Father’s Day 2023 is around the corner, and we’re sure your customers will be geared up to make it a special one for their Super Dads this year. We can all agree that Dads worldwide have a wide range of hobbies and interests, so a day like this will present a special opportunity for businesses catering to diverse markets.
Why businesses should pay attention to Father’s Day
According to NRF, consumers are expected to spend a whopping USD 22.9 billion on Father’s Day in 2023. This is up from last year’s USD 20 billion spending and also surpasses the 2021 record of USD 20.1 billion. So it comes as no surprise that the average individual spending on Father’s Day shopping will also be on the rise.
The same report also states that historically, the most popular Father’s Day gifts were greeting cards (61%), clothing (55%), a dinner, a brunch, or some other special outing (52%), gift cards (48%), and personal care items (32%). (NRF)
3 Simple Steps to Boost Father’s Day Sales in 2023
Give your customers “an offer they can’t refuse” (we can use this reference because, hey, even The Godfather was a Father first) – the “find, buy, get, trust” journey to frictionless commerce.
Step 1:
Make Your Products Easy to “Find”
According to Google Cloud, 90% of US customers rate effective search capabilities as essential in their buying journey. In fact, 43% of customers are also willing to pay more if they can find what they’re looking for in fewer clicks. Unsurprisingly, as many as 80% of shoppers bounce off a website that doesn’t have the “find” experience they expect.
To say that “findability” is critical in driving sales during Father’s Day 2023, or sales in general, would be stating the obvious.
What is not obvious is the path to achieving this. Your product data is vital in driving findability and, eventually, sales. So how you manage your data matters. Well-structured and organized data drives findability in these ways:
- Well-managed product data ensures that website content, meta content, and all other relevant information is accurately tagged, categorized, and indexed. This makes it easier for search engines and internal site search functionalities to crawl and retrieve the desired information effectively. This leads to better on-page findability and results on external search engines.
- With better categorization, tagging, and taxonomy, you can drive intuitive navigation, better search results, and relevant recommendations.
- Additionally, effective data management enables you to create comprehensive site maps and hierarchies, making it easier for users to locate desired products.
With the ability to effectively manage and maintain data, websites can ensure that relevant information is easily discoverable, leading to improved findability and a seamless user experience.
You can also learn more about how to make the most of product data with PIM/MDM and AI/ML in our recent blog.
Step 2:
Your Website Should be THE Place Where Customers “Buy” the Product
Having your product online for Father’s Day is one thing; making the online buying journey a reliable and compelling one is a different story. In fact, 56% of customers do prefer to buy products from online stores, but this only applies to instances where the buying journey is streamlined.
We’ve already spoken about the relevance of data from the context of findability. Things are no different with buying journeys. Customers are looking for complete, consistent, relevant, and reliable information to make a purchase online, and having the correct data up on your website at all times is imperative in this pursuit.
This is easier said than done, though. From ingestion to enrichment to distribution, your data changes many hands and goes through multiple systems. In this scenario, you need a data management mechanism that ticks all the boxes that make a good buying experience:
- Omnichannel presence
- Personalized experiences
- Mobile-friendly information
- Social commerce influence
- Timely offers and discounts
- Streamlined buying journeys
Additionally, your eCommerce platform should be capable of keeping pace with changing customer expectations. As customers look for “bigger and better,” the pressure is on businesses to keep pace. This can’t be achieved by simply investing in new technology. Father’s Day or not, the current scenario doesn’t permit significant capital expenditure.
Like all the wise Fathers out there, businesses are always looking for more cost-effective ways to stay ahead of the curve, and a composable commerce approach is the best way forward. Without extensive commerce platform overhauls, composable commerce can help businesses ramp up capabilities only in the required areas, with minimum costs. This ensures you can meet current customer demands without digging deep into your pockets.
Learn more about how Commerce-as-a-Service (CaaS) can give you the most value on your investment.
Step 3:
Ensure Customers “Get” What They Asked For
Getting customers to find your products of value is only half the battle won. To make the most of Father’s Day shopping, you must have the chops to seal the deal. With an occasion such as Father’s Day around the corner, customers look for more than products. They look for the assurance that they will receive what they want when they want it. This is where the “get” touchpoint of the customer journey is supercritical.
According to Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate for online shopping is a searing 69.99%! What’s more, 22% of these shoppers abandoned their carts because the promised shipping time was too slow. This is just one of the many symptoms of an ailing supply chain with poor visibility and scope for improvement.
Now picture this. Imagine that a first-time customer visits your website for Father’s Day shopping, likes a product, but backs off at the last moment because of delivery time that looks unpromising. Even worse, they order a product that doesn’t get delivered before the occasion. All these roads lead to Rome; and in this case, all roads lead to a lack of trust and a lost customer.
So how do you prime your supply chain for these periods of opportunity?
First, you need to ensure you have a supply chain that’s truly data-driven. Visibility and access to real-time data ensures that the right products are in the right place at the right time, driving fast and efficient delivery. The correct data gives you actionable insights, performance, monitoring, improved supply chain visibility, optimized operations; the list goes on.
Apart from having the right data in place, you also need the systems to deliver the customer promise. You might think this would require an overhaul of existing systems, but just like in the case of commerce platforms, this is not always necessary. Enter composable commerce solutions, where you can plug in modern warehouse management systems (WMS) and/or order management systems (OMS), and you get a supply chain driven by automation that provides better visibility and control and delivers each time, every time.
Read more about how WMS and OMS can drive customer-centric growth in our blog.
Creating the perfect Father’s Day shopping experience for your customers is all about tying these three facets – find, buy, get – together, while building trust along the way.
Curious to learn more about how Pivotree can help you unleash frictionless commerce to make Father’s Day 2023 a memorable one for you and your customers? Drop a line at [email protected]
About Pivotree: Pivotree designs, builds, and manages frictionless commerce experiences for brands and their customers around the world. We provide end-to-end solutions and services in Commerce, Data Management, and Supply Chain for hundreds of brands globally.