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eCorner eCommerce |
When the Christmas decoration start appearing in the supermarkets and
How will Christmas 2008 be different?
If we think about the second question first then it may help us to set
There are two guarantees; Christmas will happen, and people will still
Every year Christmas is the dominant retail sales period in Australia
more people will buy online,
Buying online for Christmas starts as early as September but the real
To be ready for Christmas you have to think of a number of issues:
1. Is your online store ready? It is no use waiting until December to
2. Do you have the products to sell? Getting the stock can be tricky
3. When is my delivery cut off date for Christmas? It is no use
4. Do you have a safe checkout process setup like PayPal Express now
5. Add an SSL certificate to your webstore like a COMODO Instant SSL
6. Think about promotions? You can setup special Google AdWords
7. Use the Price Comparison portals like www.getprice.com.au to
8. Are you offering Christmas specials? You can put up products that
9. Add Christmas keywords? Make sure that you add the Christmas
10. Products are all important and you might think of price ranges for
11. People buying gifts want ideas so give them some. Set up special
12. Don't forget that Google might take weeks to crawl and index your
13. Gift wrapping and gift cards can be easily added in the shopping
14. You can have multiple shipping addresses so your buyers can ship
15. Free shipping at Christmas, or anytime, can be a great incentive
16. You can time the shipping and delivery so that as you get closer
17. Give your store a Christmas theme. It is easy to setup a new style
18. After Christmas is a great time for specials and people on
Bottom line is Christmas is the most important retail selling time and
Start to promote for Christmas only when you are ready and you store
2008 will be tough in many ways but Christmas will offer a short
department stores you know the Christmas buying season is well
underway. But are you ready to take advantage of the huge opportunity
that Christmas brings to online stores?
expectations for the Christmas period. The one think that dominates
Christmas and the holiday season this year is the global financial
crisis. Speculation on what might happen over the next few months is
best left to experts. How it will affect the business of selling
online is something we have to determine.
spend up on gifts and food for the holiday season.
and New Zealand if not worldwide. Worldwide trends have been
favourable for online shopping and the latest report from Nielsens can
provide some new confidence for online sellers. The trend is for more
people to buy online being driven by many factors and this is unlikely
to slow.
This year;
consumers will look for bargains more so than in the past,
comparison shopping will be the norm,
buyers will look for added value and special offers,
peak happens in the first week of December. This year we will see a
later start and a longer buying period. The after Christmas, New Years
sales, will still be important to sell off overstocked items at
bargain prices.
set up the store as you just won't make it in time.
the closer you get to Christmas so you need to know what you will need
now.
selling to a customer who expects pre Christmas delivery if you cannot
get the product delivered on time. So you need to tell your buyers
what they can expect if they buy on the 24th December.
the leading Australian payment method according to Nielsen Research or
eWAY one of Australia’s leading payment providers? Consumers will be
more careful this Christmas and look for security when buying online.
(www.comodo.com), these add to buyer confidence.
Campaigns just for Christmas and help drive Christmas traffic to your
store. Go talk to your SEM partner like Hot Goanna
(www.hotgoanna.com.au).
promote your products and special offers and drive qualified traffic
to your webstore.
have special pre-Christmas offers such as free delivery. This can help
you get higher conversions.
keywords to you Meta-keywords with plenty of time to get crawled by
the search engines before Christmas. Also make sure that you add
Christmas Gift category names and description text to match up with
you keywords.
gifts so that you fit everyone’s budgets.
categories like "Gifts for him", Gifts for Mum", "Gifts for the dog",
"Take a chance gifts" and so on. Be inventive as you need to stand out
in a crowd.
new content so allow plenty of time and don't wait till the last
minute.
basket so you might want to think about offering free gift wrapping
and free gift delivery.
directly to an alternative address. Offer this service and make sure
you get the gift there on time.
to buy online. If you are selling a product online you can structure
an average shipping price into your costs. Then allow free shipping by
Australia Post.
to Christmas shipping is no longer free but maybe at a premium to
ensure delivery.
and change the colours and banners for Christmas. You can even start
doing that right now and make that the live style later in the year.
Set up a count down to Christmas - it can be a easy as a little added
text to your home page.
vacation like to shop around for bargains. So don't think everything
stops on December 25th. The smart store operators will be ready with
the Boxing Day and New Years specials campaigns come December 26th.
online selling time in the year and you need to be prepared to take
advantage. Your online store needs to be complete and setup for
Christmas as soon as September or by October at the latest and you
need to start Christmas promotions early and not wait until a week
before Christmas.
is complete. Remember you don't need thousands of products just a few
of the products that sell. Focus on quality and provide good content
(descriptions, images etc) and the products will sell at Christmas.
period of time where online sales will be up and you need to be ready
to sell online.