8 Ideas for a Successful E-commerce Summer Promotion [2024]

8 Ideas for a Successful E-commerce Summer Promotion [2024]

Hello Zotabox Community, welcome back to our blog series for e-commerce marketing ideas. What is the summer season looking like on your side of the world? Are you experiencing an increase in sales or are you seeing some declines? Whatever they are, don’t worry because they are only seasonal changes. In this post, we will provide some ideas that can help you initiate your onsite summer promotion.

People say summer is bad for e-commerce because people would prefer to go for outdoor shopping. But e-commerce is not just an extension of the brick-and-mortar stores, it is rather a new way of life now. Therefore, if you are doing right campaigns for your e-commerce store, I can guarantee that the effort will be fruitful. 

Sales may decline, sure. But remember what comes right after Summer? That’s right, it is the major shopping season that is starting from October until the beginning of 2025. Within a range of several months, we will have big days like Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Boxing Day, Christmas, New Year, Lunar New Year, Valentine and so forth. For Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or Vietnam, the winter months and the beginning of the next year is also a busy shopping season because it is the time when people buy gifts and purchase new stuff for their personal and family lives. 

Customers now shop around on the online space. If you can capture the hearts and minds of new and existing customers, you can build a strong brand that will boost their loyalty. So when it comes to the time they buy, your brand will come first to their minds. 

I will not be long because now you would have understood the significance of Summer. So in this post, our Customer Service team will give you some inspiration that may help you to come up with the strategies that will help you this Summer. 

1/ Use Header Bar

Header Bar is an incredibly popular tool known for its effectiveness and ease of setup. It’s perfect for creating store-wide announcements, which is particularly useful for launching strong summer campaigns. 

For instance, if you have a special summer offer or flash sales, whether it’s a seasonal service or a summer product package, you can add a button on the Header Bar that links to it and make a bold announcement! You can also include a summer-themed coupon code to quickly inform your customers about the deal. This way, you can keep your audience engaged and excited about your summer promotion.

When you are a Premium user or on Trial, you are able to create multiple versions of this tool, with different messages to show up on different site pages.

2/ Use Easy Popup

Pop-up is a versatile tool that can be used in various ways. Many stores utilize pop-ups to capture emails, promote offers with a timer to encourage purchases, or display eye-catching banners that significantly enhance the store’s atmosphere.

For example, if I had a special summer promotion, I would design a vibrant summer-themed banner to showcase to my visitors. Just like an impressive poster or standee in a physical store, an engaging pop-up can create a memorable experience for online shoppers. With Easy Popup, you have access to different templates, allowing you to choose between image-only pop-ups or those with fields and timers. This flexibility ensures you can create the perfect pop-up to suit your summer campaigns and keep your customers engaged.

3/ Use Showcase Slider

This tool is often overlooked, but it should definitely be used more frequently because I have seen client using this tool to exhibit his 10-product line and get great conversions!. Showcasing products is crucial, especially for a decent-sized store. You can add links, change feature images, and put titles for each slider, making it an effective method to upsell and cross-sell across categories.

For instance, while your customers shop for summer deals on your website, the flexible position settings allow you to strategically place showcase sliders. This can increase their time on the site, enhance their engagement with the brand, create a more memorable experience, and potentially boost the chances of purchases. By utilizing this tool, you can make the most of your summer promotion and provide a dynamic shopping experience.

4/ Use Embed Sliders

We currently offer two embed slider tools: the product slider and the image slider. These tools can be directly embedded within your website, blog posts, or product pages. They are designed to fit seamlessly wherever you place them on your site.

One of the standout features is live edit, which makes it much easier to add these tools. No need to worry as they only go live when you turn it on and save them, ensuring you have complete control.

To demonstrate the tactic, embed sliders can help you advertise your summer promotion or collections on your website. Typically, you would need a web developer to add these sections, but now you can do it yourself with a little practice and a few simple steps. This makes it convenient to keep your site updated with seasonal offers and promotions, enhancing your customers’ shopping experience and increasing engagement. You can now easily modify your pre-built store templates, giving you much more flexibility!

Below is a two-image slider that promote the newest seasonal pricing of a local resort and spa. 

5/ Use Notification Box

Back in May, we used this tool to promote our newest blog about onsite marketing strategies for Mother’s Day. With just a couple of minutes, I have eye-catching notification that send more than 400 visitors to the blog in just one week. 

To do summer promotion, there are a few ideas that you can create: a blog post, a product page or to a category page. For example, for cosmetic brands, you can create a blog post on what to buy in the beginning of the season and within these blogs, you can promote your current suncream products. Again, the content is your choice, you would know what works the best for your business. 

6/ Use Embed Banner, Video and Social Feed

Another pair of tools that need more of your attention. I always find enjoyable when I go through a website with vibes. Use these tools to easily include images and visuals from your brand’s social media. You notice when you walk into a brick-and-mortar store, there are lightings and decorations – these tools are the versions of those features for online stores. If you are strong on the social media, meaning you are active and have an engaged audience, make sure you include these social proofs on your webstore. As the e-commerce space gets more crowded, it is important to create a community or advocate about it because this will help you establish your brand identity – it is the people!

Below is an example of how the Social Feed looks like. As the EURO2024 Tournament is happening and many of Zotabox clients are from Europe, our team started a series to introduce the cultural and natural heritages of the nations that are participating in the championship. 

7/ Use Capture Leads Tool

Embed Email Capture is best used within a blog post or a landing page as a CTA, while Slide Box and Contact Form Builder  can be used anywhere on your site. Capture the visitor’s email is the best way to remarket to the people who visited your store but left or even better, let the customers tell you about their needs. You can reach them again with personal consultation, interesting offers and deals through email later. One tip for the success is you should put the email capture popups or embeddables in the place with high traffic. See the form below that can be replicated if you are a local automobile suppliers or specialists:

8/ Use Promo Box

This tool is like another version of the showcase slider. The difference is that the templates of Promo Box allow you to also show text to come with the image. The design is also different, Promo Box is a smaller box compared to the Showcase Slider. Promo Box is particularly helpful when you are looking to advertise the different features of one offer. See the example below for a Summer Bundle. 

Summer Promotion: End Note

There are many different ways to do this summer promotion. The number one element of the season is fun so make sure that in all of your creatives, there would be an element of fun, whether it is the image, the color or the text content. If you need any assistance from our team, please reach out through in-app chat or contact us at customerservice@zotabox.com.

We look forward to seeing our merchants and business owners can utilize Zotabox to the fullest to help build their brands, foster relationships with their customers and drive sales. Let’s have a successful season!

Zotabox Marketing Team

Our team features developers with over 20 years of tech and e-commerce app experience, alongside marketers with 10+ years of expertise. We provide top insights to help you optimize conversions and increase revenue on e-commerce platforms.