8 More To-Do Items for Your Store’s Holiday Checklist

Getting ready to sell online during the holidays is no easy task. But these Top 10 Things for Your Store’s Holiday Checklist and the following 8 more will get you in great shape.

1. Determine shipping cut-off dates. Check with your shipping carriers to determine what the cutoff days are for the various methods of shipping. Ensure you add a “guaranteed arrival in time for (name your holiday here) if ordered before (name your date here.)”
2. Prominently display your return policy. Consider rewording it as a “no hassle” policy in order to calm the fears of first-time buyers. While a 30-day return policy is commonplace for the rest of the year, it may scare off early shoppers during the holidays. Make it clear to your visitors that you will accept returns and exchanges on all Christmas (or name your own holiday) gift purchases. This ensures them that they can expect total satisfaction.
3. Show holiday spirit in your graphics. Go ahead, decorate for the holidays! Consider redesigning some of the artwork on your site with a holiday theme to get your shoppers in the mood to spend money with you.
4. Ensure your server can handle any increased capacity. If you don’t host in-house, talk with your web host about how you can increase your server performance during the holiday rush.
5. Allow customers to ship to alternate locations other than they’re regular shipping address. If a customer is buying a gift for someone that does not live near them they may want to have it simply shipped to the recipient’s address as a holiday gift surprise.
6. Communicate with fulfillment and customer service. Make everyone involved in the order process aware of any promotions or revisions to policies.
7. Ensure your email campaigns promote the holiday offers and your website backs those up. If you are running any email campaigns you need to ensure that offers presented in the emails are easily found and similarly presented on your website.
8. Consider offering digital gift certificates redeemable online. These often provide an added option for shoppers and are a great way to increase cash flow.

Take advantage of the holidays to increase ecommerce sales!

This is a great time to dig into the Ecommerce Amplifier. The six-step tutorial will teach you how to identify problem areas on your ecommerce website and implement some of these tips. If you sign up for the Premium level, I’ll even provide you with my expert website review – pointing out exactly what you’re doing right and what you can improve.