The Perfect Match: Wedding Season and E-commerce

Summer is here, and if you listen closely, you can hear the sound of wedding bells in the air. Is your e-commerce business ready?

While summer is widely known as wedding season, The Knot 2015 Real Wedding Study actually found that September and October are the top two months to get married, which means there is still time to get your e-commerce site ready for an influx of wedding shoppers!

Even if you don’t sell wedding items the happy couple needs for their big day, all of those guests (an average of 139 per wedding, says The Knot) are hunting for the perfect wedding gift, and there has been a recent surge in searches for “wedding presents.”

Here are 4 tips for e-commerce businesses that want to capitalize on wedding season.

Update Your Site for the Season

Couples plan their wedding for a particular season and, usually, they want to incorporate seasonal elements into the festivities. Your e-commerce site should follow suit by updating colors, photos, and the types of accessories or gifts you are featuring to spotlight weddings for that specific season.

Organized Navigation

If website visitors can’t quickly and easily find what they are looking for, they will likely go elsewhere. Make sure your site has an organized navigation that caters to wedding shoppers. At the very least, having a “Weddings” navigation tab on the home page will help, but you can customize even further by having sub-sections organized by person (Bride, Groom, Bridesmaids) or item (Wedding Dresses, Wedding Rings, Wedding Gifts). For sites that focus on wedding presents, you can break that category down into sections like Keepsakes and Gifts for the Kitchen.

Detailed Marketing Materials

When marketing your wedding items, you have to put the same attention to detail into your materials as the couple puts into planning their own wedding. Make sure your product summaries are detailed yet warm. Get professional product images, including detailed, up-close photos so buyers can see exactly what they are buying. Write helpful blog posts and share engaging, visually appealing updates on your social media pages. These details will stand out to the discerning couple as well as wedding guests looking for the perfect gift.

Targeted Ads

It’s not just millennials who are searching online for wedding-related items—there has also been an increase in searches from people 45 or older. When you place ads such as those on Facebook, make sure you take advantage of sophisticated demographic targeting that goes beyond just specifying gender, age and location. For example, you can target based on relationship status (engaged), life events (newly engaged for 3 months, 6 months or 1 year), interests (marriage or weddings), purchase history, and you can even create a custom audience to retarget people who visited your site without making a purchase. Target a few very specific groups of people, and create specific, targeted ads that will resonate with each group.

There are about 2.5 million weddings every year in the United States. That’s 2.5 million couples looking for items to plan the perfect day, and millions of guests looking for the perfect wedding gift. By following these tips, your e-commerce business can capture customers and sales from this valuable market.