Are You Prepared for the 2005 Holiday Season?

Early this year, it was widely reported in the media that 2004 online holiday sales were up dramatically from 2003. For example, e-commerce data from VeriSign, Inc. showed that the 2004 holiday shopping season (Thanksgiving Day through Monday, December 27) yielded a 24 percent increase compared to the same period in 2003 for its customers. The trend will likely continue: a recent study by market research firm Forrester Research, reported that online retail sales will grow by 22% to a whopping $172 billion in 2005.

If you were in business last year, did your holiday sales perform in a manner consistent with the reported increases? Is your site ready for the increased demand of the 2005 holiday season? This article provides insights to help you prepare your webstore for the 2005 holiday shopping rush and beyond.

Provide secure ordering

If you're not already offering a secure shopping experience for your customers, the 2005 busy holiday season is a great time to begin. More and more customers now understand that https:// protected order forms mean that a site is secure, and many will not order unless your site is protected. If you have not yet set up your online store for SSL, you can purchase an SSL certificate from providers such as GeoTrust and VeriSign. For more information about the features and benefits of SSL, see last month's article on SSL (August 2005) issue of this newsletter.

Offer gift certificates

Did you know that gift certificates were among the most purchased items online during 2004 holiday shopping season? Offer gift certificates from your online store to promote brand awareness and increase sales. (GoECart's Gift Certificate module makes this easy.)

Test key features, such as site search

The pre-holiday season is also a great time to double check key functionality of your webstore, especially the "Search" button. Since many customers will be doing their holiday browsing and buying with shopping list in hand, many will use your online store's search functionality to look for specific items in your website. Try doing a search for items using the same keywords that you would expect to be used by customers. If the product doesn't appear at or near the top of your search results, optimize keywords and make other adjustments as necessary.

Design your site for success

If you're offering specialized holiday promotions, you may wish to rework the site design to "guide" customers to specific items or more information about the promotions. Be sure content is written in clear and concise language and images are optimized for download speed and placement. Test your site design on multiple browsers and platforms-especially the most popular browsers such as Internet Explorer and newer browsers gaining popularity like Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari. Since increased foot traffic is practically a guarantee over the holidays, you may wish to seize the opportunity to get customer feedback on your site design by running a small survey.

Optimize email campaigns

Without a doubt, thousands of e-merchants will be conducting targeted email campaigns this holiday season. Combine these legitimate campaigns with "spam", and you've got a holiday email overload problem waiting to happen. Make your holiday email campaigns stand out with these simple tips:

• Run campaigns early to beat the holiday rush.
  
• Customize and personalize emails for existing customers.
  
• Offer discounts to existing customers.
  
• Inform customers about recent changes made to improve customer service.
  
• Generate excitement with free shipping and other specialized promotions.

The Happy holidays

This busy holiday season may very well generate the highest demand since the birth of e-commerce. If you're the last-minute-shopper type, don't delay in optimizing your online store!Start your planning now to give yourself the gift of e-commerce success this holiday season

Are You Prepared for the 2005 Holiday Season?