4 Leading Ecommerce Trends to Leverage During the 2022 Holiday Season

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Contributions by our panelists from Tydo, Treet, and EcoCart. 

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The holiday sales season is right around the corner—and it’s going to be big. If Amazon’s record-breaking Prime Day this year was any indicator, customers are ready to shop. For ecommerce brands, this is an exciting opportunity to drive sales, reach new customers, and end the year on a high note. 

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But it won’t be an easy feat. 

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With rising CAC and changing consumer behavior, among other factors, brands have quite a few hurdles to overcome if they want to stand out from the crowd and acquire new customers. Luckily, there are several innovative tools brands can leverage to do this. 

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Last week, we joined our friends at Ecocart, Tydo, and Treet in a discussion about the top four ecommerce trends that brands should leverage for this holiday season. Read on for our major takeaways that can help you succeed. 

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1. Know Your Customers, Drive Repeat Sales with QR Codes

Our CEO and co-founder Kait Stephens discussed how brands can leverage QR codes to educate customers, acquire first-party data, and drive loyalty & reorder.

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QR codes have become a key part of omnichannel marketing. In fact, QR codes are expected to replace barcodes in retail by 2027. This holiday season is the perfect time to hop on this rocket ship.

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We’ll explore the many ways you can leverage QR codes to get the most out of this holiday season. To begin, there are three key areas that brands should focus on when strategizing:

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• Shopper behavior
• CAC and Customer Retention 
• Gifting

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Shopper Behavior

If we take a look at where customers usually shop during the holidays, it comes to no surprise that a lot of traffic is going to retailers. Last year, Amazon captured nearly 18% of all Black Friday dollars, more than any other retailer. Coupled with the fact that more than 50% of ecommerce sales are through Amazon, brands can’t miss out on selling through retailers this holiday season. But while these marketplaces are great for driving traffic, they also drive up a data wall.

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What this means is that brands need first-party data more than ever. This is where QR codes come in. When brands leverage QR codes on products or product inserts, they have a reliable way to engage new customers, collect first-party data, and drive retention. Given that 70% of BFCM purchases are mobile, Brij’s mobile-first QR code experiences help brands meet customers where they are.   

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CAC and Customer Retention

Acquiring new customers is getting more expensive. In fact, following Apple’s privacy changes back in 2021, the cost of customer acquisition (CAC) surged 200% that year! This means that brands should maximize their sales effort by driving retention with new customers. With QR codes, brands can bring retail customers directly into their ecommerce experience and encourage reorder, subscription opt-in, and much more.

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Gifting

Approximately one-fifth of Black Friday spend is on gifts. With gifting, brands don’t know who the end recipient is, missing out on opportunities to convert them. This is where QR codes can bridge the gap and allow brands insight into who these customers are. 

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Bottom Line: When you leverage QR codes on your products or product inserts, you can sell in 3rd party channels knowing that you won’t be sacrificing customer data. Knowing who these customers are makes creating personalized experiences and driving retention much easier. 

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Learn more about Brij here.

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2. Prep Your Store for Holiday Hyper-Growth with Analytics

Blair Beckwith, Director of Partnerships at Tydo, advised brands to lay the foundation early and focus on maximizing key analytics to prepare for the holiday hyper-growth.

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How early are brands preparing for BFCM? Nearly a month in advance, which is why it is critical that you prep your foundation now. With analytics, you can make better, more informed decisions to improve your business. To set the stage, we start by organizing metrics into clusters, each of which tells a story about a particular aspect of your business and where you can improve.

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These are four clusters of the most important high-level metrics:

1. Key performance metrics. Keep a constant pulse on total sales, total spend, users, conversion rate, and AOV.  
2. Sales Data. Know where your dollars are coming from by comparing your sales over time, identifying high-performing products, and understanding first-time versus repeat orders. 
3. Site Performance. Know who is coming to your site and if they are converting. 
4. Channel Efficiency. Confirm that your ad spend is moving the needle, and focus on ad spend, conversion by medium, and channel performances. 

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To prepare for the holiday hyper-growth, merchants need to measure and optimize three metrics: 

• Onsite conversions. To improve your site performance, keep an eye on your AOV per segment, time on site, and desktop vs. mobile behavior. Knowing that the majority (70%) of BFCM sales are made on mobile devices, make sure your mobile experience is frictionless. There are several creative ways you can increase onsite conversions—ever tried using an exit offer quiz? 

• Average Order Value. To increase AOV, you need to increase the amount your customers are spending. For the holidays in particular, you should leverage digital gifting and upsells. Both stages of gifting—the gift card purchase and redemption—are opportunities for increasing AOV. In fact, nearly 87% of recipients say they are likely to spend more than the value of the gift card. With upsells, you can showcase recommendations in the post-purchase experience, such as in the order confirmation page or thank-you email.

• Paid Media Spend. Paid ads is a powerful acquisition channel for ecommerce brands. The key to optimizing this channel is to leverage your data and update your strategy in real-time. 

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Bottom Line: By measuring and optimizing your key metrics, you can prepare more strategically and get the most out of the holiday hyper-growth. 

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Learn more about Tydo here.