20 eCommerce Best Practices To Increase Holiday Sales In 2025!

Make the most of the holiday season and increase holiday sales with strategic eCommerce best practices, irresistible offers, and a seamless shopping experience. Transform your online store into a festive shopping destination!

The holiday rush is just around the corner, and preparing your eCommerce site to capture more sales this season is essential. You’ll be surprised to know that people spent over $241.4 billion last holiday season on festive shopping. While achieving success takes planning, a solid strategy will make all the difference.

In a nutshell, holiday marketing refers to strategies and campaigns that businesses use to attract customers during specific holiday seasons, to increase holiday sales. This approach leverages festive themes, limited-time offers, and seasonally tailored promotions to capture consumers’ excitement and purchasing intent during popular shopping events, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Black Friday Cyber Monday, and Cyber Monday.

Discover 20 powerful holiday sales tactics to boost your store’s revenue. With so many tips to cover, let’s dive in without delay!

Is Holiday Marketing Essential For Making Profits?

Holiday marketing is essential because it capitalizes on heightened consumer interest and spending during this season to increase holiday sales.

Let us understand why it matters:

1. Increased Sales Opportunities: The holiday sale season is peak time for shopping, with customers more inclined to spend on gifts, decorations, and celebrations. Effective holiday marketing can significantly boost revenue.
2. Enhanced Brand Visibility: During retail holidays, people are actively looking for deals and gift ideas. The eCommerce best practices help your brand stand out, attracting both new customers and re-engaging existing ones.
3. Strengthened Customer Relationships: Personalized, festive-themed campaigns show customers that your brand understands and celebrates what matters to them. This builds loyalty and can lead to repeat business.
4. Competitive Edge: During the holiday season, most businesses ramp up their marketing efforts. Holiday marketing ensures your brand stays competitive and doesn’t miss out on consumer attention.
5. Opportunity for Product Bundling and Upselling: Many consumers look for bundled deals and holiday-specific products, making it a prime time to introduce package deals, upsells, or limited-edition products that drive larger purchases.

In short, holiday marketing is just tapping into the seasonal surge in demand, amplifying brand presence and boosting sales during critical revenue-generating periods. We will now discuss the eCommerce best practices that will help you increase holiday sales…

20 eCommerce Best Practices To Increase Holiday Sales!

The holiday season is a prime opportunity to elevate your eCommerce store’s success, with customers eager to find the best deals, gifts, and experiences.

To help you stand out and maximize profits, we’ve compiled 20 proven eCommerce best practices tailored for holiday sales. From optimizing your website to enhancing customer engagement and loyalty, these strategies will ensure your store is ready to capture festive shoppers and turn seasonal traffic into long-term growth.

Ready to dive in and get your eCommerce store holiday-ready? Answer these questions first!

1. Are You Providing Gift-Wrapped Products?

Setting up a gift wrapping functionality is a great service and can be a game-changing addition to your holiday season sales strategy.

These eCommerce best practices enhance convenience for your customers and create a delightful, memorable shopping experience to increase holiday sales.

Offering complimentary gift wrapping takes the stress out of the busy holiday season for your shoppers. It’s a value-added service that can set your store apart from the competition, attracting customers who appreciate the attention to detail.

This gesture also resonates well with the spirit of giving during the holidays.

2. Are You Running Cart Abandonment Campaigns To Increase Holiday Sales?

Statista reports a worldwide cart abandonment rate of 70.19% for 2025.

Cart abandonment poses a challenge for businesses. It impacts holiday sales to make holiday profits. Identify the reasons behind abandonment. Even with eCommerce best practices in place, abandoned carts are inevitable. Counter this by persuading customers to complete orders through cart abandonment recovery campaigns.

Here are the top reasons for cart abandonment:

Source: Moosesend

What Are Some Practical Tips To Boost Your Holiday Sales?

• Email Automation: Craft holiday-specific cart abandonment email campaigns using automation tools. Merchants can utilize Upsell Funnel Builder for WooCommerce’s email CRM automation functionality. Integrate Fluent CRM into their WooCommerce store. This integration can be used to sync the contacts of your customers who have purchased pre-bump or post-bump offers from your website. This information can be used to send follow-up emails.
• Create Abandoned Cart Bumps: Merchants can do this by deploying Upsell Funnel Builder. The compatibility with the WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Recover plugin to create bump offers targeting the customers who have abandoned their carts. These bump offers will showcase offers related to the products that they have abandoned, which increases the chances of converting the user into a customer.
• Timely Reminders: Send periodic reminders urging users to finalize their purchases.
• Push Notifications: Utilize push notifications for gentle nudges.
• FOMO Indicators: Employ indicators like Countdown Timers and out-of-stock messages to evoke a fear of missing out.
• Retargeting Ads: Deploy retargeting ads to re-engage and recapture potential buyers.

Using these strategies in your holiday sales ideas arsenal can help you in abandoned cart recovery and contribute to elevated holiday sales.

3. Are You Leveraging Audience Segmentation?

Customer segmentation is a process where you divide your users into different groups based on their characteristics. These characteristics can be anything like their Location, Gender, or something else. 

This aligns with eCommerce best practices for increasing holiday sales, enabling you to deliver content that genuinely interests your audience and enhances the chances of better conversions or sales. Customer Segmentation benefits you in many ways. When you segment your users, you can deliver the content they’re interested in. And doing that has a higher chance of conversions or sales.

For example, if you segment bodybuilders as per their previous purchases, i.e., protein bars, you can retarget them in the future with more relevant products like energy drinks and supplements. This gives them a personalized customer experience and restricts them from using a scattered targeting approach.

Here’s how you can leverage customer segmentation:

• Use tools to segment your audience
• Generate content as per the customer stage to move them down in your holiday sales season pipeline
• Create email marketing campaigns as per the characteristics of the customers

4. Do You Show Your Top-Selling Products?

During the festive season, some of your top-selling products become favorites, selling like hotcakes. Featuring them prominently can boost holiday sales. These products, trusted year-round, capture attention and drive conversions. To maximize exposure, following these eCommerce best practices can enhance your strategy

Your best sellers have already proved their mettle. Showing them often will attract more customers towards it and boost holiday sales, conversions, etc.

Here’s how you can expose your top-selling products:

• Display your best-selling products on your website’s footer, landing pages, etc.
• Make them easily accessible for every visitor.
• If possible, create a dedicated landing page for top-selling products.
• Pitch your top-selling products through emails to increase holiday sales
• Create content around these products to amplify holiday sale advertisements.

Seize the holiday sale ideas by spotlighting your proven winners. This is another proven strategy to increase holiday sales.

5. Are You Reviewing Your Previous Data To Avoid Mistakes?

Enhance the holiday sales season by learning from past mistakes. Just as personal growth stems from avoiding errors, eCommerce thrives by this principle. Evade repeating previous missteps and benefit from the following holiday sales ideas.

Addressing prior bottlenecks ensures seamless user journeys and boosts conversions and holiday sales season.

Here’s how you can avoid your previous mistakes:

• Analyze last year’s data via Google Analytics and Search Console.
• Decode user behavior using heatmaps and scroll maps.
• Study user interactions through recorded page visits.
• Correct past issues—failed marketing, non-converting ads, and more.

Apply these insights not only to dodge pitfalls but also to increase holiday sales. Harness this knowledge to boost holiday sales, elevating your eCommerce success.

6. Does Running Exciting Offers For First-Time Buyers Work?

Yes, running exclusive offers for first-time buyers works. 

Converting new customers costs more than converting the existing ones. But that doesn’t mean you can neglect your new buyers. If you can retain your first-time customer for long, they will also be profitable for you in the future. Implementing eCommerce best practices, such as offering exciting rewards to new users, is an effective strategy for customer retention and future growth.

Here’s what you can do to retain first-time buyers with exciting rewards:

• Offer discounts, free shipping, cashback, etc., on the first purchase of users
• Create offers that are dedicated only to first-time buyers
• Provide them early access to your upcoming sale. This will be a great idea to increase sales for small businesses during the Holidays.
• Offer them a referral bonus

Here’s an example from Amazon,

7. Is Curating Loyalty Programs Essential?

Yes, Festive loyalty programs are a smart way to boost sales and engagement during the holidays by rewarding customers and encouraging repeat business. Key strategies include offering double points, exclusive rewards, referral bonuses, VIP tiers, and early sale access to loyalty members.

This holiday sales season, enhance your customer loyalty with the Points and Rewards for WooCommerce plugin. It empowers you to offer exclusive festive perks, such as double points, unique holiday rewards, and referral bonuses, all designed to boost engagement and sales. Store owners can run engaging, gamified campaigns, such as referral, quiz, birthday rewards, first-order points, and comment-based points, all within customizable pop-ups. Showcase earned points, referral counts, set dynamic images for the pop-up, or simply choose pre-defined templates for upcoming festivals.

During the holidays, loyalty programs do more than drive immediate sales—they create a connection with customers that extends beyond the season. Customers who feel rewarded and appreciated are more likely to return, which drives long-term brand loyalty. A well-designed festive loyalty program can help your brand thrive through the holiday sales season and keep customers coming back year-round.

8. Are You Retargeting Your Existing Customers To Increase Holiday Sales?

Targeting existing users is much more beneficial than targeting new ones. Existing customers are already interested in your brand and have interacted with you before. Hence, they are more likely to listen to you and your offers when you approach them.

According to Invespcro, investing in new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining the existing ones.

Here’s how you can retarget your existing customers:

• Segment your existing customers for better targeting
• Show them personalized ads through remarketing

Offer them products relevant to their current and previous purchases via cross-selling and upselling.

9. Does Impulse Buys With Upselling And Cross-Selling?

Has it ever happened to you that you planned to buy something, but returned with many other unplanned products? It personally happens to me a lot.

This is called impulse buying – when a customer is purchasing one product and then buys an additional item they hadn’t planned to. In online business, we encourage impulse purchases through upselling and cross-selling strategies.

Upselling is about offering an upgrade or a better version of the product the user is purchasing. Whereas, cross-selling refers to offering complementary products to the initial purchase that will add more value to the parent product if bought.

Here’s how you can increase impulse buys at your store:

• Use a smart upselling or cross-selling plugin
• Offer post-purchase upsells, i.e., after checkout
• Offer them cross-selling products right before they add a product to the cart
• Show them the products relevant to the initial purchase
• Avoid offering a product they’ve already purchased before

10. Are You Including The Countdown For Offers?

Another effective strategy is creating a sense of urgency, a proven technique to boost holiday sales. By employing limited-time offers and showcasing expiring discounts, you trigger a fear of missing out (FOMO) among your audience.

This urgency-driven approach encourages potential customers to act swiftly, thus converting their intentions into actual purchases. Don’t miss out on integrating these tips for increasing sales into your holiday sales strategy—they hold the potential to make a remarkable impact on your bottom line.

Here’s how you can use a sense of urgency:

• Add countdown timers for your sales, discounts, or products going out of stock
• Offer reward points to customers if they buy the product within the deadline
• Display the number of products left in the stock
• Notify customers by email, SMS, or social media about products going out of stock, sales ending, etc.

11. Are You Offering Personalizable Gift Cards?

Enhance your holiday sales with personalized gift cards, an excellent holiday sales tip that works every season. These cards resonate during the festive season, offering thoughtful customization options like background images, messages, and delivery dates.

They capture the essence of the season and empower recipients to tailor their gifts. Let customers unleash their creativity into the shopping experience and brand loyalty.

You can utilize the Gift Cards for WooCommerce Pro Plugin to allow customers to craft gift cards with custom elements that accurately reflect their sentiments. This fusion not only resonates with the spirit of the retail holidays but also contributes to a boosted holiday sales outcome. WooCommerce gift voucher plugin also allows you to send gift card details to customers via WhatsApp notifications. With easy setup, you can quickly share personalized gift card details with your loved ones. 

12. Is Your Social Media Pepped Up?

Every day, millions of posts are shared on social media platforms, and with its impressive ability to spread word of mouth, social media has become a powerful tool for brands. 

To make the most of this, you should leverage eCommerce best practices by actively sharing your holiday deals and offers on social media. Here are some effective ways to use social media to increase holiday sales:

1. Analyze which platforms are most effective for your business and tailor your strategy accordingly.
2. Focus on solving users’ problems or providing value through your posts.
3. Partner with complementary brands to cross-promote each other’s holiday offers.
4. Running a holiday giveaway is a dynamic way to increase holiday sales while embodying the spirit of giving. 

Brands can also utilize a holiday sales calendar to plan and strategize better.

13. Does Nurturing Users With Email Marketing Work?

Yes, it works. Email marketing is not a thing of the past. Many digital marketers still use emails to pitch their products to potential customers. And why do they use it? Because it gives amazing results.

It is seen that when you use email marketing to offer coupon codes, 7 out of 10 people use them. Not only this, but emails can also bring great traffic to your website and help convert users. But remember, sending random emails is like taking shots in the dark. So you need to create an infallible strategy that can help you increase your holiday season sales.

Here’s how you can create an effective email marketing strategy:

• Choose the perfect email platform that best suits your needs. There are many like HubSpot, MailChimp, and OptinMonster
• Avoid email marketing mistakes like not sending welcome emails, using a bunch of stock images, etc.
• Send segmented and personalized emails to your audience
• Always test your emails and marketing strategies via WooCommerce A/B testing
• Optimize and make your emails mobile-friendly
• Don’t be promotional in your emails. Try to provide them with value
• Monitor your email deliverability. If that’s not good, you may ruin your reputation

14. Are You Giving Your Website A Festive Look?

Have you seen how brick-and-mortar stores are decorated for festivals? They decorate their shops according to the festival so that people can relate.

In the eCommerce business, your website is your store. You need to give it a festive look and feel so that customers know you’re prepared for the festivals, and they can get some good deals and offers.

Along with giving your site a festive look, make the website navigation and checkout process easy for the users. Remember, many users shop from mobile devices, and according to a report, if your mobile website has complex navigation, 61% of users won’t return to it. And 40% will visit the competitor’s site instead.

Here’s how you can give your website a festive look:

• You can use festive images on your website’s home page and other pages
• Use graphics and themes that represent the festival or the ongoing season
• Change the fonts to give your website a festive look

15. Are You Running Festive Ad Campaigns To Increase Holiday Sales?

Infuse your holiday sales strategy with an impactful move: launching festive ad campaigns. Amid the season’s hustle and bustle, a well-executed ad campaign can be the catalyst to boost holiday sales. For example, Google Search Ads (PPC), Social Media Ads, Video Ads, and more.

Craft holiday-spirited ads, resonating with emotions and aspirations of the season. Use social media and search engines for optimal reach.

Use ads in your holiday selling tips to draw conversions, relying on these methods:

• Targeted Messaging: Tailor your ad content to evoke festive emotions and reflect the season’s essence.
• Limited-Time Offers: Capitalize on the urgency of the holidays by featuring limited-time promotions.
• Visual Appeal: Design eye-catching visuals that encapsulate the joy and spirit of the season.
• Call to Action: Include clear calls to action that drive potential customers to make a purchase.

Furthermore, consider employing platforms like Google Ads and social media platforms to launch your campaigns. These platforms allow for precise targeting, ensuring your ads reach those most likely to engage. Your efforts, combined with the right timing and resonant messaging, contribute to an increase in holiday sales outcomes, elevating your brand’s holiday success.

16. Does Offering Free Shipping And Easy Returns Work?

Yes, it actually works.

Just a couple of weeks back, I was searching for some trousers for myself. One of them was so mind-blowing I added it to the cart instantly. But as I saw the shipping charges were mind-blowing too, I abandoned my cart. This is what you should care about. Don’t charge too much for shipping. You can also offer free shipping during the holiday season.

Also, focus on smoothening the return process along with shipping. If a customer is somehow not satisfied with the product and wants to return it, make this process easy for them. And in the holiday season, the number of returns skyrockets. So make it better if it’s not.

Here’s how you can use free shipping and returns:

• Set a specific price limit for free shipping
• Promote your free shipping event
• Include shipping cost in the product price
• Make returns easy for customers
• List the return deadline on every product page

17. What Does Leveraging User-Generated Content Mean?

In a nutshell, any media, such as comments, image reviews, and video testimonials, created by users rather than the brand or platform itself, is considered user-generated content. And in my experience, nothing is better than it to gain the user’s trust. This is the reason almost every brand uses it on their websites. According to a report from Brightlocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

However, not every eCommerce business can display user-generated content on its homepage. But if you can show them somewhere, you have a chance of attracting loyal customers who can grow your holiday season sales.

Here’s how you can use user-generated content on your website:

• Add testimonials on your home page.
• You can also create a dedicated page for testimonials and case studies.
• Don’t limit your testimonials only to your website. Share them on social media.
• Use them in your content to gain readers’ trust.

18. How To Build A Customer Base Before The Sale Season?

Start building your audience before the holiday season by using various channels. For instance, you can collect email subscribers, grow your social media followers, or create members-only groups or spaces.

Here’s how you can build an audience before the holiday season sale begins:

• Find your target audience in social media groups
• Offer free WooCommerce subscriptions to some users
• Look at the kind of audience your competitors are targeting
• Analyze your products and think about what kind of audience’s problem it will fix
• Create WooCommerce memberships and offer them for free at the beginning

Building an audience after the holiday season begins can be challenging, as people are less likely to trust new brands over established ones.

The goal is to have an audience who will be instantly notified of your festive sales through posts, emails, and more. With timely notifications, they’re more likely to visit your website, make purchases, and boost your holiday sales.

19. Why Promote Video And GIFs to Increase Holiday Sales?

During the holiday season, one tends to increase revenue, thus amplifying the checkout process through something innovative and out of the box. And using videos and GIFs is the best choice to do so.

If you already have demo videos of your products, or an explainer video and walk-through videos, then you are through with this. Videos and GIFs have become the centerpiece for conversion. Not only this, but it will also grab the attention of your customers. However, using such marketing strategies will surely increase the click-through rate.

Here’s how you can use videos and GIFs effectively:

• Use videos to explain the functioning of your products
• GIFs are trending these days. You can use them in your social posts and promotions
• You can also use product teaser videos to generate curiosity among customers

20. What Is Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)?

Over 50% of online retailers now offer BNPL options, with a spike in usage of 39% during festive periods. 

The “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) option is a powerful tool during the festive season, allowing customers to shop more freely and spend with ease. By offering payment flexibility, BNPL encourages customers to make larger purchases, enhancing their shopping experience without financial strain.

For retailers, BNPL boosts average order value, reduces cart abandonment, and attracts new, budget-conscious customers. 

Over To You!

Retail Holidays make people crazy. They buy things without even thinking much.  You just need to increase this opportunity to make more profit and boost holiday sales. And the tips I’ve told you above can surely help you out and increase holiday sales at your store if you use them properly. So go ahead and try them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How do you get ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM Sales) are undoubtedly the biggest sales week of the holiday season. Here are some tips to help –

• Organize your orders & store backup
• Highlight & create BFCM product category
• BFCM dedicated landing page
• Employ FAQs, live chats, images & GIFs
• Create a countdown timer & stress test
• Mobile optimize your e-commerce store
• Create urgency & display scarcity
• Track competitors
• Clutch to post-pandemic trends

2. Are Cyber Monday deals any better than Black Friday?

Neither Cyber Monday deals are better than Black Friday deals, nor the other way around. While Cyber Monday is more tech-focused, Black Friday remains more about ‘general’ shopping. However, as a store owner, I consider it a win-win day.

3. What is Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

The 5-day period from Black Friday to Cyber Monday is the biggest holiday sale season in the United States, with over 200 billion USD up for grabs. Black Friday and Cyber Monday (in short, BFCM or Cyber Week) can become a weekend bonanza for online retailers all over the world if they plan it correctly.

4. Are there any other days similar to Black Friday?

Yes, while Black Friday is focused on brick-and-mortar stores. Cyber Monday emerged in 2005 to offer customers fantastic deals from the comfort of their homes. It is also interesting to note that,  like Black Friday, Cyber Monday has also evolved into a “Cyber Week” in many countries.

5. Top 6 steps to improve online selling this Halloween?

The last-minute Halloween-ready ideas listed below will help you enhance conversions and increase sales for your eCommerce store this Halloween season.

• Offer exclusive, limited-edition products only during the spooky season.
• Consider offering free Halloween-themed printables, such as spooky party invitations, pumpkin carving templates, or DIY decoration ideas.
• Give your website a Halloween-ready look to let everyone know you’re all set for Halloween.
• Another creative Halloween marketing idea is to team up with influencers and brands that fit the spooky vibe.
• Spread the word about Halloween Marketing Ideas through email lists and social media campaigns
• Add spooky games like spin-the-wheel, scratch-to-win, or treasure hunts on your website.

6. How to boost your holiday sales with social media marketing?

These are some of the Steps to a Successful Holiday Social Media Strategy:

• Examine your previous data to figure out what you should do this year
• Create holiday-related content and promote it on multiple channels
• Run giveaways or online contests to increase traffic and followers
• Run hashtag campaigns on social media to stand out from the crowd
• Create a holiday marketing calendar beforehand to plan your strategies for each day
• Collaborate with influencers to achieve desired results
• Communicate with users on social media by replying to their queries, providing support
• Give your social handles a festive look by changing their cover image, profile picture, etc.

If you have some doubts or queries, the comments section is always open.