How to Increase Average Order Size During the Holidays

2020 has seen unprecedented opportunities for ecommerce businesses. Indeed, due to Covid-19, restrictions on visiting public places, including retail stores, there has never been a bigger market for online shopping. After all, people want to keep themselves and their communities safe but are still looking forward to a fun and enjoyable Christmas.

Of course, the busiest time in any store’s calendar is the holiday season, which is fast approaching. The good news is you can find out all about how to maximize your ecommerce festive sales with WooCommerce in our detailed guide below.

WooCommerce Coupon Functionality

Customers love bargains, and what better way to offer them one with a coupon?

• Use WooCommerce Coupon functionality to offer discounts to your customers over the festive period.
• Provide coupons to your customers via your newsletter, front page, or even distributing them through coupon websites.
• Choose between offering coupons on specific items in your customers' cart or on a minimum balance.

Free Gifts for WooCommerce Extension

What better motivation for your customers that a little treat for them when they buy their festive gifts?

• Use this feature to reward customers with a free product either when buying a specific item.
• The item you will want them to buy is usually promotional or of higher value/margin.
• Alternatively, this extension for when a customers' cart value reaches a particular size encourages a larger order value.

WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Extension

The first of the shipping suggestions, free shipping, can make all the difference in customers deciding to proceed with their purchase.

• Use the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping extension to offer discounted or free shipping.
• Award free shipping to a cart at a minimum size or value.

Product Bundles Extension

You can also use the features in WooCommerce to increase your sales during the festive period by using the Product Bundles Extension to create gift sets.

This means creating groups of products that make it easier for customers to get what they want. The great thing about the Product Bundles extension is that you can create unique offers for your customers that are perfect for showing off on social media quickly and easily. You can do this in many ways:

• Curate your own sets of gifts, and offer a discount when customers purchase the whole bundle.
• Allow customers to create their gift sets with a selection that they make from a pre-set list.
• Allow customers to add paid extras to a predetermined set.

WooCommerce Gift Wrapper Extension

Make the process of buying gifts even easier for your customers by offering gift wrapping. Something that means they can have items shipped directly to their recipients.

• Use the WooCommerce Gift Wrapper Extension for this.
• Offering your customers a range of paper designs.
• Provide them with the opportunity to write personalized notes for items they buy with you.

WooCommerce Product Add-Ons

Another way to encourage customers to buy more with you is to provide the option to make each item more unique.

• Help customers make each item as personal to the recipient as possible with customization with names and engraving.
• Use the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons to offer this option and capture the information needed to do this.

WooCommerce Core Functionality - Shipping

While free shipping is often attractive to customers, some will need items as quickly as possible. A function that is ideal for customers that have left their gift buying to the last minute or that are concerned about the Xmas rush.

• Use WooCommerce core functionality for this.
• Choose between rush or next day delivery shipping.

WooCommerce Points and Rewards Extension

In a similar way to offering a gift, you can also encourage customers to return to your store over and over to fulfill their holiday shopping needs by providing them with a reward each time they purchase with you.

• Use the WooCommerce Points and Rewards extension.
• Set the number of points you award for purchase and even a review.
• This feature also allows you to define how points can be redeemed and track point totals for each customer.

WooCommerce Gift Cards Extension

Despite their best intentions, some customers will always miss the deadline for delivery when shopping for festive gifts. That doesn't mean your ecommerce business has to miss out, though, or that they need to end up empty-handed.

Instead, you can provide them with digital gift cards via the WooCommerce Gift Cards extension. A solution that works just as well for folks looking to avoid long-distance delivery fees on their gifts as well.

Automated Recommendations -Upsells And Cross-Sells

Finally, and most importantly, if you want to boost your order size over the holidays, it's vital to use cross-sells and upsells with the automated recommendation function.

For cross-sells:

• Use your automated recommendations to show items that match or complement the product your customer already has in their basket.
• For example, if they buy a bubble bath, a bath bomb, shower gel, and even face cream with the same fragrance may be suitable recommendations.

For upsells

• Use your automated recommendations to show more expensive items ( or products with a higher profit margin) that match your customer's needs.
• An item may be a more advanced or more recent model or a pack of products instead of a single item.

Final thoughts

Here at Bright Vessel, we understand just how important maximizing holiday sales are to every ecommerce business, particularly in the current climate. The good news is that we are experts in helping ecommerce businesses use WooCommerce for WordPress to ensure they maximize their orders over the festive period. If you need assistance with this or with optimizing your WooCommerce, Contact us today.