There's plenty of opportunity for your e-commerce store to increase sales over the holiday season, with global sales forecasted to increase by up to 3.3% compared to 2023.

The UK's e-commerce sales forecast isn't slowing down with it reaching a predicted £190 billion by 2027. With over half of online sales dedicated to clothing this year, this was the most popular category in 2024, with other popular categories including shoes, electronics and beauty products.

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

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 preparation to boost your e-commerce store sales during the festive buying season.

1. Stock up early

It goes without saying that you can only sell the stock you have. And with two thirds of surveyed British shoppers already starting their Christmas shopping by August, it seems like it's never too early to prepare your inventory for the holiday shopping season. While you'll need to consider warehousing and logistics, getting your products shipped before the busy period means you'll be beating the holiday rush and avoiding skyrocketing shipping costs.

2. Turn off your Black Friday campaigns

As soon as 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 festive season. Make sure any BFCM promo codes are switched off and all your touch points are now showing some festive spirit with Christmas animations and wintery graphics, in line with customer expectations.

3. Update your returns policy

Your customers may worry about buying the wrong gift or wrong size for their loved ones. You can help put them at ease by offering an extended returns policy, and to make it clear for them when the final return date is for items bought during the holiday shopping season. It's wise to choose a date that will allow for returns to be made in the new year—especially helpful for those seeing family and friends after the big day.

4. Add more payment options to your checkout page

As Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is increasingly popular, particularly for the Gen-Z customer, 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 payment options to give your customers maximum flexibility, such as digital wallets.

Once you have this in place, it's a good idea test out the online shopping experience yourself, especially with newly added payment methods. This way, you can launch your Christmas campaign with full confidence in a seamless checkout experience and minimal cart abandonments.

5. 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 for popular products based on your customers, what they're searching for and how they're searching for them in the run up to the festive season. 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 increase your search engine rankings and can help guide your wider Christmas campaign, such as offering a practical holiday gift guide, writing Christmas-related blog posts or knowing which products to advertise.

6. Use influencer marketing

If your product niche is especially geared towards those under 34, then influencer marketing should be part of your marketing efforts. Product recommendations from user-generated content offer social proof for your products, something you can't replicate yourself with your product ads. Find the social channels where your ideal customer is most active and start there.

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

You want to make the user experience in your e-commerce store the best it can be for potential 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.

To help your consumers save, 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 product recommendations 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 and product tags you can consider include:

• Price ranges
• Age ranges, especially if you're selling products for children
• Gender, such as "Gifts for women"
• 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 decision 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 customer engagement up like a festivity related promotion. The 12 days of Christmas promotion is one that many online retailers use for its simplicity: a different item on offer each day, for one day only.

This advent calendar-style discount 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
• Offer free shipping

Get inventive and creative for your campaign to keep loyal 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 or before, 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 purchase in time, you should 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 shopping cart abandonment 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, using pick-up lockers is a good option for customers who aren't often home to receive a delivery.

Get interactive for more customer 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 as part of your email marketing strategy for customers to sign up to, that enters them into a prize draw or competition each day.

Sell gift cards

Finally, for those last-minute shoppers who are trying to secure the perfect gift on Christmas Eve, digital gift cards could offer a lifeline. It's not just for those who have left it to the last minute either—almost 40% of consumers are happy to receive a voucher or gift card, which is more personal than cash.

Online marketplaces during the Christmas season

Often, marketplaces have their own Christmas campaigns and holiday sales to help their sellers drive revenue and get more visits and views. Also, their own marketplace sellers' sites and platforms can have useful research and data on trends that will help guide how you organise your campaign.

Amazon

In 2022, Amazon held between 25-30% of the UK e-commerce market share within the hobbies and leisure category. As this is the UK's most popular e-commerce platform, it's no surprise that competition is high. So, differentiation is key.

You can add things like Amazon Brand Registry to your marketplace, and Enhanced Brand Content to your listing to help customers feel confident they're getting high quality products.

Etsy

Etsy helps its marketplace sellers in early November with its #EtsyGifts campaign, which shares creative gift ideas through its own Christmas Gift Guides that are curated by Etsy merchandisers and its own social media channels. Getting involved is easy: simply use the hashtag on your own social media accounts and gift idea posts.

Etsy also created a tool to make it easier for sellers to customise and share promotional posts, taking away the hassle of additional third-party tools and software.

eBay

eBay launched The Big Christmas Charity Sell in 2020 and it's remained each year since. As their own research has found that millennials have the most spending potential and their main priority is shopping for others, the charitable campaign works perfectly for the spirit of giving for this audience.

It works by giving a percentage of a sale to your chosen charity so that eBay's pledged target of £500,000 can be achieved.

When it comes to selling, eBay suggests using its consumer behaviour findings for your own holiday promotions. For instance:

• Many shoppers are willing to try new or smaller brands
• Most buyers prefer environmentally-friendly products
• On the whole, buyers are looking for savings
• While buyers are more price-conscious, they're willing to splurge in some areas

Additionally, according to eBay's analytical data, these product groups are likely to be most popular before Christmas:

• Hoodies and sweatshirts (+60% as compared to the average demand)
• Blankets and throws (+80)
• String lights (+190%)
• Remote controlled toys (+70%)
• Headphones (+50%)
• Video games (+50%)

Your checklist for a strong e-commerce Christmas campaign

To skyrocket your Christmas sales from your online store, preparation and starting early is 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 one
• Check your payments are set up to include as many payment methods as possible
• Make sure you're using responsive web design—more e-commerce purchases are made on mobile devices than desktop
• Optimise your website by testing load times, the mobile experience and the checkout process
• Get into the holiday spirit with your website and marketing—invest in a graphic designer if necessary
• Encourage customer engagement through fun games, holiday promotions and promotional emails
• Inspire your online shoppers with blog content, gift guides, bundles and strong social media campaigns
• Use different marketing channels to reach your customers, whether that's email marketing, Google Ads, search engine marketing or social media marketing
• Check your marketplace to see if there are any promotional campaigns you can participate in

Getting your store ready for Christmas with WorldFirst

With these tips, you'll hopefully see your sales increasing. The next question is: how can you manage all your sales income from different sites and online marketplaces—and in multiple different currencies—all in one place? Here's how we can help.

Meet the World Account: a multi-currency business account designed for making and receiving payments in different countries. The World Account allows you to open 20+ local currency accounts and connect to 130+ leading marketplaces and online payment service providers, including Amazon, Etsy, AliExpress, Shopify and PayPal.

With local sort codes, account numbers and IBANs, you'll be able to set up local currency accounts in minutes, without having to open and manage several foreign bank accounts.

This means you can receive your Christmas sales income in your customers' local currencies for free, with no transaction or exchange fees. You can hold the funds until you're ready to convert or withdraw them, keeping more of your profits. It's the perfect way to unwrap extra savings this festive season.

Register for a free World Account today.