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Author: Anna R., October 09, 2024
It is so farEvery e-commerce coach starts again,d to talk about Q4. But what exactly is Q4 and what makes it so relevant for e-commerce? Q4 is known to be the lastthree months of the calendar year. In e-commerce, it is but not only that. When online retailers talk about Q4, they mean the most profitable time of the year. Caused mainly by the Christmas business, which starts slowly in October, Black Friday comes right in the middle, which sets new records every year. There is enormous potential for print on demand retailers in particular. Clothing is electrical items the product that is most used by Germans at this timet is purchased. Wer in these times does not accelerate, leaves sales behind.
With Halloween The hot phase starts on October 31.10st. You should have everything prepared by then so that you can focus entirely on increasing your sales. The spooky day is perfect for starting with the first tests.
Also the Singles' Day on the 11.11., which is also the beginning of Carnival, you can use for further tests. Analyse the results of Halloween and Singles' Day and use the findings for your Ad Strategy in Black Week and the Christmas season, when real sales potential awaits you.
You then have two weeks to complete your Black Week campaigns to optimize with the new findings. Then it starts on 25.11. with the Black Week, which will be Black Friday (29.11.) and on Cyber Monday (02.12.) reached its peak.
Then we are right into the Christmas season. From now on, people are only buying for others. The weeks with the highest sales of the year are coming up and it is time to profit from them. Everything is based on the Last Shipping Day (19.12.), the finale of the Christmas shopping season. All purchases must be made by this day, and you should have used up your advertising budget by this point.
Depending on your niche, it might be a good idea to launch a small New Year's campaign on January 01.01st, provided you can bring good intentions into your niche.
ANALYSIS
Evaluate data: Analyze the existing data, if available from last Q4, otherwise use what you have. Identify your bestsellers and see which ads have performed best in the past.
Prepare analysis tools: Because of the high expected traffic to your site, you should also set up your analysis tools in good time and define your goals.
ONLINE SHOP
Adjust the assortment: Now integrate Christmas and especially winter products. Hoodies and sweatshirts as well as hats are a must. Remove the summer products and use the space for items that will actually sell in the coming months.
Create gifts: Think of a digital product that you can add for free to an offer and create it (ideally using Canva). If that doesn't work for your niche, you can alternatively add a product that is inexpensive to purchase, such as stickers, keychains or even socks and mugs. Keep an eye on your pricing policy and calculate how expensive it can be so that you don't make a loss.
Install required apps: To get the most out of Q4, various Shopify apps can be a huge help. For Black Friday, the email app Klaviyo is practically indispensable. Ultimate Sales Boost, on the other hand, offers you a variety of options to increase sales in your online shop. Find out which apps really help you and use them correctly. Use a few apps sensibly, not a lot of apps a little bit.
Here you can find the most important apps: Top 5 Shopify Apps
MARKETING
Generate leads: Until the hot phase begins, focus on collecting email addresses for your newsletter. To generate as many contacts as possible in a short time, you have the following options:
Target group segmentation: Plan different campaigns for individual customer segments. Since many products are now being bought as gifts, you can now test completely new target groups. Determine exactly how you will segment your target groups for the next few months and address them accordingly, depending on the target group.
Create a marketing plan: Prepare a calendar based on upcoming events in which you enter exactly which activities and actions should take place on which days and when and how you will communicate them. This will help you keep track of things in the coming months and will give you a good basis for creating and planning your measures.
Preparing marketing communications: Now take care of everything that can be done in advance. Create creatives, organic social media posts, write ad copies and email newsletter texts, plan everything using tools so that everything that can be automated is automated. You should also plan your advertisements early if possible, as the servers can be overloaded right before the most important days.
Customer Support
More customers also means more customer support. To reduce the number of inquiries via email, you should expand the FAQ section in your shop and place it prominently. Above all, the return policy should be clearly communicated, as this plays a particularly important role when buying gifts. Extend the returnIf necessary, extend the offer to four weeks in order to be able to attract gift buyers early on. To process email inquiries as efficiently as possible, it makes sense to create pre-written responses to standard inquiries that you only have to copy as a reply. Chat GPT can be a great help in formulating these.
Discounts: The classic that always works. Make sure to only run the discount campaigns for a short time to create urgency. Avoid standard discounts like 10% off everything. Since every online shop has discounts in their shop during Q4, you have to think about how you can stand out.
bundles: By creating and selling bundles, you have several advantages. Firstly, by combining several products, you automatically increase the average order value. This means that you can also spend more money on new customers. Furthermore, you create a special offer, especially if you offer the bundle at a lower price than the individual components. This offer can also be perfect as a gift, which is an additional benefit in the run-up to Christmas.
Free gifts: People love free things. Take advantage of this by adding a gift to orders over a certain purchase value. Digital products are suitable for this, such as a recipe collection in the vegan niche, a training plan in the fitness niche or a goal planner in the motivational niche. Get creative and come up with something that gives your target group additional value. If necessary, use ChatGPT to help you come up with ideas and create content. If there is no digital product in your niche, you can instead add a small physical product that is as inexpensive as possible for you to buy and is a good combination with your products.
Social commitment: This may not necessarily increase your profits, but it is a good way to draw attention to yourself and your brand, which you need to reach your sales goals. Think about how you can implement social engagement per sale and communicate it widely to both increase your awareness and improve your image.
Adjust your targeting and ads for the gift-giving season. Men's products can suddenly be targeted at women.
Offer free returns over the Christmas period and extend the cancellation period to 4 weeks. This will make customers more likely to buy the products as gifts.
Be brave and scale your advertising budget. In order to achieve high sales, your (profitable!) ads must also be fed with an appropriate advertising budget.
Q4 offers the opportunity to multiply your sales. But it doesn't just happen. Behind a lot of sales is a lot of work. But you can be sure that the work you put into the coming weeks will pay off.
Q4 doesn't go the same way for every online store. Some break their sales record on Black Friday, while other stores can't really scale until December. Don't be discouraged if some days aren't as successful as you had imagined. Your time will come.
Not everything will go smoothly. Be prepared for problems that may arise. Blocked PayPal accounts, overloaded sites, annoyed customers. It's all happened before, but it's all solvable if you're prepared for it. Good luck!
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