Diwali is a time to refurbish and rejuvenate for consumers and a bonanza for sellers. This festival of lights is usually the largest consumer spending period, accounting for billions in sales. This is because most consumers wait till Diwali sale to shop in order to avail themselves of the unbelievable prices and Diwali offers that only come once a year.
All sorts of products — smartphones, home decor, clothes, electronics, gifts, food — are in demand during Diwali.
According to a report by RedSeer Consulting, about 20 million people are expected to shop on various eCommerce platforms during this Diwali season. Here’s how to sell more from your shop this year.
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Consider these 5 elements during Diwali
Not just giant eCommerce companies, but even smaller online retailers, are anticipating bigger sales during this year’s festive season. Here are some of the tactics they’ll be using.
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Emotionally connect with your audience.
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Attract a crowd.
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Choose the right marketing strategies.
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Offer competitive pricing.
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Have well-organized operations.
To generate the greatest amount of sales during Diwali or any festive season, it’s important for online businesses to adopt effective strategies. Let’s discuss five of them.
1. Emotionally connect with your audience
A good campaign is one which tells an emotional story and tries to inspire your audience to buy. The story can be of a relationship, childhood memories or possibly a social message.
For instance, in 2016, Big Bazaar came up with an ad that invited viewers to enjoy a pollution-free Diwali with paper crackers named Paper Pattaka. The ad was fun to watch and had a strong message. In fact, still every year this ad is circulated by many people at the time of Diwali, which in turn helps the brand.
In the same way this Diwali, Amazon India has released an emotional ad which talks about how no one has to compromise their happiness due to budget as they are offering big deals on big brands. On top of that, the Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale is still one of the hottest sales event in the lead up to Diwali.
But there’s no need to pay for a TV ad to connect with potential customers. You can strike an emotional note in your flyers, emails and text messages.
People tend to like things that help them connect culturally, ethically or philosophically.
Think about how your products or services do this, then create a tagline that captures this sentiment. Aim for something like Amazon’s tagline, “Khushiyon ke list se ab kuch bhi na drop hoga.”
2. Attract a crowd
Online marketing is all about attracting and holding the interest of your most likely customers.
One way to do this is by having a decorative Diwali landing page that creates a festive mood.
For instance, you can create a colorful web page with a banner on the top that talks about different Diwali offers on a beautiful background of rangoli, crackers and diyas. It’s important to ensure that your products are photographed well. Being online, the customer can’t actually touch, hold or feel the product. Hence it’s crucial to have attractive product images, a list of features and a clear and simple site to use.
Photo Credit: nimishgogri Flickr via Compfight cc
A few tips to encourage people to buy from you:
- Try combo offers, buy-one-get-one-free or a discount on their next purchase.
- Display your customers’ testimonials, reviews or ratings on your website. These are powerfully persuasive for new customers.
- Invite site visitors to become premium members to get more features like getting sale pricing one day in advance, additional discounts on the products, next day delivery, etc.
You must do what you can to make your price, value and service a cut above others.
3. Choose the right marketing strategies
If the customer can’t see your product, they are unlikely to buy it. Hence you must market your business and products through different modes like:
- Social media
- Email marketing
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Printed signs and flyers
For instance, you can use Facebook to tell your target audience about your Diwali offers and deals. You could even run a contest to increase your customer engagement. If you have a link in bio page you can also link to all your campaigns in one place.
Editor’s note: GoDaddy Email Marketing is a quick and easy way to reach out to customers this Diwali or during any festive season.
4. Offer competitive pricing
Photo: Artem Bali on Unsplash
One proven way to get customers to buy from you and not from your competitors is by offering competitive pricing. Offer the best discounted price for your products and it will, in turn, guarantee increased sales. Customers might even promote your products to their friends, family and relatives.
However, always make sure that your products are priced fairly based on market standards. Competitive pricing does not mean simply dropping the product price. Sometime it means increasing the perceived value by adding free shipping, gift-wrapping or in-store pickup.
On top of that, if your business model allows, look into partnering with banks to offer special bank discounts and bank offers to help boost your brand awareness and sales. When it comes down to picking purchases, some customers may choose to make them with brands that offer more incentives with selected credit cards or bank cards.
Read this post for details on how to set pricing that will garner more sales without a loss in revenue.
5. Have well-organized operations
Imagine if your customer is shopping and he likes the product as it has everything that he might be looking for but the product is not in stock. As a business owner, you must make sure that you have enough products in inventory before launching your Diwali offer.
There is also a need to have proper back-end operations and processes at this busy time of year. Make sure someone:
- Responds promptly to buyer messages submitted by phone, text or online.
- Quickly deals with returns and refunds.
- Resolves any issues customers might have in a professional manner.
It is also recommended to have a free shipping option in your offer as customers often look for it.
Let the Diwali offers begin
Photo Credit: sankarshan Flickr via Compfight cc
Consider this season a golden opportunity for your business to win over new customers and delight current ones with festive and appealing Diwali offers. This is a very competitive sales season, so you will need to give some thought to how to reduce prices on select items while increasing overall value. Make sure you back it all up with systems and processes that will make the shopper’s experience enjoyable from start to finish.
All the best and have a safe and happy Diwali!
This Diwali offer post was originally published on 25 October, 2018 and was updated on 15 October, 2019 and 12 October, 2023.
