Is Your Ecommerce Site Ready For The Holiday Rush?

Labor Day is over, and you know what that means – it’s time to get ready for the holiday season. While your customers may not be thinking about shopping just yet, they will be in the next month. That means you only have one month to get your website ready for the busy season.

Back in July we discussed the shipping steps you should be taking for the holiday rush, but this time we’re going to focus on your website.

Let’s get started.

Figure Out Peak Shopping Periods

Before you start working on anything else, you need to dive into your website data to figure out when your busy season really begins. Look at data from the past few years and make notes on patterns. When do your sales usually spike? When does your website traffic usually spike? What was it that brought customers to your website during those specific times? Look at the browsing and buying patterns so you can make adjustments to your inventory as well as featured products, banner advertisements, and more.

Plan Sales Strategically

Now that you know the peak trends on your website, it’s time to use that information to create a sales and promotions schedule. Experiment with offering sales on historically busy days as well as slow ones. Sales can entice people to buy more, or just to buy when previously they were on the fence. You may also experiment with offering extra perks during certain peak times, such as free gift wrapping.

Start Marketing Early

You know that you have to increase your marketing during the holidays, but get an early start instead of waiting for Thanksgiving to roll around. Preview holiday promotions to your loyal customers. Create some free content, such as blog posts or how-to videos, to get customers coming to your website more often. Make sure you’re sharing product news and information relevant to the holiday shipping season. You want your customers to be thinking about shopping with you before the holidays get underway.

Upgrade Your Systems

What can you do now to make the busy holiday season easier? Now is the time to make upgrades to your systems for a smoother workflow during the holidays, and moving forward. What parts of your shipping process can be automated? Do you need to update product photos and descriptions? Maybe you want to have social media automation so you can focus on other things. Start working on these upgrades immediately so they’re ready in time for the holidays.

Test Mobile Performance

Is your website optimized for mobile? It needs to be. Not only are more and more people shopping using a mobile device, but Google is starting to prioritize mobile when it comes to search engines. If someone looks up your website while on their phone but the site is clunky on mobile, they may not bother to look again. There’s still time to make changes before the holidays.

Make it Easy For Your Customers

The holidays are a busy, hectic time for people. By making your website as easy to navigate as possible, you’re reducing stress and confusion for your customers. Make sure shop policies such as your return policy is crystal clear and easy to find. All shipping information should be readily available to customers before the checkout process. Your goal is to get your customer on your website and checked out as quickly as possible, and the easier you make your website to navigate, the more often that will happen.

Optimize Checkout

Reduce customer headaches by testing your checkout process and optimizing it. Test all of your coupon codes to make sure they ring up correctly. Analyze how many steps your customers must go through to actually make a purchase. Remember, the goal is for this to be as easy as possible for your customers, with as few website errors as possible.

Don’t Forget About Shipping Supplies!

Head to ShippingSupply.com to stock up on shipping supplies for the holiday season so all your orders get shipped out on time!

Our Top Tips For Ecommerce

Most companies have a website nowadays, and use that website to make sales. But ecommerce is constantly evolving, and it is important to give yourself an edge over the competition. Here are the top ecommerce tips we’ve got for you.

·        Think like your customers. When they come to your website, what do they want? Something straightforward? More dynamic? Design your website in a way your customers would love.

·        Create a loyalty program. This will keep customers coming back over and over again.

·        Make sure your website works well on mobile devices. So many people are shopping on their phones now, so you have to make sure your website looks good on one!

·        Make your delivery options stand out. People love fast shipping, so experiment with ways to make shipping faster, and be sure you advertise it! Can you offer free shipping? Even better!

·        Use photos on your website, on your blog, and on social media accounts.

·        But don’t neglect your text. Good copy is also very important.

·        Your goal is to make your customers have a smooth, easy shopping experience. That means you want them to have to go through the fewest amount of steps possible to get what they want. Test this on your website.

·        Monitor analytics to get an idea of what is working and what isn’t. And monitor often. Trends change!

·        Make sure your company has a voice. You don’t want to simply list your products, you want to list them in a unique way.

·        Don’t focus on the features of your product, focus on the benefits. Show how your products will improve people’s lives.

·        You’ll have to experiment. Try different types of ads. Different pictures. Find what works best for your audience.

·        Be specific with product categories. This makes it much easier for your customers to find what they are looking for.

·        Make your customers feel special. Maybe this is through a customer appreciation promotion, or maybe this is by giving away something for free every so often. You want your customers to feel appreciated.

·        Build your email list and use it. And you don’t want to build up a list of random emails, you want to get email information from customers who actually buy your products and will buy again and again.

·        Have an FAQ section. This doesn’t only save you time, but it is generally expected on any website. Answer common questions this way and you’ll get less emails containing questions, and customers will be pleased that they don’t have to wait for an answer.

This is only a small start, but these are our biggest tips for running a successful ecommerce business.

Have tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!