An eCommerce Store's Valentine's Day Handbook

Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate all things, love!

While the concept of Valentine’s day may sound cliché, for eCommerce stores, it is easily the first occasion of the year to boost sales. So, it is time to plan on how you can reap the benefits of Valentine’s Day.

According to Statista, Valentine’s Day 2021 sales were $21.8 billion in the US alone. The projected sales of 2022 is $23.9 billion. So, it is time that eCommerce stores restock a lot of teddy bears, coffee mugs, chocolates, flowers, and all things lovey-dovey. Because the concept of Valentine’s Day sales is real!

Here is an eCommerce store owner’s handbook to ace Valentine’s Day marketing with the right set of tools and strategies. So, let’s dive in!

Do you know about the Valentine’s Day Shoppers?

It is a must that e-retailers know everything about the three types of Valentine’s Day shoppers. That way, coming up with Valentine’s Day sales ideas won’t be a difficult task anymore. Before you have a Valentine’s Day marketing plan, hear us out.

Here you go:

The pre-planners

All those serious partners take Valentine’s Day pretty seriously and start searching for Valentine’s Day gifts a week prior to the day of love. They are looking for a hassle-free Valentine’s Day shopping experience and they want to ensure that the Valentine’s Day gifts reach their loved ones within time. So, retailers must prepare their online stores by keeping the requirements of these customers in mind.

On-the-go shoppers

There are these on-the-go shoppers who prefer browsing through their mobile devices. These perfectionists select a product after endless scrolling across multiple stores. It is better to keep your store mobile-ready as these shoppers are busy people and they prefer navigating across your store through their mobile devices.

Last-minute shoppers

eCommerce stores often experience a high spike of in-store traffic on Valentine’s Day Eve. That’s because the last-minute shoppers purchase their gifts during this time. So, online stores must prioritize this bunch of shoppers when planning their Valentine’s Day sales ideas.

5 eCommerce Valentine’s Day Strategies to Woo your Customers

The pandemic might have been hard on most of us, but it couldn’t fade the urge of the consumers to celebrate their dear and near ones. According to NRF, Valentine’s Day is the fifth-biggest consumer spending event in the US, after the winter holidays and Mother’s Day. The NRF has further revealed that 53% of US consumers will celebrate Valentine’s Day 2022.

So, it is always a smart idea for the eCommerce stores to plan Valentine’s Day marketing and sales ideas and woo as many customers as possible. Here is a set of strategies that we believe will work like wonders.

So, let’s get started.

1. Your homepage banner should promote Valentine’s Day

When it is Valentine’s week, you can expect tons of customers visiting your store for Valentine’s Day tips and gift ideas. The best way to grab the attention of these customers is through a home page banner. It will help your target customers understand what to expect from your retail store this Valentine’s Day.

Check out beauty brand Ulta’s homepage banner:

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As soon as you enter the portal of Ulta, you will see this V-day banner right there. With this, consumers won’t have to spend a lot of time finding the V-day products or looking for the special V-day offers. They can just click on “Shop now” and start shopping.

A recommendation system can add several eye-catchy product recommendations like recommended for you, trending items, etc. to get the target customers hooked. You can also go for personalized, home page product recommendations. In that case, you will need an AI-enabled recommendation engine that can display relevant product recommendations by leveraging customer data.

2. Create effective Valentine’s Day Guides

Valentine’s Day can be a stressful occasion for some of your target customers. That’s because, everyone wants to gift the best present to their loved ones, but not everyone is good at picking those gifts. To help these customers, you can create quick Valentine’s Day gift guides and bundle your products wherever relevant. A proven way to boost Valentine’s Day sales is through Valentine’s Day guides.

See how HudaBeauty has created awesome gift guides for its customers:

Such a V-day gift guide will ease purchase decisions for the customers and increase the chances of your Valentine’s Day sales.

3. Introduce a sense of urgency

eCommerce stores should never underestimate their competitors. If you want to stay ahead and convert prospective visits into sales before your competitors, you need to introduce a sense of urgency. When customers see offers like “Flat 50% discount on all products for 24 hours”, they are bound to get drawn toward it.

Here is an example of Valentine’s Day urgency:

When the days, hours, and minutes to Valentine’s Day are right in front of the customer, they are very likely to act as the FOMO gets to them. A countdown timer with the limited offer can bring back the cart abandoners to your eCommerce store. You can place these timers as exit intent pop-ups on your website and trigger the customers to purchase V-day products.

4. Incentivize each purchase

The whole point of Valentine’s Day marketing is to help your customers celebrate their loved ones. How about eCommerce store owners add some love for their buyers too? We suggest incentivizing each purchase and offering something excess to each customer on Valentine’s Day eve.

Send coupon codes to your customers via emails. Write killer copies for promotional emails and offer exciting discounts that customers cannot resist. You can make these offers even more innovative for loyal customers and add more incentives.

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Believe it or not, coupons can change the intentions of 39.1% of people and motivate them to purchase more. Throw in some personalization and you will find more and more customers getting interested in your products.

Want to know how you can make the most of personalized product recommendations to grow eCommerce conversion? Here is a blog that explains it all with 15 real-life examples. Find out here.

5. Your landing pages, paid ads, and socials should only talk about Valentine’s Day

When it is Valentine’s Day, all your business channels should jointly promote this occasion. Whether it is your website, paid marketing campaign, or even social media, make sure that your V-Day offers are coming out loud and clear from all these channels.

Here are some tips that can come in handy:

Landing Page

Create a dedicated landing page for V-day. From banner images to content to product lists to CTAs, this page should talk about all things Valentine’s Day. This landing page will easily grab your target audiences’ attention and improve the searchability of your eCommerce store. Add gift guides, coupons, referral programs, etc.

Paid Ads

Your choice of keywords can make or break paid campaigns. Be sure to add Valentine’s Day-specific keywords that are unique to your target industry. Also, be more specific with your keyword research approach. Most of your competitors will already use keywords like “Valentine’s Day gifts” or “Valentine’s Day Eve”. Go in-depth and use relevant keywords like “Valentine’s Day makeup gifts” or any other keyword that describes your products the best. The chances of conversion will be much higher.

Social Media

Your social media is a notable channel, so keep it Valentine’s Day-ready. From adding banner images to the frequent posting of V-Day offers, make sure that your social media gives the Valentine’s Day vibes to the customers. You can also add a V-Day theme to your brand logo for greater exposure.

Enjoy a Personalized Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is not only about gifts. It is more about personalized gifts. Shoppers are looking for the best possible gifts for their loved ones and the least they can demand is a personalized item.

But the question is, how do you personalize V-Day gifts for each customer? Well, that’s when you need a personalized product recommendation engine like Argoid. It can help you with: