5 Must-Have eCommerce Store Features For Holiday Season

During the holiday season, consumers spend more money and time on eCommerce marketplaces and every year the competition among retailers grows fiercer. 

So, what are the ways to win?

Here is the good news: There are many ways but you need to act quickly in order to provide your consumer with what they expect. Several brands use tactics like free shipping, discounts, and flash sales to convert as many numbers of consumers as possible. 

However, even with these, it can be tedious to compel customers to shop with you instead of competitors. This article lists five advanced features that can actually help retailers get their piece of the pie by providing users with a seamless shopping experience.

So, let’s see what these are and try implementing them ASAP to get maximum returns.

1. BOPIS

According to a survey by Statista, one-third of consumers in the USA plan to increase their use of BOPIS during the festive season of 2022. The feature has acquired incredible traction in many countries across the globe, especially during the holiday season, and is now a much-expected feature by consumers.

Many consumers love BOPIS since it helps them eliminate the stress of holiday shopping, including out-of-stock items, crowded stores, and late delivery of products.

It provides them a chance to browse and order products online and they can later collect them at their convenience.

Along with consumers, this feature is beneficial for retailers as well. By integrating BOPIS, businesses can not only drive the foot traffic to physical stores but can also increase their sales and provide a positive CX. 

However, eCommerce businesses need to create a full-fledged BOPIS strategy to leverage its full advantages. From catering to holiday shoppers in a rush to maintaining a personal touch during the store visit, they have to take care of everything, which is only possible with a proper eCommerce store management strategy.

2. AI-Powered Chatbots for Support

The holiday season is the time of the year when retailers focus on attracting new customers, retaining the old ones, and generating sales. The efforts they make to achieve these goals result in increased traffic, customer complaints, early delivery, and several other requests.

To make the most of this opportunity, retailers should focus on solving every query the customers have to serve them in the best possible way. However, no business can be available 24/7. That is where AI-powered Chatbots can help!

They can provide multiple benefits to eCommerce businesses during the festive season, including:

• 24/7 availability
• Cart recovery
• Personalization
• Increased productivity of employees
• Effective and swift customer support

3. Smart Search

Holiday shoppers are often excited about their purchases. Thus, if they get lost in your website’s poor navigation or categorization of products while finding what they are looking for, it can lead to a bad customer experience resulting in loss of sales.

The most efficient way to avoid this problem is by integrating smart search capabilities in your online store. Using it, your customers will be able to find products faster and it will lead to higher conversion rates.

For example, the AI-powered live search feature by Adobe provides users with search-as-they-type results and helps retailers increase sales by up to 24%. 

If you are using Magento or Adobe Commerce, you will get this feature in-built. Else, you can consider installing extensions provided by third parties to leverage the benefits of a smart search feature. It should provide functions like autocomplete, type tolerance, and product suggestions.

Read: Live Video Shopping

4. Checkout Optimization

To optimize store conversions, it is crucial to improve your checkout process not just during the holiday season but all year round. Even your tech-savvy customers will not hesitate to abandon the cart if they find the checkout process complex or not what they expected. 

So, test the complete checkout process and find out if there is any resistance that could give users a hard time. If you find any, solve it immediately as nothing will harm your conversions more than a complex or faulty checkout process. Some more ways to add convenience during the checkout are:

• Additional Payment Methods: Offering customers more ways to pay helps you reduce friction during checkout. Remember, customers are highly specific about payment methods they use and they do not want to try new ones. Thus, if you are only accepting credit or debit cards presently, consider adding other methods like PayPal or GooglePay depending on what’s more popular in the area you are targeting. 

• Flexible Pick-Up or Delivery Options: Shipping costs or late delivery is one of the most common reasons why customers do not complete the checkouts. Thus, you must include multiple options when it comes to shipping to cater to the needs of all your potential customers. 

For example, some people would like to pay extra for fast deliveries, others might be fine with late deliveries instead of paying for fast options. Some others might like the option of curbside pickup. So, provide them with all the options and avoid the hassles that come with high cart abandonment rates.

5. Guest Checkouts

During the holiday season, many new users may visit your website in search of products. Guest Checkouts are crucial for these first-time visitors since you need to provide them with an excellent shopping experience without forcing them to fill long registration forms.

This feature will keep them hooked forever and will gradually help you turn them into your loyal consumers. Guest checkouts help merchants in more ways than one, including:

• It fastens the checkout process
• Add convenience to your CX
• Shows users that you are not after their data 

Wrapping Up

It may not be possible for you to integrate all the above-mentioned features into your online store. Don’t panic! You do not have to add them all either.

Just select two or three that best suit your needs and try implementing them as fast as you can. We hope you get success in converting more visitors into buyers and making your holiday sales a massive success. All the best!