Memorial Day weekend: a three day period when retail sales traditionally experience an upturn, but this time, many people are still reluctant or unable to shop at main street stores due to the coronavirus. Instead, they are flocking to online apparel retailers. What could ruin this fantastic opportunity to bring back revenues to apparel brands? There is one particular threat that stands to put a serious dent in this year’s Memorial Day profits – but one that you can defeat, if you take action now.
Enjoying the summer surge
Timing is everything in the retail business, and Memorial Day is timed just right when it comes to shoppers waiting for this year’s spring fashions. Consumers use the long weekend to find the latest styles in spring and summer wear, and also to hunt for bargains on winter leftovers. Virtually every store provides free shipping for online customers, and many also provide discounts, particularly for winter clearance sales, while summer styles might go for a 40% markdown.
For these reasons, Memorial Day can be an online apparel store’s dream. Last year, we saw a Memorial Day period increase in online orders (conversions) of 31.23% for clothing stores compared to the previous week. This healthy result is echoed by a similar 24.45% increase in conversion rates during the same comparative period.
With COVID19, the pent-up consumer demand that it has caused, plus its benefits for online stores, we are looking for Memorial Day 2020 to demonstrate even higher traffic and revenue. However, those who have not prepared for Customer Journey Hijacking will find themselves on the losing side of an important competition.
The hidden conversion diversion
Memorial Day gives people a chance to relax and shop, but what many eCommerce stores don’t realize is that they are not alone in this opportunity.
As sales go up, so do the efforts of customer journey hijackers. Through various means, they inject unauthorized ads into your website through consumer browsers and redirect them to competing sites, despite all the effort that you put into engaging them.
The damage done by Customer Journey Hijacking is significant – during the past Memorial Day weekend, 19.35% of all visitors to apparel retail websites were exposed to unauthorized ad injections. Even worse, this period saw a 9.25% increase in hijacked visits compared to the previous week.
Customer journey hijacking hurts your Memorial Day sprint
Many apparel retailers are only vaguely aware of Customer Journey Hijacking, to their detriment. We’ve seen situations where nearly 100% of ad injections that occur during a web session lead directly to competing websites.
Surprised? That’s the idea – customer journey hijackers are particularly adept at stealing your visitors in ways that you don’t notice. The process behind ad injection usually occurs on the shopper’s device, while the ads themselves are disguised to resemble legitimate ads or are invisible until the shopper clicks on one. The result of all of these tactics is that 20% of online shoppers are hijacked by ad injections.
Make Memorial Day hijacking an unpleasant memory
Defeating customer journey hijackers is possible, for those retailers with the right solution. Namogoo’s technology enables online apparel retailers, and many other eCommerce companies, to block the injected ads that their customers are exposed to in addition to unauthorized promotions, and immediately increases conversion rates by up to 5%.
Many of us are working from home these days, so any change to an eCommerce site needs to happen easily and remotely. Our cloud-based solution can be set up and operated remotely with no need for on-site access. Within just a few days, Namogoo’s customer hijacking prevention technology produces results. As soon as the solution is implemented, visitors are prevented from seeing injected ads and unauthorized promotions.
Finally, as part of our commitment to helping businesses survive the current crisis, we are offering free access to our technology. Take advantage of this offer right now and defeat those who seek to ruin Memorial Day for many apparel retailers.
