It’s that time again, when parents across the country battle back-to-school lists and fight the never-ending battle of getting books covered in Contact smoothly without the dreaded bubble. Our expertise lies in e-commerce, not in bubble-free book covering, which is why we offer you these top tips as we head to the end of one school year and the beginning of a new one.
Timing
The school year is about to end but there are still months left until the new school year begins. Many shoppers will begin shopping as soon as the school list is out, while others will finish up some time in February 2019. This is a massive shopping period, and one that you need to take advantage of. Make sure your campaigns take into account the early-bird shoppers and the last-minute ones.
The most successful back-to-school sellers are the ones that focus on delivering the best possible experience to customers with marketing, selling and fulfilment activities that get the right products in front of the right people … at just the right time.
Channel Crossing
Make sure you leverage the multichannel experience. While many are flocking online to complete their back-to-school list, others still prefer a mix of online and instore or in-store only. Equally, the spread between different devices is also high. Many bargain-hunt between stores looking for the best value and others want the convenience of being able to tick things off a list to get the job done. This means you need to price your products accordingly, make purchasing as easy as possible to encourage conversions and ensure that the purchase experience is seamless between all devices.
Learnings
We’re talking about school, after all. So, what have you learnt since last year? How have your customers been finding you? How did your social campaigns track? How was your marketplace performance? What were your conversion rates and cart abandonment rates and what influenced these? Data is more important now than ever before and with the tools available to track and manage your data, it’s practically a cheat sheet to success!
Position yourself, even if you don’t sell back to school products!
Ok, so maybe you don’t sell textbooks or pencils or lined paper. But your consumers are online right now shopping away. So why wouldn’t you want to make shopping as easy as possible? With Click Frenzy, Christmas, Boxing Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and School Shopping all converging, you need to be a part of the action. So while parents might be shopping for the best deal on a tablet or textbooks, don’t think that a great deal on a bottle of red wouldn’t be particularly tempting right now!
Do you have a plan? Is your presence optimised on digital marketing channels? Do you have promotions ready on marketplaces? How is your social strategy? Download ChannelAdvisor’s eBook The Retailer’s Guide to Back to School E-Commerce here.
