easonality of sales is a phenomenon that most online shops face. The frequency and intensity of these changes depend on a number of factors, but above all on the specifics of the industry concerned. It is natural that customers storm ski equipment shops during the winter season, while sales of garden furniture increase during the spring season. On top of this, Christmas, Black Friday or Valentine's Day also prompt consumers to buy more. In this article, we will give you tips on how to prepare for the increased shopping traffic and maximise your profits with the Shopify Plus platform.
Seasonality of sales - opportunity or challenge?
On the one hand, increased shop traffic is a huge opportunity for e-commerce owners to increase their revenue. On the other hand, it is also quite a challenge that requires the platform to be prepared in terms of performance and quality of user experience. Some of the most common pain points that retailers face during the high season include:
Inventory management: A problem in estimating what products will be in greatest demand, resulting in excess or shortage of stock.
Logistics and order fulfilment: An increased number of orders can overload logistics systems and result in delivery delays.
Customer service: A large increase in customer enquiries and requests during peak periods can result in reduced service quality and increased response times.
Performance and stability of technical infrastructure: A website may not be able to accommodate a surge in traffic, increasing the risk of overloads, slowdowns or crashes.
Returns management: An increase in returns during peak periods can negatively affect the speed of service, which in turn will result in dissatisfied customers.
To manage these challenges, it is crucial to choose technology that is flexible yet powerful enough to cope with sales peaks. One such solution is Shopify Plus.
Shopify Plus - what do you need to know to get started?
Shopify Plus is an enhanced version of the Shopify platform, designed for large businesses that need complex, scalable features to manage sales, even at peak shopping traffic. It offers all of Shopify's core functionality, but also includes tools to effectively manage large volumes of orders, extensive personalisation and automation capabilities and full technical support.
1. Scalability of the platform
Shopify Plus is based on a cloud-based architecture that allows the platform to adapt to changing business requirements. This allows you to add new products, expand into new markets and manage large volumes of orders. The platform is designed to meet the demands of global sales while ensuring efficiency and stability. As a result, retailers can effectively manage their resources even at peak sales times, without the risk of delays or downtime.
2. Process automation with Shopify Flow
During busy sales periods, process automation is key. Shopify Plus offers the Shopify Flow platform, which allows you to automate many tasks and processes in your online shop. This function works by monitoring the shop for various events and triggering predefined sequences of actions (workflows) in response to these events. The aim is therefore to create dependencies between them that lead to a specific action in the shop.
Examples of use:
- Automatic management of promotions
Shopify Flow allows you to automatically start and end promotions at specific times. This is particularly useful if you run multiple discount campaigns in a short period of time, eliminating manual handling and minimising the risk of errors.
- Low stock notifications
Increased traffic can lead to stock running out quickly. Shopify Flow automatically sends notifications to your warehouse management team when stock levels of a particular product fall below a set threshold. This allows you to quickly replenish your missing stock, minimising the risk of lost sales.
- Order prioritisation
When there is a high volume of orders, Flow allows you to automatically mark high-value orders or those from regular customers as a priority, allowing you to process them more quickly.
- Automatic reminders for abandoned baskets
During busy times, more customers may abandon their shopping carts. Shopify Flow allows you to send them reminder emails, increasing their chances of completing their order.
- Customer segmentation
Shopify Flow allows you to automatically assign customers to specific segments, for example, consmenters who have spent a certain amount in a given period. This, in turn, allows for efficient personalisation of offers and promotional campaigns during the high sales season.
3. Manage promotions and sales with Launchpad
Shopify Launchpad is a tool available in Shopify Plus that allows you to automate and manage big sales events such as Black Friday, Christmas sales or product launches. It allows you to accurately plan key elements of your campaign, such as launching a promotion, changing the look of your shop or managing stock.
Launchpad allows you to automate the following tasks:
- Changing product prices at the beginning and end of an event.
- Making selected products available in the sales channels to allow them to be purchased on a selected day at a selected time.
- Increasing stock levels at the start of a promotion.
- Automatically implementing changes to the appearance of the shop, such as updating banners, colours or page layout to highlight products included in the promotional campaign.
- Password-protecting the online shop for a set period of time prior to the start of the event to excite customers even more, while building a loyal consumer base.
4. More conversions with Shopify Scripts
Shopify Scripts is a tool that allows you to personalise the shopping cart and the shopping process to increase order value and customer engagement. Scripts can be created within three areas:
Order (line item scripts) - these scripts affect items in the shopping cart and can change prices and give discounts. They are run whenever an item in the shopping cart is added, deleted or changed.
Shipping scripts - These scripts interact with shipping and can change shipping methods and grant discounts on shipping rates. They are run whenever a customer enters the shipping options page during the purchase process.
Payment scripts - These scripts interact with payments and can rename, hide and reorder payment gateways. They are triggered whenever a customer enters the payment method page during the completion of a purchase.
Examples of scripts include:
- Automatic discount on products from a selected category, e.g. 20% discount on products from the ‘Fashion’ category.
- Free delivery for orders over a certain amount, e.g. £200.
- A discount on a second product, e.g. ‘Buy one and get the other for half price’.
- Seasonal offers, activated at a specific time, e.g. Christmas discounts on selected products.
- Shipping discount at a specific time, e.g. during Black Friday.
- Adjustment of available payment methods depending on the value of the order.
- Display of customised payment methods for selected customers.
With these and many other automations, retailers can maximise the potential of seasonal sales while making their processes more efficient.
5. Reporting and analytics
Shopify Plus provides advanced tools for monitoring and analysing sales performance, which is crucial for planning future promotional activities. It allows you to create custom reports on key metrics such as number of products sold, stock levels or customer behaviour.
In the Shopify Plus dashboard, you can track conversion rates in real time and have an overview of your best-selling products and most effective sales channels. It also allows you to compare current results with previous periods, which helps you identify trends and make data-driven decisions.
For those looking to improve the customer experience, Shopify Plus has a built-in tool for detailed analysis of customer behaviour, such as products viewed, items added to the basket and purchases completed. This data helps to identify consumer needs and tailor marketing efforts to them. But that's not all - the platform also offers a built-in SEO tool to help improve a website's search engine ranking by optimising the site for keywords, monitoring its performance and getting suggestions for implementing SEO strategies.
Summary
Managing the seasonality of sales requires preparation from both a technological and operational perspective. However, there are solutions on the market that can effectively support businesses during this intense period. With the tools offered as part of the Shopify Plus platform, retailers can better manage spikes in orders and ensure smooth shop operations. Not only does this minimise the risk of delays and overloads, but it also allows them to respond effectively to customers' needs, resulting in more revenue.
If you would like to find out how to implement or customise Shopify Plus for your business, please contact us.