to set up a new shopping cart promotion, choose your spending level as the condition and a gift voucher as the bonus. Add an end date if you wish and you’re done!
Bonus reward points
Reward points is a powerful way to grow customer loyalty – look no further than the success of programmes like Fly Buys or Woolworths Everyday Rewards for the proof of their success in the Australian market. You can set up and run your own rewards/loyalty programme from inside your Ozcart store and as a Christmas or startup promotion offer bonus points for spending over a certain amount (e.g. $50).
How to set up this promotion in Ozcart:
In the admin panel of your website, choose to set up a new shopping cart promotion, choose your spending level as the condition and to give points as the bonus. Add an end date if you wish and once again, you’re done!
Spend over $50 and get a free product
Free products are a great enticement, provided that the prize product is appealing and relevant to your target audience. Well chosen, they can help drive additional sales and increase store spending. A great point of difference between you and a closely fought competitive rivalry from a competitor whose shopping cart technology cannot offer this functionality.
How to set up this promotion in Ozcart:
Setting up a free gift product as a promotion is made easy in Ozcart. Simply set up a new promotion in your store’s admin panel and for the condition set your spending level as for the examples above. Then, for bonuses choose “free products”. You can choose the product or products that the customer gets for reaching the spending threshold that you have defined.
50% off coupon for a limited time
Coupons are a staple of e-commerce stores, and there are many coupon sites that you can advertise your promotions on when they are running. To set up a coupon in Ozcart, all you have to do is set up a new shopping cart promotion and set your condition as “Coupon code”. Give your coupon a name e.g. SALENOW, and then on the bonuses tab set the amount of the discount that is received e.g. 50 for 50%. Easy!
Free shipping for orders over $50
Anxiety over shipping costs is one of the major reasons that potential customers abandon carts. If you are already offering free shipping for orders over a certain limit, then lowering it for Xmas, or temporarily removing it altogether, can help make the buying decision easier for your customers and increase the chances that they complete checkout. Free shipping thresholds in Ozcart can be set up as a promotion like one of the ones above, or through editing your shipping setup in your store – so if you want to set this up please feel free to contact our Support team via our easy-to-use online support system and they can advise you on the most appropriate option for your store.
Other promotional ideas for your online shop
Besides specific shopping cart promotions, there are a number of other promotional tactics that you can try in your online store to improve the chances of shopping cart conversion and increasing the rate of spend in your store. For example, what about trying your own advent calendar promotion for Christmas, with 12 offers in 12 days? (or 12 offers in 12 hours, or 12 offers all at once – whatever is most appropriate for your business and market). You could use Ozcart’s gift registry or wish list feature to help people set up their own Christmas lists. You could try running some promotions on your Facebook pages, or you could drop flyers in your local area if your customers are predominantly local.
There are a number of promotional tools at your disposal in shopping cart software applications like Ozcart to fit in with a range of different marketing objectives and approaches. This Christmas take the time to find out what your shopping cart can do and think about whether your competitors have the edge over you with more flexibility to run powerful promotions to your target customers. Is it time to switch?
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