There’s plenty of opportunity for your e-commerce store to increase sales over the holidays, with a forecasted global sales figure of $1.19 trillion for 2023’s Christmas shopping period.

The Southeast Asian e-commerce market continues to grow year on year, with total sales expected to reach $161.7 billion by 2026. Indonesia is leading in sales, with forecasts showing that by 2030, it’ll generate an impressive $160 billion. Meanwhile, the Philippines and Malaysia are emerging as the markets with the most growth to gain.

So how can your business get a good slice of the festive shopping pie? A great e-commerce Christmas campaign is the answer. As the holiday rush starts, you’ll want to ensure that your Christmas e-commerce strategy is focused around making it as easy as possible for your customers to buy from your store.

This means your Christmas marketing campaign needs thorough planning and preparation to attract customers to your online store, so it’s time to get creative with unique and fun e-commerce Christmas ideas. And, it also means that you’ll need to have the fundamentals in place to make sure everything goes to plan and you end the year on a sales high.

Christmas e-commerce fundamentals to get your store ready

Here are some simple but crucial behind-the-scenes preparations to make sure your e-commerce store sales skyrocket during the festive buying season.

1.    Turn off your Black Friday campaigns

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are over, it’s time to make sure that your website, store and socials have moved on to reflect the upcoming holidays. Make sure any BFCM promo codes are switched off and all your touch points are now showing some festive spirit with Christmas animations and graphics.

2.    Update your returns policy

Your customers may worry about buying the wrong gift for their loved ones. You can help put them at ease by offering an extended returns policy, and making it clear to them when the final return date is for items bought between mid-November and Christmas Day. It’s wise to choose a date that will allow for returns to be made in the new year, which will be especially helpful for those seeing family and friends after the big day.

3.    Add more payment methods to your checkout page

As Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is increasingly popular, particularly for Gen-Z customers, you’ll want to make sure that your store offers this to encourage more sales from younger consumers. It’s also worth checking that you have a variety of other payment methods to give your customers maximum flexibility in completing their purchase.

Once you have these in place, it’s a good idea to run a few trial checkouts, especially with newly added payment methods. This way, you can launch your Christmas campaign with full confidence that sales will come through and abandoned carts will be left to a minimum.

4.    Find and use Christmas keywords

What are your customers searching for when they’re shopping for gifts online? As part of your e-commerce Christmas campaign preparation, it’s important to do your keyword research based on your customers, what they’re searching for and how they’re searching for them in the run up to the holidays. Incorporating the same keywords that they’re searching for in your campaign and product descriptions is crucial to making sure customers find and land on your online store.

Using tools like Semrush and Ahrefs will help enormously to rank higher in searches and can help guide your wider Christmas campaign, such as offering a practical gift guide, or knowing which products to spend on advertising for.

How to improve the Christmas shopping experience for your e-commerce store

You want to make the shopping experience in your e-commerce store the best it can be for your customers. This includes making it simple, inspiring and fun right from the moment they enter, all the way through to the delivery.

Show off your Christmas deals

Given the current global economic pressure and uncertainty, consumers are looking for deals and offers more than ever. Highlight your Christmas deals and discounts in a banner on your homepage or as soon as they enter your e-store. You can also create a dedicated Christmas deals landing page so customers are able to see all your offers in one place.

As 37% of shoppers resort to social media for gifting inspiration, it goes without saying that your social media accounts should also be showing off your Christmas offers and deals. Consider budgeting for paid advertising and video campaigns on the most popular channels – Facebook, YouTube and Instagram – because it could really help to boost your sales numbers.

Create gift guides

Sometimes we need a bit of inspiration when it comes to buying gifts. You can help your customers with a simple gift guide that showcases a mix of your products from different categories. It’s even more helpful if your guide gives them the option to filter the gift guides based on different attributes, so they can find their ideal gift more quickly.

Some filtering options you can consider include:

• Price ranges
• Age ranges, especially if you’re selling products for children
• Gender
• Relationship to the recipient, such as “Best gifts for Mum”

Offer gift bundles

Gift bundles are a great way to give your customers more value and make their buying decisions easier with some thoughtful touches. It also allows you to move some old stock and make room for the new as you come into the new year.

You can bundle together complimentary items at a discounted price, or offer a small add-on at a discounted price for a quick, last-minute addition to the shopping basket.

Provide gift wrapping and personalised notes

For those who are buying and sending gifts directly to their loved ones, offering a gift-wrapping service can be the perfect solution so they don’t end up with a plain cardboard box to open. Of course, this will take extra resources and time – but you can save time by using pre-made gifting bags, tissue paper and a simple festive decoration as your gift wrap.

For those having their gifts delivered from your store, another nice element to consider adding is personalised notes. Before the customer completes their purchase, you can give them the option to write a short note so you can print and add it to their package before it ships.

Use the 12 days of Christmas promotion method

Nothing gets people into the Christmas shopping spirit more than a festivity related promotion. The 12 days of Christmas promotion is one that many online retailers use for its simplicity: a different item on a one-day only offer, each day.

The limited time offer works well to encourage customers to pull the trigger to buy the item and get that gift ticked off the list.

If you want to avoid continuous discounts though, there are other ways to use the 12 days of Christmas campaign. You can:

• Introduce seasonal products
• Launch a surprise giveaway
• Run a buy-one-get-one-free offer
• Offer double or triple loyalty points

Get inventive and creative for your campaign to keep your customers excited and engaged, and curious to see what the next day holds.

Remind customers of shipping deadlines

While a lot of Christmas shopping is done in early December, there are still plenty of people who tend to leave it to the last minute as they need more time to figure out what they want to buy. To help your customers make their decisions, you can clearly show the shipping deadlines for your store.

You can do this on your main page so the information is clear and easily visible to them. Additionally, as Christmas day gets closer, you can display a countdown timer for your main shipping deadline.

Offer free shipping and alternative shipping methods

Research shows that the top reason for an abandoned cart is expensive shipping and extra fees. To counter this, consider offering free shipping on purchases over a certain amount.

(Source: Baymard Institute)

It’s also useful to offer alternative shipping methods too, such as curbside pick-up and Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS). These give your customers more flexibility and add convenience so that the whole shopping experience fits into their own busy days and weeks, as well as potentially saving you some costs.

For those without a brick-and-mortar store, utilising pick up lockers is a good option for customers who aren’t often home to receive a delivery.

Get interactive for more engagement

When it comes to e-commerce, part of the fun for many during the holiday season is having an interactive experience. Introducing a gamified element like a Christmas quiz can add more fun for your customers, which will keep them more engaged with your brand.

If you’re not up to creating a quiz, you could do something simpler, such as creating a daily Christmas email for customers to sign up for that enters them into a prize draw or competition each day.

As we know from Singles’ Day e-commerce campaigns, the South East Asian culture values ‘shoppingtainment’ so it’s well worth allocating time for some fun and games in your Christmas campaign.

Marketplace campaigns during the Christmas season

Often, marketplaces have their own Christmas campaigns and sales to help their sellers drive revenue and get more visits and views.

12.12 sales

Both Lazada and Shopee take part in the 12.12 sales, which happens on December 12 every year. It originally started in 2014 and often lasts for one day across different marketplaces. The big day is similar to the huge Black Friday events in the West in terms of sales figures, so getting involved is a must to boost your end of year numbers.

In 2022, Lazada started gathering excitement a week before the sales by dishing out vouchers early to Lazada Bonus members. They may do the same again this year, so you may want to make sure your store is ready by then.

Christmas Everyday Calendar on Shopee

Each year, Shopee puts in a Christmas Everyday Calendar for the final week before Christmas, which helps out a lot of last-minute shoppers with their Christmas needs. Each day has its own unique sales and discounts, as well as ‘Super Brand Days’ for offers for big name products.

Marketplace Deals on Lazada

In addition to the 12.12 sales, Lazada also hosts Marketplace Deals which runs for three days in mid-December and is their biggest event. It’s free for marketplace sellers to join the campaign with even a suggested campaign price available on your products - it’s a no-brainer to join this one.

Your checklist for a strong e-commerce Christmas campaign

To skyrocket your Christmas sales from your online store, preparation and starting early are key. Here’s a quick checklist to make sure your business is ready for the holiday shopping boom:

• Turn off old campaigns and turn on your new Christmas ones
• Make sure your payment methods are set up to include as many customers as possible
• Get Christmassy with your website and marketing
• Encourage customer engagement through fun games and promotions
• Inspire your customers with gift guides, bundles and strong social media campaigns
• Check your marketplace to see if there are any promotional campaigns you can participate in

Getting your store ready for Christmas with WorldFirst

Hopefully, with these tips, you’ll see your sales increasing. The next question is: how can you manage all your sales income from different sites and marketplaces – and in multiple different currencies – in one place, in a cost-effective and efficient way? Here’s how we can help.

Meet the World Account: a business account designed for trading in multiple countries. The World Account allows you to open 10+ local currency accounts and connect to 100+ leading marketplaces and online payment gateways, including Amazon, Shopify and PayPal.

With local account details, you’ll be able to set up local currency accounts with us in minutes – without having to set up and manage several foreign bank accounts. This means you’ll have a hassle-free way to receive your Christmas sales income in your customers’ local currencies for free. You’ll pay zero transaction or currency exchange fees, so you can keep more of your hard-earned profits.

Register for a free World Account today