Times they are a crazy. But, this too shall pass. And businesses must act now with the “day after” in mind. To make sure your business stays as profitable as possible, you might need to make some changes, adapt to the situation, and come up with creative ways to keep your customers close.
Whether you’re in panic mode or not, here are a few ways to protect your business in these uncertain times.
1. Create new pages, filtering relevant items
Focus on what you can offer your customers that helps them in this new reality and build specific pages that showcase situation-relevant items. Step into your customer’s shoes and find ways in which your inventory can be valuable to them.
For example: “Working from home? Here’s a list of our most comfortable sweatshirts,” “Sitting on your sofa all day? Here are some of our low calory snacks,” or “Stressed? Here are our top relaxing bath & beauty products.”
2. Pay now (with a discount) and get later
In the past week, many restaurantsacross the globe began offering discounted dinners for future dates. It’s excellent in that it helps keep the restaurant open until the crisis is over. This innovative idea can apply to many businesses that are in need of cash flow.
Make sure to segment your customers, reach out to your VIPs or most loyal customers, and offer them a future coupon. Prompt them to support your business by making a purchase now, knowing they will happily capitalize on it later when your business is back to normal.
3. Set up a “notify me” button for out-of-stock items
If you haven’t done so by now, start notifying your customers when products are restocked. Add a button next to your sold out items for customers to be able to sign up for email notifications when they’re back in stock.
4. Leverage your cart abandonment emails for future upsell
Usually, your cart abandonment email would look something like this:
Due to current conditions, however, you may not be able to provide the abandoned items any time soon.
Consider adding a “Save Your Cart” call-to-action in your cart abandonment emails – further prompting your customers to click and save their cart for a future buy. Once your business is back on track and inventory is back to normal, just let them know.
To quickly test the effectiveness of this idea, besides your usual testing measures, add a straightforward sentence to your email. Ask your users to reply to your abandoned cart email in case they want to save their cart for a future buy. Triggering users to engage increases their chances of coming back actively.
5. Use dynamic inventory and pricing notes to send extra-relevant emails to your clients
Try taking tip #4 a step further and show live inventory data and updated pricing in your emails. Using dynamic emails that update whenever a customer opens the email, gives your customers access to real-time, always-up-to-date experience, sent directly to their inbox.
During these particularly hard times, when inventory is limited, a live update can make the user’s life less frustrating.
6. Compensate on inventory issues by providing alternatives
Is the item out of stock on your site? If so, present a similar option that is in-stock. Since you’re bound to have more “out of stock” items than usual, you can compensate by giving your customers an alternative, similar items, so you don’t end up like this:
This will truly make their lives a lot easier, in such an uneasy situation.
While we continue to face a challenging reality, making lemonade from your lemons is the only way to smooth(l)y overcome the crisis.
In the long-term, this crisis might lead to an increase in eCommerce adoption worldwide, therefore broadening your target audience, and giving your business more growth opportunities.
As a Product Marketing Manager at Optimove, Dani's focus is on product adoption and retention among existing customers. She has a rich background at the intersection of product and marketing, leveraging both to create sustainable growth. And if you’re ever traveling to Tel Aviv and need any advice on the trendiest yummy spots, send her a message on Instagram.
