Member Article

Dress up your online sales for World Book Day 2019

World Book Day 2019 is almost upon us, and the parental-panic to find that perfect costume has already begun.

Every year, World Book Day falls on the same day, the first Thursday in March. So in 2019, that day will be Thursday 7th March. World Book Day is the perfect opportunity for parents, teachers and kids to join together in appreciation of the world of literature and the life-long pleasure of reading.

This year’s theme is “Share A Story” and adults, parents and older siblings are encouraged to participate by reading and sharing stories. A huge reason for the growing success of World Book Day is that children, parents, even teachers are encouraged to dress up. From Harry Potter to Matilda, Superman to Rey from Star Wars, children across the UK go to school dressed as their favourite fictional characters.

However, while dressing up is great fun for the kids, and helps them to identify more with their favourite books, it is often a last minute nightmare for Mum and Dad… and a huge money-spinning opportunity for fancy dress retailers who are trying to grab the attention of the 11 million pupils currently in school in the UK.

In the run up to World Book Day 2019 Craig MacCallum, CEO of E-commerce experts Optiseller, explains: “World Book Day is a fabulous idea and one that more and more children are keen to take part in. The dressing up as your favourite character is what makes the day stand out for the kids. However, we all know that when it comes to dressing up, Mums and Dads need to be organised and have a costume planned well in advance. At least this is the plan.

“For the most part, kids fancy dress costumes are bought online these days. A quick internet search, usually via the larger selling platforms such as Ebay or Amazon, comes up with hundreds of options making choosing the right costumer a big problem. Should you go for the cheapest? The best quality? Or simply the first one you see?

“It seems obvious, but for online sellers it is vital to make sure their listings are actually found, especially in a crowded marketplace with a short window for success. You have up to 80 characters to capture the buyer’s attention so make the most of them. Your titles should read well and contain all the relevant keywords to help with search visibility. Item specifics are there for a reason, so use them. The majority of fancy dress buyers will filter on things that are important to them such as colour, brand, style and so forth. It is therefore important to include as many item specific values as you can so that your products can be included when the buyer uses the filters. Also, reassure buyers your products are genuine and good quality.”

MacCallum adds: “We had an example of one online fancy dress retailer who utilised our Optiseller tool just before World Book Day in 2017. By simply optimising its listings in the week prior to World Book Day, it saw its hit count increase by 84% and its actual sales go up by a huge 143%. It’s not rocket science, but ensuring your listings are visible and correct makes such as a huge difference.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michael Donaldson .