As a seasoned eCommerce professional, you are already well aware that Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) are the unarguably the biggest sales periods of the year. With an estimated $209.7 billion being up for grabs during the 2022 holiday season, many online sellers are eager for their piece of the pie and are starting to promote campaigns earlier than these two flagship sales events. In this post, we’ll go over all the reasons why your print on demand store shouldn’t wait for Black Friday to run promotions this holiday season.
Why Promote Print on Demand Deals Before Black Friday Cyber Monday
Supply Chain Disruptions
While most businesses (including Gooten) have gone above and beyond to secure supply in the beginning of 2022, the last couple of years have shown that shortages can occur—especially during peak season when demand is at an all-time high. The best thing businesses can do is encourage their customers to purchase early to ensure they have the best possible to chance to get their desired items.
Transportation Delays
If the last few years have taught us anything it’s that patience is a must when ordering anything online. Shipping delays have affected almost every industry and factors such as bad weather, labor shortages, and increased demand can play a role in transit times. While setting expectations is critical to mitigating disappointed customers, we suggest going a step further and encouraging your customers to order their time-sensitive gifts early to ensure there is enough time to receive their items in case there are shipping delays. The best way to do this is through deals and discounts!
Customized On-Demand Products
With print on demand orders, there is an additional production time that customers aren’t always aware of because each product to order. For personalized on-demand products, there can be another additional time element—design. This isn’t like ordering any random item off of Amazon! If your store offers custom items, it’s important to consider how the influx of orders this season can impact design time. One thing to consider is hiring additional designers to help with increased demand. Another thing to consider is adding is expected design time to your product pages and email confirmations so that your customers are aware of how design, production, and shipping times can affect when they will receive their orders. Especially since personalized products are usually given as gifts around the holidays, encouraging your customers to make these purchases as early as possible will help ensure they receive them by important holiday events.
Bottom Line: Make sure your customers receive their orders on-time
Plain and simple, the main reason to run promotions earlier than BFCM is so that your customers get their orders before December 25th.
There are many factors that are out of your control as a print on demand store owner, but communicating and setting expectations with your customers is the best way to ensure they are happy with your business!
How to Encourage Early Sales
One of the best ways to boost early sales is incorporate scarcity and urgency in your promotions.
Scarcity is a psychological phenomenon in which limited quantities of a product become more desirable. It’s rooted in the economic principle of supply and demand; the more in demand a product and the lower the supply, the higher the price a customer is willing to pay. Urgency cultivates a need for customers to buy a product at very that moment – otherwise, they may miss out.
Here are a few examples of how to incorporate these tactics in your holiday marketing campaigns:
- Premiere new products as a design drop: A new design or product deserves fanfare, and advertising an upcoming product as a design drop, selling for a limited time with limited inventory, will peak your customers’ interests even more.
- Use your customers to demonstrate demand: Customers currently browsing and buying from your site can create a sense of urgency for other customers. Consider adding a real-time feed that shows every customer who makes a purchase, or adding a line about how many customers are looking at a product to each product page.
- Add an exit pop-up for customers leaving your site without purchasing: An exit pop-up is a perfect opportunity to incorporate scarcity and urgency messaging. Consider sharing a limited-time offer, a countdown if you’re holding a flash sale, or a reminder that you’re low on inventory.
Early Selling with Gooten
Encouraging early purchases is great for mitigating any shipping delays and allowing extra time for packages to be delivered. It can bring about more customer support requests than expected. In order to mitigate an influx of requests, make sure to review and freshen up your policies and support pages to ensure they are aligned with Gooten’s policies to avoid upset customers!
As always, don’t forget to set your customers’ expectations with our expected production/shipping times and order deadlines—all of which can be found on the Gooten Holiday Page.
Happy (Early) Selling!
