Make finding the perfect gifts easy for visitors to your store. Zen Cart has lots of options for Store Owners to customise their store for the holiday period.
Setting up the Power of Suggestion
Create special ‘Gift’ categories – Gifts for Him, Gifts under $20, Gifts Kids Love – and link your products to these new categories.
This is especially useful if your products are not traditionally seen as gift items.
Another alternative is to create a number of pages (using EZ Pages for example) such as Gift Ideas for Teenage Girls, Gift Ideas for Runners, Gift Ideas for Lovers of Fine Art and use these to showcase a selection of your products. Shoppers with no particular gift ideas in mind love to read what may be suitable gifts rather than just looking at endless product pages.
Gift Certificates / Gift Vouchers
Gift certificates/vouchers/cards can be very popular with online shoppers, effective for those that have run out of gift ideas or who may have left their Christmas shopping too late for delivery. Provide a high-quality Gift Certificate with your logo and site address for the customer to download and print out the Gift Certificate or offer free postage of a personalised printed Gift Certificates.
Discount Coupons
Everyone loves a bargain and the Discount Coupons in Zen Cart can be a great marketing tool. Appeal to the Christmas spirit and call your customers to action with limited time offers and other special Christmas promotions. Look at offering a coupon code right on your home page to encourage sales in slow-moving categories or perhaps to match your competitors Christmas specials. Or in the lead up to Christmas provide a discount coupon to existing customers to encourage repeat business.
Bestsellers
If you don’t normally have the Bestsellers sidebox in use on your store, think about implementing it during the holiday period to give shoppers ideas on the popular products to buy. Make it a themed sidebox to further reinforce the suggestion of your products as Christmas gifts or purchases.
Reviews
Shoppers like to feel confident in their product choices and reviews are a perfect opportunity to further sell the benefits and value of your items. Reviews also provide additional content for search engines and are quite often written in a way that store owners may not think about and therefore are good in broadening your store’s exposure in search engine results. Look at adding any reviews or testimonials you have received via email or letter to your Zen Cart store. These really do make a difference in converting visitors to customers, and are even better if they include comments like “my Dad loves it” or “it makes a great gift”.
Other customers purchased
Another in-built feature of Zen Cart, the Other Customers Purchased … information display on the product pages has two benefits. Firstly, it is a great method of bringing alternative products to the attention of your customers and, especially for products that work well together or are complementary products, is also a great way to up sell and encourage further purchases.
Gift Recipients
Add a helpful note on your store suggesting how easy it is to arrange delivery direct to the gift recipient. Zen Cart allows up to five addresses for each customer. You may think it is obvious but it really does pay off to inform your customers that you offer this service. Explain that you will not include an invoice in with the delivery and that they could even include a special note with the item by filling out the customer comments field.
Last minute gift ideas
In the last days before Christmas update your store to include information for your customers on the products you have that can still be posted in time for delivery before Christmas. Emphasise that the products are in stock, that they can expect quick postage and that they make great gifts. Don’t forget to promote your gift certificates as a last minute gift idea too.
