Holiday spending has steadily been on the rise but this year Deloitte predicts that seasonal spending will surpass $1.1 trillion.
With the holiday season fast approaching, now is the best time to get your WooCommerce store in top shape.
Luckily, there are plenty of WooCommerce extensions that will help you prep your site for the holidays and increase the number of sales in your online store and in this post we’ve rounded up the best of them.
Eight Best WooCommerce Extensions to Prep Your Site for the Holiday Season
The extensions below range from free to paid and will not only help you get your store ready for the holidays but also make more money.
1. WooCommerce Points and Rewards ($129)
WooCommerce Points and Rewards lets you reward your customers with points for each purchase that they can redeem for discounts. Points can also be gathered for other actions such as leaving a review or signing up for your newsletter.
Key Features:
- Define how many points are rewarded for purchases and other actions as well as how many points are needed for a discount
- Apply points for past purchases so your existing customers can use them immediately
- Adjust points for each customer and view a log of all point changes per customer
Why You Need It:
There’s proven psychology behind loyalty programs and point rewards. When you give your customers points, they don’t want to waste them. This leads to better customer retention and repeat purchases, not to mention it can increase your average order value.
2. Cart Notices ($49)
Increase conversions and sales in your online store thanks to dynamic cart notices.
Key Features:
- Encourage spending in your store to receive benefits like extra shipping
- Display custom messages on cart and checkout pages as well as anywhere where you can add a shortcode
- Create custom messages based on referral source, introduce scarcity or show cross-sell and upsell products based on the items in the cart
Why You Need It:
Offering extra perks like free shipping can encourage your visitors to purchase more. And providing them with a personalized shopping experience helps build trust in your brand because it makes them feel like you know them.
3. Direct Checkout for WooCommerce (Freemium)
Direct Checkout for WooCommerce simplifies the checkout process by allowing your customers to skip the shopping cart page.
Key Features:
- Add the “Add to Cart” button to each product to redirect customers to the checkout page
- Remove unnecessary checkout fields to speed up the checkout process
- Comes with Ajax add to cart option so visitors can add items to the cart without reloading the page
Why You Need It:
Long and complicated checkout process is one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. With the help of this plugin, you can greatly reduce your cart abandonment rate and see an increase in sales.
4. WooCommerce Multiple Free Gift (Freemium)
WooCommerce Multiple Free Gift gives you the ability to offer free products or gifts to your customers when they purchase products at your store.
Key Features:
- Offer gifts based on the number of items purchased (BOGO, Buy X, get Y free, etc)
- Allow gifts based on total cart value and total items in the cart
- Give gifts for any item added to the cart
Why You Need It:
Throwing in free gifts for completed purchases increases buyer loyalty, not to mention it encourages them to buy more. Adding this extension can increase the total number of sales as well as increase your average order value and improve customer retention.
5. Live Sales Notification (Freemium)
Easily display recent sales popup notification to website visitors.
Key Features:
- Auto-sync with store’s sales data to generate live sales feed of real orders
- Control how the notification popups look and display
- Add a direct link to the product shown in the notification so visitors can easily access it
Why You Need It:
The benefit of adding this extension to your store is two-fold. For starters, it shows that other customers are buying your products which builds trust. Secondly, it creates desire by providing proof your products are in demand.
6. YITH WooCommerce Compare (Freemium)
Thanks to this plugin, your customers can compare two or more products side by side.
Key Features:
- Add products to the comparison table from the product or the shop page
- Select product fields to display in the comparison table
- Easily customize the table and the widget to match your store’s design
Why You Need It:
Finding the perfect gift for your loved ones is no easy fit and your customers often browse the products trying to compare their features. This plugin makes it easy to see two or more products side by side and decide which one is the best purchase for them.
7. Smart Coupons ($99)
Use this plugin to create and manage everything around coupons, credits, and gift certificates.
Key Features:
- Generate bulk coupons, email them to your customers, and add them to your WooCommerce store
- Create gift certificates that your customers can purchase for their friends and family to use in your store
- One click coupon use directly from the checkout page without the need to remember any codes
Why You Need It:
Giving coupons and discounts is the best way to increase sales in your store and reward loyal customers. They can also be a great incentive for first-time visitors to make their first purchase.
8. WooCommerce Google Analytics (Free)
Easily track your store’s performance thanks to this extension which lets you integrate your WooCommerce store with Google Analytics.
Key Features:
- Track which channels are bringing you the most traffic and see what your customers are searching for
- Track user flow from product to checkout pages
- Easily compare traffic, transactions, and revenue across products.
Why You Need It:
This plugin eliminates the guesswork from trying to decide which marketing channels you should use. Thanks to detailed reporting, you can see which channels are the most profitable and figure out which products are driving the most revenue in your store. This allows you to optimize your marketing campaigns so you can see the best possible return on your investment.
Wrapping Up
WooCommerce is a great plugin that helps you to create an online store but when you add the right extensions, it will help you have a successful holiday season and reach your income and sales goals.
If you’re getting ready to prepare your site for the holidays and want to make sure your store is optimized for an increase in traffic, check out our managed WooCommerce services. We can help you secure your store, setup intelligent caching, and configure automatic backups so you can focus on launching your holiday marketing campaign.