Despite the back-to-back events taking place in the months of October and November, you may be mistaken in thinking that the November shopping shindig is over. But, as a seller, you know that the big finish is yet to come.
That’s right; we are talking about the last hoorah of the year-end eCommerce sales event, called “Double 12.”
12.12 is one of South Asia’s most popular internet shopping events. Brands must plan and organize their efforts at this time of year to take advantage of the influx of visitors to their websites and social media accounts.
Let’s delve deeper into how to strategize for the 12.12 event by studying the sales performance of this year’s 11.11 so you can make better predictions.
In this blog, we will discuss how to use the 12.12 event season as a stepping stone to year-end sales with some proven eCommerce strategies to help you step up your game and stand out from the rest.
Table of Contents
Top Ecommerce strategies for double 12
(A) Operational Strategies
Keep your Inventory and Stock Ready
11.11 is a one-time event. Your item will be in the hot seat for maximum traffic, with people ferociously looking to make a purchase. So, your inventory must be updated, your SKU units are pre-planned and ready to serve customers, and your support team is prepared for this massive spike in demand. After all, you don’t want to disappoint them when they come to your product page and see that the product is out of stock.
To tackle this demand, you can take help from all the data points and identify your hot-performing product through historical sales data, and keep a forecast in place. That is, if you are following FBL or FBS, you have sent them enough inventory in advance, and you also have created enough backup if things go south.
You should also monitor your competitors’ SKUs, and our channel intelligence tool, Kinator, can help you by sending out custom alerts over mail that are out-of-stock and tracking on-shelf availability across platforms, brands, and locations.
Note: It is best to do all the pre-preparation and planning within a two-week window before the mega event starts
Optimize your pricing
Almost 87% of ASEAN users make an online purchase, and half of them look to compare prices online, according to HKTDC research. Reducing your price during the sales day is always a good option, and reducing it does not necessarily harm your sales rate.
It is essential to plan and approve the pricing strategy for the end of the year before you configure promotions in the marketplace for temporary price reductions. You will be required to share this plan ahead of a ‘freezing period’ to let marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee evaluate and approve the campaigns.
Say, for instance, you are selling a clothing item, and you reduce your price by 2-3%, but at the same time, you can expand your target number of units to be sold. If earlier it was 30 SKU units, you can set your goal of 50 SKU units. This will work in both your and the buyers’ favor. You won’t lose revenue, and they will get the best deal. It is also advisable to monitor your competitors’ pricing and performance to set your own benchmark at each stage.
Setting up Promotions in Advance
With over 200 million active buyers in Southeast Asia, there is a lot of competition. Setting up promotions at least 20 days in advance will help the brand plan well ahead for campaigns that require a high amount of visibility to be successful and can book a prominent spot for their banners. This will ensure that there are no delays, and the campaigns can be ready as soon as they are approved.
When a brand store sets up promotions at the backend, it will only feature SKUs and deals on the campaign page submitted via treasure bowl or whitelisted by account managers. To understand better, whitelisting is a process wherein you cannot submit any promotion/deals via treasure bowl, and we have to send them to the account manager for inclusion. You can request it if it is required.
Keep your customers informed
It is a once-a-year event. The customer needs to be informed about the correct delivery process so they can get their product on time without any hassle. Also, there will be an influx of new customers, which means there will be more traffic. You would want to prepare a good customer team to keep the shoppers satisfied with all the necessary information about your offerings and shipping services.
When you go above and beyond to cater to your customers and provide them with a pleasant shopping experience, you are likely to have them return to your brand stores and pages again, increasing your market share.
You can also set up an auto-reply during event days. Brands may receive multiple inquiries due to extra traffic and confusion about deals and offerings. To avoid simply responding to customers, you can create ready-made responses to the most frequently asked generic questions. You can find this feature within Seller Central.
Beautify your Product Detail Page
Your product detail page is where all the magic happens – that’s where you get to convince your customers to make a purchase. As such, it’s no surprise that optimizing this page is one of the essential elements of your online business. Your content should be engaging and informative.
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- Optimizing PDP requires describing a product in a way that will make you stand out from your competition.
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- You can add the event-relevant frames to your images and add your promotion image as a hero image so that customers can see the offer as soon as they land on the PDP.
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- You can create an event-specific shop-in-shop page, wherein you can select a specific template or a blank one and write a text description to share about your shop (brand journey, product, etc.), display particular products, and run ongoing voucher/promotions.
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- A+ content can also help you tell your brand’s journey as a story format to hook your audience at first glance.
Organize warehouse set-up
Customers need to receive packages swiftly and efficiently. In order to comply with that:
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- Provide the warehouse team with a forecast of order volume so they can cope with the increase in sales.
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- As soon as the warehouse starts packing the orders, make sure that nothing is left out.
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- In the case of overcapacity, prepare a resource for on-demand deliveries.
Submit Barter Banners
If you are opting for visibility packages, make sure you submit the creatives before the deadline to be activated. You can maximize the assets by creating digital banners, events, and advertising content to gain maximum traction during event days. The most crucial part of the package is executing the assets as per the dates confirmed by the channels. Our team supports the brand in tracking the performance of visibility assets along with media assets creation, which can be a significant differentiating factor in generating more sales.
(B) How can you leverage promotional tools?
Live Stream Shopping
The live-stream shopping market is rapidly growing in Southeast Asia. This marketing technique has proven effective in Southeast Asia, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, where consumers prefer social media to shop and make purchase decisions based on video content. Live streaming helped Lazada eCommerce make 7X more sales during this year’s 11.11 sale. Shopee recorded 300,000 hours of live streaming (a lot of traffic!) This proves that it is not just a short-lived hype but also an effective marketing strategy.
Live streaming allows consumers to get an up-close and personal experience with products before buying them. This type of interactive marketing creates a more dynamic eCommerce environment by engaging shoppers and aids in increasing sales and brand value.
Participate in Flash deal promotions
Flash sales appear on the homepage; using this feature, you will be able to attract many customers since most buyers will be looking for additional discounts during the sales event. You will be able to garner the most clicks and views, increasing the chances of all your SKUs being sold.
Some requirements for holding a flash sale: a good set of reviews, the discount range should comply with marketplace guidelines, a high fulfillment rate, and better response time.
Participate in Spike Days and D-Days of Mega Events
Every time there is a big sales event, customers tend to delay their purchases, leading to a sales dip for brands. As a solution, Shopee has a spike day, which is nothing but a category feature day wherein one of the categories is highlighted on the platform with multiple brands in the same category participating and offering a discount. This helps both the platform and brands to curb the sales dip.
Search Advertising
A total of more than 30 million products are available on Shopee and Lazada. However, only the top 5% of products get featured on their front page. Investing in search advertising during mega-events can help increase your product’s exposure to a broader consumer base and increase sales significantly.
Affiliate marketing
A total of more than 30 million products are available on Shopee and Lazada. However, only the top 5% of products get featured on their front page. Investing in search advertising during mega-events can help increase your product’s exposure to a broader consumer base and increase sales significantly.
You can also hire an influencer; a simple shoutout from a famous face can bring your product a lot of buzz and traffic. Off-site marketing allows you to diversify your product reach without any risk of competition overpowering you.
Off-site marketing comes in many forms, so let’s look at some of them:
Facebook CPAS Ads
CPAS is a platform by Facebook where brands can showcase their products online via dynamic ads. If you are selling running shoes, you can create a dynamic ad. The main intention here is to reach an interested audience through ads, since FB is a widely used platform in SE Asia. This ad will help you drive traffic to your shop page, heightening your sales.
Google Shopping Ads
Advertisements like these tend to appear at the top of search results; this targeting is for those already in the consideration stage. By signing up for this service, you increase your chances of converting leads, and you can redirect them to your landing page, brand store, or any page of your choice. This advertisement is the most convenient for customers because they can get an idea of your products and price beforehand.
Instagram marketing
Instagram is all about aesthetic photos, so the key to driving traffic to your page is to create a high-definition image with a message that your customers can connect with. Just make sure to create a business account instead of a personal account.
Video Ads on YouTube
With video ads, you can grab the viewer’s attention before he watches the video. YouTube videos usually have these kinds of ads. On YouTube, you might have noticed that. A viewer must watch an ad up to a certain point before proceeding to the main video. You have a competitive edge since you will be able to outline your entire offer to customers.
Enhanced Cashback Coins
This program helps brands increase sales by offering buyers 10% or more cashback coins which buyers can use for future purchases. This makes it an excellent way to market products when customers are making a purchase, and these coins will also make them visit again. This is an opt-in program. You will need to make the cut, but with this, you will get priority when it comes to in-app digital marketing.
According to data by Shopee, brands found a 1.5x increase in orders because of offering 10% cashback coins.
Send vouchers to your followers via Chat Broadcast
Chat broadcast is a feature that allows brands to broadcast vouchers to their followers via Shopee or Lazada chat. You can drive awareness by communicating with them about an upcoming or current discount or deal. When the sales season is in full swing, you can send your followers exclusive vouchers that are unavailable to all buyers to create a sense of loyalty towards your brand, thereby increasing your sales chances.
Some of the best practices for broadcasting messages would be to create engaging content, use emojis to make it fun and attractive, and attach one high-value voucher, especially for D-day.
Make use of the Laz Games and Shop Games features
Drive traffic to your shop page by engaging customers with fun games like Spin the Wheel, quizzes, and much more. During this year’s 11.11 event, Lazada launched new games and saw a massive user engagement of over 3.5 times as customers played more than 70 million minutes of in-app Laz games. Often, brands will give coupons to customers who play games in order to gain more traction in their stores.
Below is an example of both the Shop and Laz games of Shopee and Lazada-
All in all, those above tips will surely help you participate in the most anticipated 12.12 mega-events. If you would like support to make your sales game even more substantial, continue reading to find out how we can help you.
How Paxcom can help you to increase sales during mega event Days
Paxcom offers end-to-end e-commerce solutions for our clients. Our in-house tool, Kinator, coupled with our eCommerce expertise, enables us to solve a multitude of problems for our clients.
Here are some services you can expect from us to make your event a success:
-
- Planning and monitoring inventory through the use of our custom-built in-house tool (Kinator) to keep your stock ready.
-
- Creating customized high-resolution lifestyle images, Revising product titles, bullet points, descriptions, A+ content, building brand stores for sales events to increase your visibility
-
- Designing and executing pay-per-click advertising campaigns, managing budgets, analysis, and recommendations.
-
- Planning & Managing promotions – Deals, coupons, combos for higher sales traction.
-
- Implementing tailored display and banner advertisements made for sales events on different channels and updating brand stores for greater visibility.
Participate in Flash deal promotions
Flash sales appear on the homepage; using this feature, you will be able to attract many customers since most buyers will be looking for additional discounts during the sales event. You will be able to garner the most clicks and views, increasing the chances of all your SKUs being sold.
Some requirements for holding a flash sale: a good set of reviews, the discount range should comply with marketplace guidelines, a high fulfillment rate, and better response time.
Participate in Spike Days and D-Days of Mega Events
Every time there is a big sales event, customers tend to delay their purchases, leading to a sales dip for brands. As a solution, Shopee has a spike day, which is nothing but a category feature day wherein one of the categories is highlighted on the platform with multiple brands in the same category participating and offering a discount. This helps both the platform and brands to curb the sales dip.
Search Advertising
A total of more than 30 million products are available on Shopee and Lazada. However, only the top 5% of products get featured on their front page. Investing in search advertising during mega-events can help increase your product’s exposure to a broader consumer base and increase sales significantly.
Affiliate marketing
A total of more than 30 million products are available on Shopee and Lazada. However, only the top 5% of products get featured on their front page. Investing in search advertising during mega-events can help increase your product’s exposure to a broader consumer base and increase sales significantly.
You can also hire an influencer; a simple shoutout from a famous face can bring your product a lot of buzz and traffic. Off-site marketing allows you to diversify your product reach without any risk of competition overpowering you.
Off-site marketing comes in many forms, so let’s look at some of them:
Facebook CPAS Ads
CPAS is a platform by Facebook where brands can showcase their products online via dynamic ads. If you are selling running shoes, you can create a dynamic ad. The main intention here is to reach an interested audience through ads, since FB is a widely used platform in SE Asia. This ad will help you drive traffic to your shop page, heightening your sales.
Google Shopping Ads
Advertisements like these tend to appear at the top of search results; this targeting is for those already in the consideration stage. By signing up for this service, you increase your chances of converting leads, and you can redirect them to your landing page, brand store, or any page of your choice. This advertisement is the most convenient for customers because they can get an idea of your products and price beforehand.
Instagram marketing
Instagram is all about aesthetic photos, so the key to driving traffic to your page is to create a high-definition image with a message that your customers can connect with. Just make sure to create a business account instead of a personal account.
Video Ads on YouTube
With video ads, you can grab the viewer’s attention before he watches the video. YouTube videos usually have these kinds of ads. On YouTube, you might have noticed that. A viewer must watch an ad up to a certain point before proceeding to the main video. You have a competitive edge since you will be able to outline your entire offer to customers.
Enhanced Cashback Coins
This program helps brands increase sales by offering buyers 10% or more cashback coins which buyers can use for future purchases. This makes it an excellent way to market products when customers are making a purchase, and these coins will also make them visit again. This is an opt-in program. You will need to make the cut, but with this, you will get priority when it comes to in-app digital marketing.
According to data by Shopee, brands found a 1.5x increase in orders because of offering 10% cashback coins.
Send vouchers to your followers via Chat Broadcast
Chat broadcast is a feature that allows brands to broadcast vouchers to their followers via Shopee or Lazada chat. You can drive awareness by communicating with them about an upcoming or current discount or deal. When the sales season is in full swing, you can send your followers exclusive vouchers that are unavailable to all buyers to create a sense of loyalty towards your brand, thereby increasing your sales chances.
Some of the best practices for broadcasting messages would be to create engaging content, use emojis to make it fun and attractive, and attach one high-value voucher, especially for D-day.
Make use of the Laz Games and Shop Games features
Drive traffic to your shop page by engaging customers with fun games like Spin the Wheel, quizzes, and much more. During this year’s 11.11 event, Lazada launched new games and saw a massive user engagement of over 3.5 times as customers played more than 70 million minutes of in-app Laz games. Often, brands will give coupons to customers who play games in order to gain more traction in their stores.
Below is an example of both the Shop and Laz games of Shopee and Lazada-
All in all, those above tips will surely help you participate in the most anticipated 12.12 mega-events. If you would like support to make your sales game even more substantial, continue reading to find out how we can help you.
How Paxcom can help you to increase sales during mega event Days
Paxcom offers end-to-end e-commerce solutions for our clients. Our in-house tool, Kinator, coupled with our eCommerce expertise, enables us to solve a multitude of problems for our clients.
Here are some services you can expect from us to make your event a success:
- Planning and monitoring inventory through the use of our custom-built in-house tool (Kinator) to keep your stock ready.
- Creating customized high-resolution lifestyle images, Revising product titles, bullet points, descriptions, A+ content, building brand stores for sales events to increase your visibility
- Designing and executing pay-per-click advertising campaigns, managing budgets, analysis, and recommendations.
- Planning & Managing promotions – Deals, coupons, combos for higher sales traction.
- Implementing tailored display and banner advertisements made for sales events on different channels and updating brand stores for greater visibility.