6 Tips to Maximize Your Online Store for Higher Green Monday Sales

In 2007, eBay decided that the second Monday in December should henceforth be considered a special eCommerce holiday shopping day. They chose the name "Green Monday" for the idea that millions of people shopping online was more eco-friendly those millions getting in their cars and driving to the mall. Since then, this day, which falls on December 12 this year, has become the second biggest eCommerce sales day of the year, after Cyber Monday. Last year, Green Monday sales surpassed $1.4 billion. Here are some eCommerce tips to help you boost eCommerce sales on Green Monday.

Make Sure Your Store is Mobile-Ready for an Major Boost in Green Monday Sales

Increasingly, purchases are being made via mobile. This is especially true of the holiday season, when shoppers are racing around frantically. Last year mobile accounted for more than half of all online traffic. Thirty per cent of online purchases were made on a mobile device, with 52% of shoppers using their smartphone for research before shopping at a brick-and-mortar store, and 82% of smartphone users consulting their phone while shopping in-store.

The lesson here is clear: make sure your store is optimized for mobile. All design must work on smaller screens, and load times must be fast, particularly since many mobile users are on cell networks rather than wi-fi. Another tip: take advantage of location-based messaging to deliver timely, relevant, high-conversion messaging to your customers.

Use Black Friday and Cyber Monday to Refine your Marketing & Processes

If you’re doing eCommerce right, you’re collecting a great deal of data on your customers, their shopping habits, and the success/failure of your various marketing campaigns. After Black Friday and Cyber Monday you have some time to analyze the data to see what marketing worked and what didn’t, what products shoppers wanted and avoided, and what elements of your selling process or online store ran or lagged.

Use this time and info to your benefit on Green Monday. Which campaigns worked? Blanket email? Targeted email? Social media deals? Customer loyalty campaigns? You can utilize what you already have; for Green Monday sales, just change the templates or colors to align them with the campaigns that were most successful.

Promote Brand Ambassadors

You should be doing this already but make sure to collect user-generated content and use it to your advantage on Green Monday. You should have some pretty good campaigns from social media and reviews that you can use. User-generated reviews are trusted by shoppers far more than merchant-created messaging, and they generate 4.6% higher conversions. This is especially true among millennials, who trust user-generated content 50% more than other traditional and non-UGC media.

Segment your loyal customers into lists and engage with them on social media, email, and reviews. Use social media retargeting to hit the customers you want and incentivize them to share. These sharing messages also generate higher conversions than merchant advertising.