With Holiday Season just around the corner, merchants are geared up to welcome enthusiastic shoppers to cash in on the Holiday Season Sales. In Q4 2014, mobile devices represented 45 percent of the holiday season Web traffic, a 26 percent increase over the previous year.  It is predicted that this holiday, mobile traffic to most retailers will top 60 percent of their share. As smart devices made a boom just 3-4 years back, e-commerce businesses readjusted their strategies to be out there more and more at the tip of their shoppers’ fingers!

So, you have your store ready, your products are waiting to be grabbed. How do you get people to come over and notice you? Here are 10 handpicked tools to increase consumer footfalls in your e-commerce store this holiday season.

1. Refer-a-friend

Developed by ShopSocially, Refer-a-friend allows merchants to convert their referral traffic by 3x. The Refer-a-Friend app enables you to easily add a customizable referral program anywhere e.g. on your website, offline, via Facebook, email etc.

 

2. “Buy Now” button on Twitter

Twitter started rolling out the “buy now” button last September to make in-app purchases easy. In an exclusive blogpost, Twitter explained, “Users will get access to offers and merchandise they can’t get anywhere else and can act on them right in the Twitter apps for Android and iOS; sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their followers into sales.”

3. Chirpify

Yet another social commerce app, Chirpify turns tweets into transactions, enabling consumers and businesses to buy, sell and donate on Twitter. The process is very simple; merchants have to tweet the product offer with a product image and shoppers send in a reply to the tweet with the word “buy”. This takes the shoppers to the registration page and their order is automatically processed.

4. Linkwithin

LinkWithin is an on-site plugin that creates thumbnails under each post. The only setback is that it uses javascript to create dynamic links, which doesn’t help you with SEO, but gets more traffic.

5. Swaag

Another social commerce and iOS app, Swaag.it, lets you upload photos of you in your finest duds, tag them with the brand, and share the pics on Facebook or Twitter. In return, users with give a “swaag” (rate you on your style quotient) in your comments and you can do the same. So basically you can have a virtual fashion contest!

6. Google AdSense

While many of you may have heard of it, Google Adsense lets you earn some extra bucks by promoting third party ads on your website. Google AdSense is a free, simple way for website publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their websites.

7. Shopkick

ShopKick is a location-based in-store consumer app, that allows customers to make their shopping experience more exciting and rewarding by collecting multiple kicks(or points) during the entire purchase cycle. Lining up your shopping list on your app, walking into your favourite store, scanning the barcodes of your favourite products or even billing your shopping; ShopKick rewards you at every step with points called kicks which you redeem for attractive deals or rewards!

8. Extole

Extole leverages the power of advocates at multiple touch points to enhance social commerce for your e-commerce site. Advocates are concentrated at key web pools such as Facebook fan pages, confirmation pages, account pages and dedicated emails. Then, the advocates are invited to participate in a branded experience or contest and are rewarded for social sharing. That, in turn, drives awareness and sales.

9. Photomonials

Photomonials is yet another social sharing app by ShopSocially, that lets users share their pictures while consuming a product or a service along with a predecided hashtag to earn rewards. This in turn generates word of mouth promotion and readymade social proof for the merchant.

10. Jifiti

Jifiti is a social gifting app that allows people to purchase virtual gift cards from premium brand stores. Recipients receive the gift in their inboxes and can use it to shop either online or in-store.

The app is primarily used by leading retailers such as Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble, and Sephora, but smaller merchants can contact the company to set up their own gift registry.

 

With these 10 awesome tools in your arsenal, Holiday Season 2015 should definitely be a cake walk for you 🙂

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