The E-commerce business comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities. While the demand for e-commerce is growing tremendously every day, running an online store is not easy. In fact, it’s one of the most challenging businesses you can start as an entrepreneur. There are many different factors that impact the success of your e-commerce business like seasonality, product selection and merchandising etc.
To manage the ups and downs of your business throughout the year, it’s important to have a plan in place from day one. It doesn’t matter how large or small your company is; you need to understand what challenges you might face during specific times of year (or every year) and develop strategies to tackle them.
What is the E-Commerce Summer Slump?
The summer is one of the most challenging seasons for e-commerce businesses. This is often referred to as the e-commerce summer slump.
Retailers experience lower conversion rates, low customer engagement and high cart abandonment. All of this happens during the months of June, July and August.
Why Is There a Summer Slump in E-Commerce?
There are many factors that contribute to the summer slump. If you have a good understanding of the main causes, then your business can adjust and avoid a major downturn. Here are some of the main reasons why there is an e-commerce summer slump.
Seasonal Changes in Weather
When it comes to sales, timing is everything. The seasons have a direct impact on how many people buy online, how much they spend and what they're interested in purchasing.
Vacation and Other Summer Activities
People are more likely to go shopping in the winter because they want to get the items purchased and out of the way. Plus, cold weather makes people want to stay indoors. When the weather gets warmer, it’s harder to get people to shop online.
Timing of Advertising
Retailers tend to slash their advertising budgets during summer. It’s a fact that most people are more likely to spend money on vacations rather than on shopping. So, retailers don’t want to spend money on advertisements that won’t bring them any revenue during this time of the year.
How to Avoid the E-Commerce Summer Slump?
Even though the slump is a problem for everyone, your business can adjust and minimize or avoid its impact. To do this, you need to make a few changes that make it easier to maintain customer engagement and support conversions to keep sales up. Here are a few tips to help you avoid the e-commerce summer slump.
Create Urgency and Exclusivity
One of the ways to stay in the game during the summer slump is to create urgency and exclusivity. When the weather gets warmer, people tend to stay inside their homes. So, make sure to provide a reason for people to go out and shop online. Create exclusive offers like limited time discounts and flash sales.
Expand Your Marketing and Advertising Efforts
During the summer, people are more likely to go on vacation or have plans for other activities. It’s important to expand your marketing and advertising efforts during this time of the year. Expanding your marketing means that you can reach a wider segment of people.
To do this, make changes to where you advertise. Take advantage of social media since people tend to have more time to spend on social media channels during the summer. You can also try other marketing channels, such as newsletters or text messages, that go directly to previous or potential customers that you can contact. Focus on drawing in the potential customers that have already shown interest so that you can keep sales up.
Strategies to Grow Your E-Commerce Business During the Slump
While most businesses are trying to avoid the slump, it is possible to continue your business’ growth during the summer. It takes more extensive changes and effective positioning of your business in order to get the benefits. However, it is worth the effort since you could make your business more than slump-proof.
Improve Customer Experience
One of the ways to overcome the slump is to improve your customer experience. Make sure to reduce the shopping friction by improving your website’s design and speed. Make your product selection better and keep the inventory levels optimized.
Also, work on improving your customer experience and customer engagement. Your customer experience is critical to keeping the customers that you already have. If the slump does reduce your sales, then this is the perfect time to fix internal parts of your business before the summer ends.
Focus on Retention
Another way to overcome the slump is to focus on retention. Make sure that your customers are happy with your services so that they keep coming back to your store. Retention is a great way to get revenue out of your existing customers.
This is the perfect time to develop new features, products, and services that your current customers want. Ask them what they are interested in and deliver on it to increase customer loyalty.
Improve Your Marketing Efforts
You can also improve your marketing efforts to overcome the slump. Make sure that you are using the right marketing channels and tools to reach your customers. Focus on the right marketing channels like paid advertising and email marketing.
Develop the Infrastructure to Survive the Slump
The e-commerce summer slump is one of the most challenging situations for retailers. It’s important to know the reasons behind the slump and take appropriate steps to overcome the slump and get your sales numbers back to normal. It’s also important to focus on retention during the summer to get the best out of your e-commerce business.
To make these changes easier, make sure you have the infrastructure to make it work. At KitelyTech, we work with companies to develop the resources that they need to make their companies more effective. Call us at (800) 274-2908 to discuss what developments your company needs.
