The holiday season brings loads of excitement for festivities. People reach out to their favorite brands to buy gifts for their loved ones. Due to changed shopping trends in the past few years, it is one of the busiest times for businesses, especially ecommerce.
However, to truly maximize holiday sales and foster customer loyalty, an ecommerce store must be inclusive. Since it is evident that there is a vast segment of society that usually feels deprived of access to ecommerce stores due to their inaccessibility.
Thus, reduce shopping challenges for every shopper and open ecommerce for users with special abilities as well this Christmas and holidays.
Accessible ecommerce stores – need of the hour for holidays!
Digital accessibility is not a buzzword. It is the talk of the town because a significant number of people encounter barriers while accessing the internet to fulfil their basic needs. Despite the government’s restrictions and several events to raise awareness, there is a huge gap between digital assets and their accessibility.
Not only users with disabilities but many other users also face disturbance while accessing, navigating, and spending time on inaccessible stores.
Approx. 61% of users are not likely to return to an inaccessible ecommerce store, according to Google.
Thus, prioritizing accessibility for an ecommerce store is as important as any other marketing strategy.
Boost sales with ecommerce accessibility!
All in One Accessibility enhance ecommerce site’s usability for everyone. With just a few clicks, you can create an inclusive shopping experience that’s ready for the Christmas rush!
Strategies to improve ecommerce accessibility for holidays and beyond!
Optimize website navigation
Make navigation intuitive and simple. Ensure that the site’s menus, search bars, and links can be accessed via keyboard alone, as many users with disabilities rely on this functionality. Provide clear labels for all navigation elements and use a consistent menu structure throughout the site.
Offer captioned and transcribed content
If you use videos to showcase holiday deals, product demos, or festive messages, include captions and transcripts. This ensures that users with hearing challenges can fully engage with the content.
Use alt text for images
Holiday sales pages are often rich with festive imagery, but images without alt text can alienate visually impaired users. Include alt text for all images, ensuring screen readers can convey the content and context to users effectively.
Simplify forms and checkout processes
A cumbersome checkout process can lead to cart abandonment—design forms with clear instructions, large clickable areas, and error messages that are easy to understand. Ensure forms are accessible to screen readers and that users can navigate through them using a keyboard.
Provide multiple communication channels
Accessible customer service is essential for ecommerce. Offer multiple support options, including live chat, email, and phone lines. Additionally, consider implementing chatbots with voice recognition to assist users struggling with typing.
Ensure mobile accessibility
A significant portion of holiday shopping happens on mobile devices. Optimize the site for mobile accessibility by ensuring responsive design, larger touch targets, and proper use of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes.
Offer enticing deals to grab users’ attention
Everybody loves discounts and good deals. Thus, this holiday season plan some exceptional yet profit-making deals for shoppers. There are some proven ways to offer rewards to the customers such as freebies, loyalty points or cashback, bundle pricing and discounts, etc. However, it is always an additional advantage to come up with new ideas.
Personalized marketing can be useful
Ecommerce stores must leverage user data to increase their conversions. The analytics data can help know users' shopping preferences and accordingly, stores can make personalized tactics for them.
Create segments based on users’ interests and demographics.
Purchase history can be used to create personalized offers and discounts.
PPC campaigns are also helpful in targeting shoppers this holiday season.
Optimize stores for holidays
Ecommerce stores should be festival/holiday ready to cater to increased traffic. The shelves must have products that are relevant for holiday gifting and the store ought to handle sudden traffic surges.
Pages should be optimized to eliminate loading delays since it is one of the prominent reasons behind cart abandonment.
In a nutshell,
Making an ecommerce store accessible this Christmas and holiday season is about more than compliance; it’s about creating a welcoming environment for every shopper. By implementing these strategies, an ecommerce store taps into a broader customer base along with demonstrating their inclusive brand values.
This holiday season let’s make your ecommerce store the go-to destination for everyone! Get started with manual accessibility audit that provide a clear roadmap for improvements, and website accessibility remediation service to ensure ecommerce store is compliant and user-friendly.
Let’s work together to create a shopping experience that’s accessible, seamless, and ready for the holidays. For more information, reach out [email protected].
