In 2021, Black Friday and Cyber Monday generated a cumulative online revenue of $19.6 billion, and, during the holiday season, American consumers alone spent a record-breaking $204.5 billion online. The e-commerce holiday season frenzy spikes brand revenue on its own, but, combined with a few strategic steps, retailers can reach a much higher potential in Q4 and the rest of the year.
“This holiday season will be joyous: people can spend a full holiday visit with their families more safely than in the past. But the inflation environment is pinching consumers with higher costs, as they largely spent their COVID savings on travel over the summer. Overall, retailers can expect double-digit e-commerce growth and mid-single digit revenue growth — below the rate of increase of inflation.”
Hilding Anderson, head of Retail Strategy North America
This article highlights a proven approach to the 2022 holiday e-commerce season with the strategic steps a brand should take before, during and after the holiday period to ensure maximum return on investment (ROI) from e-commerce business.
The holiday season puts even the top e-commerce sites to the test, and site preparations should start two to three months before sales begin.
Establish an automated dashboard highlighting three overarching key performance indicators (KPIs) to track revenue generation. There are hundreds of e-commerce marketing metrics and KPI measuring tools for brands to choose from, but it’s important to narrow the focus to standard and overarching KPIs that can compare past performance and industry standards.
“If brands don’t know exactly where they are and where they’re heading during the holidays, they’ll never get there,” says Saurabh Bahree, program manager at Publicis Sapient.
Using KPIs will guide informed decisions on the investments into year-round e-commerce setup and maintenance.
Example: If Company A benchmarks against industry standards before the holiday season, this can proactively identify a need to increase quality traffic, conversions and average basket size.
Cross-functional stakeholders should lead problem-solving, leveraging e-commerce KPIs. Siloed efforts never scale. There are many moving parts in maintaining an e-commerce site, and forming a cross-functional e-commerce pod is paramount for e-commerce success. This pod should include stakeholder(s) from the following:
This outcome-oriented approach needs to be followed perpetually.
Reinvent your retail customer experience journey with Publicis Sapient
Set up your e-commerce site for success through performance, load, accessibility and security testing.
Studies show 79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with website performance are not likely to return. As page load times increase from one second to three seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%.
Action: Leverage recommendations from tools like SpeedCurve to improve Core Web Vitals
With 69 million people predicted to shop online on Cyber Monday in 2022 alone, e-commerce sites are bound to hit new load bottlenecks.
Action Run iterative rounds of load testing and fixing with different variations of anticipated peak traffic to ensure critical user paths, payments, third parties and backend email integrations don’t break.
Learn about Publicis Sapient’s peak e-commerce audit solution
Following web content accessibility guidelines and adhering to perceivable, operable, understandable and robust principles ensures e-commerce is available to individuals of all abilities. To get started, brands should complete a web accessibility evaluation that will scan through the site, highlight the accessibility issues and recommend solutions in line with American Disability Act guidelines.
Action Complete a web accessibility evaluation
Anticipating a massive influx of online transactions from new and varied demographics, hackers will take advantage of the opportunity to exploit security vulnerabilities. In fact, online fraud attempts grew by 208% year over year to a whopping 2 million during Black Friday 2021.
Action Continuously monitor for malicious activities such as distributed denial-of-service attacks targeting coupon codes and payment gateways through dedicated, certified security teams to ensure customer data privacy, avoid financial loss and safeguard brand reputation.
Map out a new customer experience strategy based on changing customer behavior in response to key societal and economic factors. Certain e-commerce customer experience principles are key to ROI every year. For example, a mobile-first design, minimal calls-to-action and an omnichannel approach are foundational aspects of e-commerce success. But certain customer behaviors fluctuate each year, and brands should adjust accordingly.
“In the industry, we’ve already seen a decline in Q3 in site traffic, and some sites are seeing a drop in basket sizes. Also, the mix — even at discount retailers — is changing, with many reporting a shift towards nondiscretionary items. Many of the pandemic staples in durable household goods — think TVs, electronics and patio furniture — have been dropping as well.”
Hilding Anderson, head of Retail Strategy North America at Publicis Sapient
“We’re seeing a shift to more private label brands as consumers look to cut costs in their household budgets. Luxury sectors are also being hit, with some reporting disappointing earnings and lower expectations for the 2022 holiday season.”
Hilding Anderson, head of Retail Strategy North America at Publicis Sapient
Learn three key strategies to reduce e-commerce customer returns
The good news for e-commerce players is that shopping during the holiday season is not limited to Black Friday and Cyber Monday anymore — online shopping promotes consistent purchasing from October until New Year’s Day. These are some of the top revenue-generating days across the 2022 holiday season for e-commerce in the U.S. outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday:
The e-commerce holiday pod should monitor KPIs on a daily basis, especially on key anticipated shopping days. If necessary, the pod can implement real-time updates in key areas:
Brands can utilize the sample dashboard below to keep a bird’s eye view of KPIs and form a trend line across key holiday shopping days:
Download KPI Dashboard
E-commerce brands should use the holiday season as a jumping-off point for the looming recession in the new year. During the most recent economic recession in 2008, roughly 20% of customers switched to lower-priced brands in consumer and retail products. Although monitoring the KPI dashboard and taking informed actions will remain the core of e-commerce sustainability during a recession, brands should leverage the data gathered from the 2022 holiday season to cater to changing customer behavior in 2023.
An e-commerce site’s true holiday season potential is realized through preparation, meticulous tracking and detailed analysis and follow-up. An outcome-oriented approach organized around mutual value with continuous feedback cycles can make both the pre- and post-holiday periods complementary to each other, thus allowing for increased ROI.
Read Publicis Sapient’s guide to retail trends in 2023
Saurabh Bahree
Manager Agile Program Management
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