When you work in the sale of goods or services, there are cycles that cannot be ignored. Indeed, commercial activity is not the same throughout the year, and there are both slack periods and peaks in activity. In the world of e-commerce, it’s no different, and the back-to-school period is a key moment. Not sure how to take advantage of the calendar? Follow the tips below!
Get into the big data era
If you haven’t already, now’s a great time to get started. In September, many customers are embarking on new activities, and soon afterwards people start planning their Christmas shopping. So it’s a good time to really analyze what your customers want, starting with a good dose of text-mining. Thanks to an in-depth analysis of the texts available, you can predict current and future trends, adapt your prices and stocks, and focus on the hottest products. For this, big data is absolutely essential, because you don’t want to spend hours manually analyzing all the customer reviews available online, or the thousands of messages scattered across social networks!
Improve your tracking methods
As with January’s New Year’s resolutions, back-to-school is a time when customers make relatively major purchasing decisions. When children enroll in various sports clubs, for example, parents’ shopping lists will be more substantial. Is your new customer’s youngest taking up skateboarding? Take advantage of the opportunity to set up a sales process that targets him effectively, selling helmets, shoes, knee pads and elbow pads. With a good tracking system, you’ll be able to send the right emails at the right time, and it’ll work even better if your retargeting campaigns display the right promotional offers on social networks and other websites. Retargeting will also be essential for capturing new prospects, whether they’re young parents on their child’s first day at school, or students moving out and furnishing their new studio.
Cross-check information
With big data, you’ll not only be able to better target the top products to stock this back-to-school season, but also capitalize on the right upselling opportunities. If you work in a sector where children have a real influence on their parents, you know that many fashions are made and broken quickly in the playground, or even on college benches. Is it still time to ride the Pokémon Go wave, or is it time to move on? To find out, nothing beats a good cross-check of the data collected here and there, dedicated landing pages, and a good series of AB tests to verify your hypotheses.
