Many businesses and brands make a fortune during the holiday season – and many of them have to do so. In some cases, successful online retailers earn half or more of their annual profit during the holidays. For the rest of us, the holidays still present an excellent time to capitalize upon consumer bliss. The truth is that planning a successful holiday effort begins months in advance, and it may be too late to generate results that will have maximum effect for this holiday season. Nevertheless, you can right the ship for this season and prepare for an even better holiday shopping season next year with some simple advice. Below, we’ll outline three online shopping statistics that you must know when planning any marketing or SEO strategy for the holidays.

The Economy Isn’t Great

Despite the consistent upward improvement, consumers are still downbeat about the performance of the economy and their own personal circumstances. A recent survey showed that nearly three-quarters of Americans believe that the economy is the same or worse than it was a year ago, despite empirical information to suggest the contrary. You don’t have time to fight a messaging war, though, so the reality is what the consumer believes. This holiday season’s success stories will continue to look the same as they have in past years: filled with “discounted specials” and “unbelievable deals” waiting to be had. If you want marketing campaigns to succeed, the concept of value and savings is a huge element of any strategy.

Forty Percent of Shoppers are Persuadable

When it comes to expanding the online holiday shopping market for your business, a good thing to know is how many people are open to shopping with you. Forty percent of all shoppers are what we call “persuadables”, which means that they may or may not make their purchases from an online retailer. The biggest element in pinging users with a convincing reason to buy online? It all comes down to money. These individuals will in fact buy from you (online) if you can offer a better price than what they have found in-store. Having a good position in both paid advertising and organic SEO prior to the beginning of the holiday is important, but many of these people can be reached after Black Friday; most smaller online retailers will have a difficult time beating big companies’ prices before this day.

Thirty Percent of Shoppers Buy Online Exclusively

Believe it or not, but thirty percent of shoppers are near-exclusive shoppers in the online world when it comes to the holiday season. The best way to reach these individuals is through the same methods mentioned above – by pinging users with information about deals in the form of email marketing, search engine advertisements and social media. With this audience, it becomes a matter of simply informing them, rather than persuading them.

Conclusion

Every holiday season presents multiple opportunities for brands and businesses to cash in, but you have to be prepared. Now that you understand how many shoppers are open to shopping with your brand and what this holiday season’s shopping sentiment looks like, you can make adjustments in your marketing and SEO approaches to ensure more success through December.