Seasonality in the e-commerce business, or a dead season existence?

If you have long been in e-commerce and you have your own site for the sale of goods and services, then you probably noticed a certain seasonality, constantly watching the ups and downs of sales. From time to time, sales show a peak in growth and slow down to zero.

Seasonality exists even in those busineses that seemingly do not depend on it. It’s one thing when you sell Christmas decorations, like garlands or toys, it’s clear that the sales period is the same – for New Year’s holidays, but in fact almost all stores, whether gold jewelry or electronic cigarettes, have peak and dead seasons.

Be aware of the dead season onset!

For example, the site for the sale of air conditioning is clearly stagnating in the New Year holidays, when in the course of selling are basically souvenirs and goods that can be gifts. And somebody has dead season in the summer too. It turns out so, firstly, people rarely spend money on high-value goods, such as televisions and refrigerators, and secondly, many leave abroad or to the sea, being the most solvent part of the population.

Also in the summer, goods used for small children have a low popularity, because mothers often leave for the country and are rarely interested in shopping. In any case, you should understand when it comes specifically in your case, and be sure to be ready for it. To do this, pay attention to a few key points.

First, in advance, reduce all the costly articles of your business. This can be hided in the simplest things, for example, you can switch to a cheaper Internet access package, if your provider allows you to switch between packages smoothly and quickly, you do not need to pay cleaning at the office every day, and so on. Ensure that all accounts for business servicing have been paid or there were funds to repay them, again taking into account the decrease in profits in the dead season.

Secondly, audit the warehouse and try to dump long-selling goods or goods with little profitability, by conducting a markdown, or through shares, for example such as “buy an item N and get a 50% discount on an Y product”. The dead season is the best time to lose stale goods. There are many people who are ready to buy it in the season of sales and large discounts, in order to save money. You can also start a pre-order action for a new product, which is expected, but at a discount.

Third, revise the content of the site for the time of the dead season. You can make and publish reviews of the most popular products during this period, or those that are expected in the future. This will warm up interest to them, as well as attract an audience from search engines, many of which may be your potential buyers.
Check if some of your products can be useful for people on vacation, if any, make on them accent, share, banner on the main. Often such goods are in most stores, “navigator for a trip”, “e-book for the sea”, etc.

Fourth, you should give an occasion to your buyers to come to your site, exactly in that same period of holidays. This can be a large counter of days before the start of any holiday, indicating the date of any great discounts, promotions for a particular product, or for a special offer. This can also be a discount, increasing every day by 1% before the start of the holiday for a particular product. Examples can be mass, you all watch them in large off-line stores, for example grocery: “Every Thursday fish products discount is 50%” and so on. And it really works.
Shares can be not only price, but also creative. For example, the idea of ​​competitions on the site, such as: a prize to the winner of the best beach photo, a prize for a better story about the rest and so on. This also helps to increase the audience of the site, and will help to keep visits.