August 19 2008

Christmas is coming. There, we said it. Now, let's make sure this festive season is a bumper one...

It's late summer and, while mere mortals are still contemplating the beach, canny retailers are starting to think about sleigh bells. This week we start a quest for online sales-boosting hints for the festive season, prompted by the arrival of the first list of top ten tips for Christmas success...

US-based on-demand ecommerce supplier Demandware has won this year's prize for being the first to publish a 'top ten tips for preparing your website for Christmas' list. Fortunately, we think it's pretty good and makes some really useful suggestions for things you could be getting started with now, ready for the big rush in December.

Here at IR Towers we'd like to put together our own list of Christmas business boosters, made up from your suggestions of what works best. What simple tips have delivered the goods for you in Christmas' past? Leave your tips in the comments and we'll round up the best soon. To help get you started, here's Demandware's wisdom:

1. Make sure your customers can find you. Eighty percent of shopping trips start with the search box, and that percentage increases during the holidays. Look through your search logs from last November forward to identify ways to improve site search effectiveness. Typical fixes include:
   • Adding to synonym/hypernym dictionaries
   • Enhancing product descriptions (adding relevant keywords)
   • Expanding product assortment (consider adding product lines that customers seem to want but you don't yet carry in time for the holidays)
2. Build out your affiliate network. Under current economic conditions, shoppers are going to be very savvy when looking for the best deal online. Now is the time to start building strong relationships with those affiliates that are likely to drive significant traffic and volume to your site during the holidays. Consider setting up automated product feeds to key shopping comparison sites.
3. Set your product catalogue. Pay particular attention to catalogue readiness for cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, product related promotions and product categorization for easy navigation. Make sure products are easy to find by adding proper keywords for search results. Also, make sure you have the capability to cross-merchandise products in different categories –- during the holidays, you'll want to present a given product in both its "home" category (e.g. men's shirts) and also theme, event or occasion-based categories like "Gifts for Dad," or "Hot Gift Ideas".
4. Prepare holiday site enhancements:
   • Add "wish list" functionality. By helping customers create the list and linking other people to that list, you not only convert a wish to a completed sale, you reduce returns and increase customer satisfaction.
   • Promote gift certificates and gift cards. Promote gift certificates on the homepage and other frequently visited landing pages, and add the ability to redeem them to the checkout process. Gift certificate purchases have grown by leaps and bounds over the past 10 years.
   • Offer gift wrapping. This service adds convenience and creates differentiation from other retailers. It also helps your customers save time during the busy holiday season, which will ultimately build customer loyalty.
5. Segment your audience. The holidays are the season for gifts — most shoppers are buying for other people. For example if you're a jeweller, anticipate that men will be buying for women. Change the look and feel, products and promotions for the type of audience that is going to be buying during the holidays.
6. Best-sellers and gift ideas. Highlight these items on your homepage to provide additional gift ideas for uncertain shoppers. Create detailed gift guides based on the recipient, the price point and other elements to lead customers to a purchase.
7. Engage in A/B testing now. Engage in A/B testing of new site design concepts, features and functionality to get some real-world data before settling on what you'll ultimately go with during the holidays. For some merchants, the back-to-school season might be an ideal time for this type of testing.
8. Get creative with promotions. Don't just use flat discounts to drive traffic — think about the long-term relationship with the customer. Think about loyalty-based promotions that will create repeat customers and word-of-mouth marketing. Also create a sense of urgency by making order-by dates and time-sensitive offers part of your promotions strategy.
9. Leverage social merchandising. Beyond adding a comments and review section on product pages, consider these other social merchandising tactics:
   • Allowing customers to create desired "outfits" or bundles of multiple products, and saving/sending these to friends and family.
   • Enabling/encouraging customers to post favoured products to their Facebook or MySpace profiles, or to vertical networking sites like StyleFeeder.
   • Making use of instant messaging, mobile marketing/advertising and RSS as channels for holiday marketing and promotional campaigns
10. Update inventory on product pages. Nothing infuriates a customer more than to find out that the product is out of stock after the completion of the checkout process. Post inventory levels on every product page to set expectations for customers and also create a sense of urgency when levels are low. Make this a year-round practice!

by Sarah Clark (Web Editor)