Next Valentine's Day will be different.
With the mandatory lockdown, the celebration of love will have to be kept within the four walls of the home, which will lead to an increase in online shopping. This condition once again emphasises the importance of the online sales channel in supporting the sustainability of businesses in the midst of the pandemic. As is the case in physical spaces, during this time of celebrating love it will be important for the online shops and social media pages of the most varied businesses to adapt to the spirit of the date.
That said, selling more and better on Valentine's Day will invariably be based on optimising and strengthening three vectors: payments, marketing actions and deliveries.
How to sell more on Valentine's Day
Online payment solutions
Despite the similarities, selling in a physical shop or online are two different universes that deserve different approaches. From the outset, the competitive nature of e-commerce makes customer loyalty more difficult. At the slightest difficulty in the purchasing process, the e-shopper leaves the site or marketplace and looks for an alternative in the "next door neighbour". This is particularly visible at the checkout.
The inadequate supply of means of payment adapted to the distance selling through the Internet and a consumer profile that favours mobile payments via smartphone, is a decisive factor in the shopping basket abandonment before the purchase is finalised. So that online shop payments on Valentine's Day are not a problem, the option should be for an e-commerce solution that covers, for example, the payments by multibanco reference or through digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
If you don't know where to start, REDUNIQ will help you with a differentiated offer of payment methods that are adapted not only to the specifics of your digital business, but also to the needs of the consumer. The first of these solutions is REDUNIQ@Payments a solution that allows remote payments by email, SMS or WhatsApp, with Visa and Mastercard cards, without the need for a website or integration with the merchant's online shop. In a simple and secure way, @Payments provides a platform, optimised for smartphones and tablets, where the merchant creates a link that can be sent by email, SMS or WhatsApp. The consumer receives the link, clicks, and goes to a secure REDUNIQ page, which guarantees that the merchant does not have access to the card details at any stage of the payment.
Talking about payment options that meet the consumer profile wouldn't be complete without mentioning payments by ATM reference, the form favoured by the vast majority of Portuguese e-shoppers.
From the need to accommodate this type of payment, REDUNIQ has created Payment for Services, a solution that enables a online shop accepts payments by ATM reference and MB Way and which can be integrated into the site (simple integration if the merchant has the REDUNIQ E-Commerce solution). If the merchant sell online without a website through social networks, you can access this payment solution by simply logging on to the REDUNIQ platform and without the need for integration.
Marketing actions aimed at Valentine's Day
Bring the spirit of Valentine's Day to your e-commerce. This necessarily involves carrying out marketing actions aimed at the date in question.
The first is to change the layout of your website and/or your social media pages. Put up images that take the visitor back to Valentine's Day and think about creating specific categories of products related to this date on the main page of your site in order to direct the potential customer more quickly to the products alluding to 14 February. Alongside this, you should produce original and relevant content for this day on your social networks in order to capture the attention of potential customers and generate traffic to your site or marketplace.
If your online shop or marketplace isn't specialised, bring products related to the date to your online storefront. Chocolates, flowers or the very typical Valentine's handkerchiefs are some of the options under the heading of things to sell on Valentine's Day.
Invest in promotions, as they are always welcome, especially in an economic context as complicated as the current one. Discount coupons, free deliveries or special prices are some of the types of promotion you can adopt. In order to create a sense of urgency in the customer and maximise the effects of this action, set a deadline (it doesn't necessarily have to be the 14th). Consider offering digital gift vouchers for the purchase of products related to the date.
Boosting all these strategies also involves targeting adverts. Consider investing in paid adverts using the Facebook Ads feature. This tool works on the basis of micro-targeting which, after gathering the various personal information available on Facebook users' profiles, directs your adverts to the audience most likely to buy something from you.
Optimising delivery services
The predicted rush to shop online will put pressure on company logistics, especially deliveries, and it's important to have a delivery system that responds to variations in the volume of orders. Below are some recommendations for more demanding periods in this area:
- Check stocks and try to communicate delivery times that can be realised in good time. Remember that you should bear in mind that 14 February falls on a Sunday, which means that deliveries may be affected by the weekend;
- Contact your courier(s) or the post office you normally use to find out what the average delivery time is for this week and communicate delivery times accordingly;
- In addition to the delivery itself, pay special attention to the packaging. In addition to good sealing and protection (bubble wrap, for example), try to deliver personalised packages with Valentine's Day motifs.
EN 
PT