How to Prepare Your Big Cartel Shop for the Holiday Season 2024
- 17 October 2024
- ByBig Cartel
- 2 min read
Have you noticed holiday decorations popping up at your local supermarket? Or maybe your neighbor already started putting up lights? While some may think, “It’s way too early,” it’s a great reminder to prepare your Big Cartel shop for the 2024 holiday season. Getting a head start will help you achieve awesome results and provide a smooth experience for you and your customers! In 2023, U.S. ecommerce sales in Q4 exceeded $250 billion. At Big Cartel, shop owners sold nearly $100M during this period, accounting for 29% of annual sales on the platform! Sellers on a Platinum plan generated 85% more in total sales volume than free Gold plan sellers—a reminder to consider upgrading your shop to list more products, add more photos, and take advantage of all the new (and existing) premium plan features available.
To sum it all up: The highest-volume online sales period of the year is almost upon us, and we’re here to help you get ready. In this article, we’ll give you the rundown on what you need to know to be prepared, plus tips and tricks to get the most out of the 2024 holiday selling season.
This article is part of our Holiday Selling Toolkit, so head there to get the full list of ideas, resources, and available features for your most successful holiday selling season yet.
Since the last holiday season, we've introduced over 10 new apps and updates to our premium plans, designed to supercharge your sales and enhance your selling experience. To help you take full advantage, we’ve curated a list of the top tools—fresh additions (queue falling snow in your shop, anyone?) and tried-and-true favorites—that you should be using this holiday season to boost your sales and streamline your workflow. Check it out here.
Planning for key holiday dates and staying ahead of shipping deadlines is crucial to improve sales and enhance customer satisfaction. There are so many opportunities to reach out to your customers and promote your products, offer discounts, and motivate your customers with some urgency around the approaching holidays—we recommend building a marketing calendar with these dates in mind. Get all the key holiday dates and shipping deadlines from our Holiday Rush Calendar here.
The last thing you want is to accidentally ‘sell’ an item that’s not available. Use the ‘Inventory Tracking’ feature to track stock, prevent overselling, and make sure everything in your shop is ready to go for the holiday rush.
If you're looking to quickly update inventory for multiple products and variants, or simply want an overview of your items, our new table view makes it easy. You can sort, filter, and edit product information all in one streamlined, comprehensive interface.
Updating inventory is also a great opportunity to refresh product images and descriptions. A high-quality image and a well-written description can significantly boost your conversion rates.
Consider using print-on-demand providers like Printful to reduce the need for purchasing or creating inventory upfront and alleviate some of the pressure.
Lastly, while it’s important to update your shop with new inventory, we also recommend taking a look at what you sold last year. Pro-tip: You can easily bulk edit and export date-specific orders in your admin to get sales data from last holiday season. This will help ensure you have enough supply to meet the demand—double down on the best-sellers and consider stocking less of the products that didn’t sell through.
For you to make sales this holiday selling season, customers need to be able to find your shop! Start by optimizing your website for search engines using relevant keywords in your product descriptions, titles, and meta tags. Read this primer on search engine optimization for guidance. Leverage social media to post links to your shop and create engaging content that encourages visits and sharing. If you’re not already, start using strategic hashtags to increase your shop’s discoverability. Here are a few other tips:
Leverage the power of customer reviews
Use a custom domain
For a full list of marketing tips and tricks, read our full marketing checklist!
Build the buzz by creating unique holiday offerings for your customers, whether that’s free shipping or a limited-edition product. Here are some ideas to get your customers interested and ready to shop:
Curate a festive collection: Showcase your best-selling products, create unique holiday offerings, or drop a new holiday-edition product.
Create urgency: Introduce limited-time promotions like flash sales, product drops, or exclusive holiday bundles.
Offer incentives: Think free shipping and special discounts.
Leverage marketing channels: Announce your sales, new products, or curated collections through social media and marketing emails.
Reward early shoppers: There’s no reason to make people wait till Cyber 5 for a deal. Offer early-bird promotions to incentivize customers to order early. This will expand your window to make sales, ensure there’s plenty of inventory for customers to choose from, and prevent you from running up against tight holiday shipping deadlines.
Need help adding a discount? We’ve got you covered.
If you don’t already have a newsletter sign-up option in your shop, now is the time! Gather email addresses and grow your mailing list so you can send holiday product updates and promotions to customers who are interested in hearing from you. An email list is one of the best ways to keep customers engaged and boost sales all year long, but it will especially pay dividends around the holiday selling season.
Check out our Mailchimp integration to add a newsletter sign-up pop-up to your shop and start sending newsletters—and other types of marketing emails.
To ensure a smooth and stress-free holiday shopping experience for your customers, clearly communicate shipping and returns deadlines and policies to manage expectations. Here are a few tips:
Update shipping and return policies: Review and revise your shop policies to reflect holiday-specific needs. If you don’t have a shop policies page yet, here’s how to add one.
Communicate shipping cutoffs: Set clear expectations for delivery windows during the busy season. Many Big Cartel templates let you add welcome text to your homepage. Themes like Cosmos, Luna, Neat, and more also include an announcement banner across all pages—ideal for sharing holiday shipping deadlines. Simply update the message in the Design section and hit Publish.
Offer expedited shipping: Cater to last-minute shoppers by providing faster shipping options.
Highlight return/exchange policies: Make them easily accessible, including holiday-specific extensions like extended return windows.
Be transparent about delays: Inform customers about any potential shipping delays or disruptions to build trust.
Our Support team knows a thing or two about the holiday selling season, and they're here to help you—whether you need help with shipping, sprucing up your store for the holidays, or anything in between. Reach out here.
Head over to our Holiday Selling Toolkit to get the full list of ideas, resources, and available features for your most successful holiday selling season yet.
17 October 2024
Words by:Big Cartel
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