Most Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs) in ecommerce have noticed a seasonal shift in summer: as the mercury rises, online purchases seem to decline. Call it the “summer slump.” As Kitelytech reports, the “summer slump” is a period of lower conversion rates and higher cart abandonment from June through August.

You can’t do much about summer arriving in those months. It’s tough to compete with a sunny day. But you can understand why the summer slump happens, shift your understanding of customer behavior, and position your ecommerce presence to anticipate and even embrace the slump. Here are some strategies to help you through the dog days.

Why the Summer Slump Happens Every Year

The slump is more than a simple challenge of consumers heading outdoors to get more sun. If you drill into the numbers, you’ll see that even when consumers are shopping indoors — on their phone or their computer — they’re changing their habits. There are a few reasons the slump occurs:

  • Shifting priorities. It’s summer! Consumers want to travel, head outside, and maybe visit a shop. What they want to buy shifts just as much as where they’re buying it. One consumer survey found that customers will shift their buying habits, with 78% planning on buying clothing and 50% on home goods. 

  • Budget constraints. The summer is on the opposite seasonal end of the holidays. As such, consumers are already feeling stingy. In the same survey, 79% of consumers reported that they’ll double-check prices online before making a purchase indoors.

  • Scattered attention. Again: it’s summer! Consumers are outdoors. They’re attending weddings, barbecues, concerts, picnics, and more This leads to scattered shopping attention — or consumers simply prioritizing their spending more on experiences than ecommerce purchases.

Depending on what you sell online, all three elements may work against you. Winter clothing outlets will likely experience summer slumps. Luxury goods, which may thrive during the winter holidays, may give way to consumer experiences like vacations and cruises. 

To combat these challenges, you’ll have to identify the product categories most likely to experience summer dips — and prioritize those categories that have staying power under the sun.

Strategies to Combat the Summer Slump

Once you’ve researched consumer behavior (above) and examined the product categories you may need to de-emphasize, you can start implementing strategies to cater to summer shoppers. 

  • Summer-specific promotions. Build discounts, bundles, or contests themed around summer activities. For instance, Dunkin — offering lots of hot coffee in the cold winter months — launched a “Dunkin’Tern” campaign to highlight its iced beverages in the summer. Put another way, summer is the time to advertise your ice cream, not your hot chili. Is there a similar way you can position your ecommerce offerings to highlight what people want to consume during the summer months?

  • Target vacationers. People will be out and about during the summer anyway, so it’s up to you to offer them goods and deals that cater to these behaviors. Stock up on any inventory that might be relevant to vacationers — travel accessories, portable gadgets, outdoor gear. 

  • Highlight “summer essentials.” In the survey above, beauty products also tended to do well in summer as 50% of consumers reported that they shifted their focus to skin care. Can you create vacation skincare bundles? Do you have a list of outdoor home goods that might pair well with the summer months? Create new bundles and highlight them online. The “summer bundle” effect has psychological scarcity built-in — consumers will know they can’t find the same deals during the cooler months.

  • Optimize for mobile. People get out on their feet more in summer, which means they’re not at home on their laptop or desktop. So optimize for mobile. As we highlighted before, 70% of shoppers spend up to five hours per week researching and shopping products on their phones. The more phone-accessible your website is, the better you’ll do in summer.

  • Leverage social proof. What are those mobile customers checking out when they’re researching your website? Price, to be sure. But they’re also checking out your reviews. In fact, 58% of customers say they’d pay more to support a company with good reviews — which means you can optimize for mobile shoppers by including some social proof with your summer offerings.

  • Create more flexible buying options. Since people are busy and often away from their computers in the summer, you should be more flexible with your offerings. Do you offer 30-day returns? Same-day delivery for people who are anxious to get up and go? The most popular shipping options these days are next-day shipping (23%) and same-day shipping (17%), which suggests many customers are happy to pay a premium to get their goods quickly. 

Turning the Summer Slump into a Warm Opportunity

The summer “slowdown” doesn’t mean slowing down is an inevitability. With some fancy strategic footwork, you can turn the slump into an opportunity to introduce your ecommerce shop — or even re-introduce it — to customers.

  • Re-engage your existing customers. Try running an email campaign with exclusive summer offers or heightened rewards for your loyalty program. Make sure you highlight how unique these offers are. Promote the idea that the summer slump is the perfect time to sign up for rewards and offers that will pay off during the holiday shopping season.

  • Test new strategies. Since people are up and about during the summer, it’s a perfect time to test new omnichannel opportunities. After all, retailers using 3+ channels will see 250% more consumer engagement than single-channel retailers do.

  • Focus on customer retention. Even if you experience a summer slump, you can use these months to prioritize customer service and build relationships that inspire long-term loyalty. Relationships like that have a way of paying off during the busier months.

A summer “slump” is inevitable for some products, but it doesn’t have to be for your entire store. When you create new offerings around summer-friendly discounts and shift to omnichannel strategies to capture distracting customer attention during warm weather, you can still survive — and thrive — even if it’s a beautiful day outside.