The holidays are the make-or-break season for most ecommerce retailers. With critical sales on the horizon, you must prepare your company’s holiday ecommerce strategy now before the seasonal rush hits.

The summer sales slowdown — the period when retail sales and website traffic decrease as consumers spend more time away from their devices — is ideal for optimizing your company’s holiday ecommerce strategy.

To help you make the most of this time, we developed “How to Take Advantage of the Ecommerce Summer Sales Slowdown,” a new guide offering tips to prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Read on below for an overview of what to expect from this guide.

Optimize Your Holiday Ecommerce Strategy This Summer

The summer sales slowdown is an all-too-real phenomenon within the retail industry. As customers spend more time outdoors and on vacation, website traffic and online orders slip — freeing up valuable time and resources for your company.

In “How to Take Advantage of the Ecommerce Summer Sales Slowdown,” we examine four parts of your business that will be crucial to executing a successful holiday ecommerce strategy and provide data-driven tips for optimizing each in the time available to you now.

1. Reassess your 2020 holiday ecommerce strategy

By the start of the summer, you should have a better idea of how your company performed during the 2020 holiday shopping season. Factoring in current industry trends in addition to takeaways from last year’s performance will help inform your decision-making as you work to develop an effective holiday ecommerce strategy.

For example, 42% of consumers used alternative fulfillment methods like buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and curbside pickup during the 2020 holiday season, according to a study of holiday shopping behaviors by Bizrate Insights. With this in mind, you should consider implementing alternative fulfillment methods as part of your holiday strategy.

2. Enhance your website before holiday traffic picks up

Summer is the ideal time for making any updates to your company’s website or online store. Reduced website traffic associated with the summer sales slowdown reduces the risk of technical failures as ecommerce retailers work to enhance their online stores and implement new software tools — such as a voice-of-customer (VoC) feedback solution.

To truly maximize this time, ecommerce professionals should A/B test any changes to their websites now so that they can be confident they are offering the best customer experience by the start of the holiday shopping season.

3. Fine-tune your holiday ecommerce marketing strategy

Months before major holiday shopping events like Cyber Week or Black Friday begin, consumers will be bombarded with countless emails and special offers from retailers. To help cut through all that noise, you should use the summer months to fine-tune your holiday marketing strategy.

Depending on your marketing team’s available resources, the summertime is great for experimenting with new lead-generating tactics. If you currently have a limited library of content, you can use this period to create new pieces of marketing collateral that uniquely position your company.

4. Empower staff to create an exceptional holiday shopping experience

Building an effective strategy is the first step any ecommerce professional can take to prepare for the holiday season — but a great plan can only take you so far. To create an exceptional holiday shopping experience, you need to ensure each department within your company has the knowledge and skills required to execute at a high level.

Increases in website traffic and sales will inevitably lead to an influx of inquiries to your customer support team. With this in mind, be sure to devote time this summer to training and upskilling members of your company’s support team.

Develop a Winning Holiday Ecommerce Strategy This Summer

By taking advantage of the ecommerce summer sales slowdown, you can set your business up for success in the months ahead. Our latest guide focuses on perfecting four areas — strategy, technology, marketing, staffing — that will be crucial to any online retailer’s holiday ecommerce strategy.

Download “How to Take Advantage of the Ecommerce Summer Sales Slowdown” to ensure your company has its best holiday season yet.