How Top E-merchants Carry Out Easter Sales Campaign: Lessons Learned For SMBs

Jun 7, 2024

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2 min read

Time flies and it’s almost the end of March 2021. Now that the pandemic is not over, the battle is on our side with the prompt development of vaccines. Therefore, we have all grounds to expect that the traditional shopping habits will be back in Easter, although family gatherings can still be restricted.

Have a flashback of how COVID-19 has affected SMBs in 2020.

Ecommerce stores all around the globe are also doing many things to prepare for Easter shopping. Today, we analyze some top e-merchants and their ways of doing Easter sales so SMBs can learn from them. Let's have a further look!

Why Easter is important for e-merchants to boost sales

Prior to the pandemic, Easter was always a significant holiday for eCommerce. According to NRF survey history, roughly 81% of Americans will allocate time and money for this holiday; whether it's due to religious reasons or because of traditions. On average, an individual can spend up to $150 for Easter gifts and activities. The annual Easter spending hovers around $18 billion for the past 4 years. Among those who won't celebrate Easter, 48% still plan to shop for Easter-related goods.

During the big hit of COVID-19 in 2020, there were still 77% of Americans who were planning on celebrating Easter, proving that this is a traditional staple for Westerners. In fact, “the four days from Easter Tuesday 2020 topped the four days from Cyber Monday 2019” by 2%, making this the busiest period in online shopping history.

The global pandemic declaration with social distancing orders in March 2020 could not stop Australian customers from shopping online during Easter. (Source: Australia Post)

Hence, eCommerce businesses should take advantage of Easter in the new normal to maximize revenue.

Have a further read about the importance of Easter in Ecommerce.

How Big eCommerce Stores Do Easter Marketing To Boost Sales

Now, let's have a look at how top e-stores have been doing to boost sales during this occasion.

Offer Easter-inspired bundles as Carter's does

The giant supplier for children’s apparel, Carter's, is early in the holiday race this year with a brand new collection for Easter. To enhance the competitive edge, they add a special discount of up to 50% to their Easter-inspired collection.

According to NRF, sales and promotion inspire around 31% of Easter shopping, while exclusive and seasonal products make 21% of e-shoppers purchase an item. Carter's has done an excellent job when combining these two shopping reasons to increase their holiday sales.

Time sensitivity can help Old Navy, and you too

Going further than just some Easter inspired products, Old Navy makes a newsletter with an Easter theme. More importantly, the email creates a sense of urgency with the percent off decreasing day by day.

Different sales on each day during the holiday is a fantastic approach that Old Navy has implemented to boost Easter sales. With this campaign, they are encouraging customers to purchase sooner to save more. (Source: Clear Haus)

To create a sense of urgency, you could also experiment with different kinds of sales on each day during the holidays. Old Navy did a great campaign with this approach, encouraging the shopper to buy sooner to save more.

Lesson learned from Banana Republic: Everyone loves Easter egg hunt

The cousin of Old Navy, Banana Republic, also upgrades their Easter sales with an online egg hunt on their website. While e-shoppers are browsing Banana Republic's site, they can “accidentally" find the hidden “eggs" in different colors, implying different levels of discount.

This online Easter egg hunt is brilliant because it encourages online customers to go through page after page in the hunt for the “eggs". More engagement, more sales. That's the rule of thumb and Banana Republic has applied it perfectly.

Online merchandising with Easter theme like Yummy Bazaar

The online grocery online store has prepared for this year’s Easter with an outstanding top banner featuring a wish and linking to the Easter collection. The collection is also put in the limelight on the navigation menu with a cute icon.

Besides homepage merchandising, Yummy Bazaar takes a further step in search merchandising, aka searchanising.

During Easter time, when customers look for relevant keywords (for example “choco”, “egg”), the site search engine will automatically put Easter-related suggestions on top. (Source: Yummy Bazaar)

Ecommerce merchandising can be the key to an online competitive edge. It involves a lot more aspects other than the homepage and search bar. Check out these experts' tips for online merchandising, especially in SMB.

“Don't forget social engagement" - said LUSH

With more than 4.2 billion active users on social networking sites, this is, without a doubt, a golden land to do marketing and boost sales. LUSH understands it and has been making its presence on leading sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

In preparation for Easter 2021, they have been revealing photos and videos of the new collection on their social sites.

Online networking sites also facilitate online sales with advanced features. For example, Facebook, with its Facebook Shop, allows product tagging in both pictures and videos. This means when browsing Facebook, users can go to the product details and view the product page by “Click to View Products". (Source: LUSH Facebook)

Moreover, it's much easier for a brand to get closer to its customers on social media and take advantage of social proof as user-generated content (UGC). In fact, 47% of millennials believe in UGC, whereas the number for branded content is roughly a half. LUSH must have known this and therefore use UGC very well.

LUSH takes full use of social media with user-generated content on its Instagram. For the Easter campaign, they create a branded hashtag #lusheaster to manage social proof easily.

What to do now

Understand the underlying motives

Carter's has carefully examined buying intentions during Easter to craft a well-promoted campaign for their offerings. Likewise, you should also look into the reasons behind Easter shopping.

NRF has done some survey and found out some of the most popular reasons.

Apparently, many people go shopping both online and offline as a tradition. E-merchants can find inspiration from familial and social activities like Easter eggs hunting, family dinners to create and market the bundles.

Deliver one message for all channels

An eye-catching slogan, an alluring design, and an out-of-the-box marketing idea for Easter, all can go to waste if they don't stay in the customers' brain. When you offer different messages in different channels, the customers will get messed up. They are too busy to remember this discount is for Facebook, that discount is for Instagram.

A simple, straight-to-the-point message, whether it's a social post, a blog article, or an email campaign, is of great help in the rush for Easter shopping.

Double-check your inventory and your site

Running out of hot items is a sad story for holiday conversion. Therefore, you should investigate past orders, dive into the site search log to predict top products for an Easter sales campaign. Sales report helps you in sales prediction while a deep analysis into search engagement reveals a great deal about buying intent (as searchers are 2x more likely to purchase an item).

A well-stocked e-store that is able to fulfill any order as it is placed definitely wins the customers' hearts. That's why Google and other search engines put a high value on site speed. It's important that your online store runs smoothly during the shopping season, so remember to check all the functions from searching, filtering, adding-to-card to making payments. If you use third-party apps, make sure they don't slow down your site by redundant codes.

Easter is just around the corner. To reap all the benefits of holiday shopping, early preparation is necessary. Hope that you come up with some ideas for your Easter sales this year in our article. Stay tuned for more insights and growth tips for Ecommerce!

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Ellie Ho

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Content Marketing Specialist

June 17, 2024

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6 min read

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