St. Patrick's Day is an exciting time of year for e commerce businesses of all sizes. With the holiday quickly approaching, it's time to start preparing your sales strategies. Whether it’s special discounts or product bundling, you’ll be surprised at the number of ways you can draw in customers and increase your sales. Read on to learn 8 ideas for creating sales on St. Patrick's Day to make your e commerce business succeed.
What is St. Patrick’s Day?
8 Ecommerce Sales Ideas for Small Businesses
- Create St. Patrick’s Day-themed products
- Offer green-themed discounts
- Use Irish traditions to promote your products
- Run a contest or giveaway
- Make it easy to shop
- Offer free shipping
- Use email marketing
- Offer St. Patrick’s Day bundles
What is St. Patrick’s Day?
Each year on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day is traditionally celebrated in Ireland to commemorate the arrival of Christianity in the country. St. Patrick’s Day began as a religious feast day and gradually evolved into a national holiday.
The holiday was moved to the 17th of March to coincide with the death of the patron saint of Ireland, Saint Patrick. The day has become a popular celebration of Irish culture, with people all over the world taking part in parades, festivities, green-themed parties, and more.
8 E commerce Sales Ideas for Small Businesses
1. Create St. Patrick’s Day themed products
One of the best ways to capitalize on St Patrick's Day is to create products specifically designed for the holiday. This can include clothing, accessories, home decor, or even things related to Irish culture.
You can even create one-off items exclusively for St Patrick's Day, such as a limited-edition shirt or hat. Depending on your business, of course, you might even be inspired to create a St. Patrick’s Day-themed products based on what you sell most.
Here’s an example.
Say you sell food online, namely doughnuts and cakes. Creating a St. Patrick’s Day-themed collection might include doughnuts and cakes with a bright Irish green frosting, or using luck-themed decorations like a four-leaf clover for your baked goods.
Not sure where to start? Doing a bit of research on the holiday can go a long way. This will then give your customers something unique to buy, especially if it’s something they know that’ll eventually go away from your shop.
2. Offer green-themed discounts
Another great way to increase sales during St. Patrick's Day is to offer discounts on your products. This can be done by offering a percentage off your entire store or a specific item.
One step above that, however, is doing a green-themed discount.
What does this mean, you might ask?
Take anything green from your shop—whether that’s a matcha latte, a piece of jewellery with a green gem, or a green salad bowl—and offer an exclusive discount just on those items.
Some good examples are “buy one, get one half off” deals or “free shipping on orders over $50.” Offering discounts is an easy way to draw in customers and increase your sales, and putting this St. Patrick’s Day spin gives you a good reason to do so.
3. Use Irish traditions to promote your products
Many of the traditions associated with St. Patrick's Day can be used to promote your products.
For example, you can use the “luck of the Irish” phrase in your copy when promoting your products. You might also include traditional Irish symbols such as the shamrock or clover or the Celtic cross in your promotional materials.
Remember that St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday typically associated with good luck. So use that to inject a little fun into your exclusive promotions.
Here are some great examples:
- Give a special gift to the lucky 100th customer
- Host a short series of trivia questions about your industry or business, and reward the lucky participant that gets the most answers right
- Because St. Patrick’s Day lands on the 17th of March each year, why not give a 17% discount on select items or collections?
4. Run a contest or giveaway
Contests and giveaways are a great way to get people excited about your products, while giving your business a chance to really stand out from the competition in a creative way.
Timing these contests and giveaways to a holiday can also give you the opportunity to reach more people trying to score some great St. Patrick’s Day deals.
Consider any of the following contest and giveaway ideas to engage your customers:
- Hold a raffle for an exclusive St. Patrick’s Day product
- Offering prizes for the best Irish-themed design, name, or caption suggestion
- Encourage customers to post pictures of themselves wearing your products with a branded St. Patrick’s Day hashtag
- Leverage virality by running a raffle where customers can share your giveaway to get more entries
Doing any of the above can help bring in more customers and increase the visibility of your business.
5. Make it easy to shop
One of the most important things you can do to increase sales is to make it easy for customers to buy your products.
Make sure your website is easy to navigate and that customers can find what they’re looking for quickly. Offer different payment options and provide clear instructions on how to complete a purchase.
If you don't have time and the expertise to set up a full-fledged website, consider setting up a quick and easy landing page where you are able to sell one or two products quickly.
If you're looking for a platform to sell digital products quickly then consider CocoDrop. CocoDrop is the fastest, fairest way for creators to sell their digital products. It comes with zero platform fees, so you take home more of your hard-earned sales.
6. Offer free shipping
Offering free shipping is a great way to encourage more customers to make a purchase.
And when you tie in free shipping with a minimum spend discount, or to a St. Patrick’s Day-themed collection, that can really entice customers to buy more from your business.
If you need a few tips to make the most of this kind of promotion this month, we’ve got a few below:
- Negotiate with carriers. Negotiate shipping rates with your carriers, so you can offer free shipping without affecting your margins. Consider using a shipping aggregator service to find the best option for you.
- Consider zone-based shipping. Offer free shipping to specific zones where shipping costs are lower.
- Offer an exclusive pickup discount. Okay, while it’s not the same as free shipping, encourage your customers to get extra savings if they choose a pickup option at your store. This way, you save on delivery costs by offering free shipping, and customers still get something out of the deal.
7. Use email marketing
Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with customers and promote your products. And a holiday like St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to send in some emails reminding customers about your business.
We’ve got a few tips to maximize the impact of any holiday-themed email marketing campaign:
- Build a targeted email list. Start by creating an email list of people who are interested in your brand. Offer a lead magnet such as a discount coupon in exchange for their email address.
- Personalize your emails: Personalize your emails by including the subscriber's name and personalizing the content to their interests and behaviors. This helps to increase engagement and conversion rates.
- Create a clear and concise subject line: The subject line is the first thing that the subscriber will see. We want it to be clear, concise, and enticing so people actually open your email.
- Provide valuable content: Your email content should offer value to the subscriber. This can include product recommendations, exclusive deals, or useful tips and advice related to your niche.
- Use a clear call-to-action: Encourage your subscribers to take action by including a call-to-action in your email. This can be a button or link that directs them to your website or a specific product page.
8. Offer St. Patrick’s Day bundles
Holidays are the perfect time to introduce exclusive bundles.
And in case you missed it: we took a page off of Nintendo’s book and learned that offering product bundles can be an ultra simple yet ultra effective way to double your sales without a lot of effort.
We’ve already covered how to create super-selling bundles for your business in our previous post linked above, but here are the must-know highlights, especially for St. Patrick’s Day:
- Choose relevant products. Select products that are relevant to each other—or St. Patrick’s Day—that can be bundled together to create a complete solution for the customer. Taking one of our earlier tips, this can be a green-themed bundle featuring all things green from your store.
- Offer a compelling discount. Offer a discount on the bundled products to incentivize customers to purchase them together. In keeping up with St. Patrick’s Day, why not offer a 17% discount on the total value of your bundle?
- Create urgency. Get customers to check out sooner rather than later by adding a sense of urgency through deadlines for the bundle. You might say, for instance, that St. Patrick’s Day bundles are only available for one week leading up to the holiday.
How will you use these St. Patrick’s Day promotion ideas?
St Patrick's Day is an ideal time for small e-commerce businesses to boost their sales. By taking advantage of the holiday, you can increase your customer base, drive more sales, and increase your revenue.
From creating special offers and discounts to utilizing email marketing and zone-based shipping, there are plenty of strategies you can use to make the most of St. Patrick's Day. With a bit of planning and creativity, you can make this St. Patrick's Day one of your most successful ones yet.
Need an ecommerce platform to implement these St. Patrick’s Day promotion ideas? Look no further than Cococart to easily upload products and bundles, create promotions, launch email marketing campaigns, and so much more.