Overcoming Seasonal Challenges: Three Tips for Online Retailers Amid the Holiday Rush

With Halloween behind us, the winter holidays are upon us. The retail industry faces a unique set of demands during the holiday season, and this year will be no different.

Shifting consumer behavior means retailers need to keep up or risk losing out to the competition. Consumers are increasingly abandoning their carts as their patience decreases. According to an analysis, the average cart abandonment rate is around 70%. Long, clunky signup and checkout processes mean consumers will likely close out of your website before they buy anything.

What’s more, retailers often see an increase in fraud during holiday shopping as threat actors take advantage of sparse security teams that may be strapped for time. One-third of Americans say that while holiday shopping online, they have been targeted by a scam.

Knowing that more than half (53%) of online holiday sales are anticipated to take place on mobile devices this year, and consumer spending this holiday season is expected to reach new levels, here are three tips for retailers to tackle the holiday rush across platforms while keeping customers happy and systems secure.

Build enjoyable experiences to create loyal customers

Creating an enjoyable online shopping experience comes down to two things: ensuring the journey is simple and ensuring it is secure. Simplifying the experience means minimizing steps and making it easier for consumers to register, sign in, and check out. A frustrating login or shopping experience will leave customers with a bad taste in their mouths and will likely push them to explore competitors’ offerings. In fact, 54% of consumers say they have abandoned an online service when logging in was too frustrating.

In addition, be sure to complete fraud checks earlier in users’ sessions to limit frustrations further down the customer’s journey. The worst time to confirm a customer’s identity via a process such as multi-factor authentication is during the checkout process, as this can lead to frustration and increase the likelihood of cart abandonment.

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Personalize at scale to help boost sales

Many businesses talk about personalization, but not every business does personalization right. Toeing the line between collecting personal data and making customers feel like their privacy is not being invaded is a difficult process. What’s a retailer to do?

It’s all about personalizing at scale. This means collecting customer data over time versus asking for it all upfront. For example, imagine you enable a first-time customer to check out as a guest. As the retailer, you collect basic initial information during this guest checkout process. When that customer comes back to make a second or third purchase, each repeat purchase is an opportunity to collect additional information. This helps further personalize their experience but isn’t abrasive in collecting data upfront.

Additionally, it is crucial to unify consumers’ information across profiles, including brick-and-mortar and digital. This way, retailers can tailor touchpoints regardless of the channel consumers prefer to use, and the customer buying journey becomes personal and seamless across platforms.

Adjust for seasonality to reduce frustration

The holiday season means higher digital traffic. High traffic, whether it’s on a website or mobile device, requires e-commerce channels to scale appropriately and handle high numbers of both registrations and transactions. As a result, retailers also need to ensure that checkout processes are optimized and secure to handle this traffic.

What’s more, with this increase in traffic, it’s easier for threat actors to go unnoticed amid the holiday craziness. Internal security teams are busier than ever and may have slimmer teams due to holiday travel or time off. It’s imperative to prepare accordingly and make sure users are legitimate consumers rather than nefarious actors. Be sure to implement effective fraud prevention tools to identify suspicious users without challenging every shopper who crosses the digital threshold. Anticipating this increase in demand – and anticipating threat actors – by ensuring your e-commerce channels are scalable and secure will lead to less friction and frustration.

The best way to overcome the holiday rush is to know what to anticipate and prepare accordingly. As they say, the best offense is a good defense. By building enjoyable experiences, personalizing at scale, and adjusting for seasonality, retailers can feel confident going into the holiday season.

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