What Your CRM Needs for Holiday eCommerce 2022

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After record-breaking eCommerce sales on Thanksgiving weekend, retailers had a solid start to the holiday shopping season. Based on figures from Adobe Analytics, consumers spent a total of $35.3 billion from Thanksgiving day to Cyber Monday. Online sales during Cyber Monday were the highest, reaching $11.3 billion. Meanwhile, Black Friday totaled $9.12 billion, and Thanksgiving online spending was $5.29 billion.

The substantial revenues from online sales could persist as many consumers continue shopping in December. The National Retail Foundation (NRF) expects holiday sales (from November 1 through December 31) to be between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion. Analysts expect the eCommerce market to contribute significantly to sales as 56% of consumers plan to make their holiday purchases online.

Capitalizing on Consumer Optimism

Despite concerns about inflation, recession, and geopolitical uncertainties, healthy holiday sales signal the holidays are back. After more than two years of Covid-19, American consumers are excited again about holiday shopping. With this in mind, how can retailers capitalize on consumer optimism and boost their holiday eCommerce 2022 sales?

Knowing customer data would be a good start. Based on a McKinsey survey, nearly 40% of young and high-income consumers are ready to splurge this holiday season. This intention is especially evident among millennials and Gen Zers.

On the other hand, lower and middle-income consumers are feeling the most pressure from higher prices. Most are tapping their savings and availing of “buy now, pay later” offers while looking for better value. Consequently, customers will be looking for sales or coupons or retailers that offer the best prices: 44% of respondents said they would only buy items on promotion, while 43% said they would switch retailers to get the same things for a lower price.

Since customers have different buying intentions, retailers should tailor their eCommerce strategies to the people they want to reach. One of the best ways to do so is through personalization. If retailers can effectively analyze their customer data, they’d be able to inspire consumers with the right products at the right price and at the right time.

Leveraging CRM to Increase Holiday eCommerce Sales

Knowing customers will require a lot of data crunching, which retailers can get from leveraging features of modern CRM software. Fundamentally, CRMs store customer information used for customer service and ticket management. But to effectively increase sales, businesses must learn to leverage features valuable to customer segmentation. These include hyper-personalization, real-time data, and analytics and reporting tools.

With the help of customer segmentation tools in a CRM, retailers can conduct advanced personalization to deliver more relevant content, promotions, products, and services to each customer. Hyper-personalization involves technology like artificial intelligence and real-time data like browsing behavior on top of traditional personalization data like location, demographics, and purchase history. It also uses predictive analytics to gain insights that could uncover potential opportunities.

All these technologies combined give retailers a complete picture of each customer. Their insights can help them determine the most appropriate offers for each customer and promote cross-sell opportunities.

Moreover, using the wealth of data in the CRM to level up customer segmentation can help create custom and targeted experiences. As a result, retailers can quickly adapt to their customer’s changing needs in real time, turn more casual shoppers into paying customers, and encourage repeat purchases thanks to a convenient and pleasant online shopping experience.