Getting Your Web Site Store Ready for the Christmas Rush It's practically the start of Christmas rush! For businesses that can only mean one thing – consumers are sure to start their Christmas shopping in the next few weeks and many people will be turning to online stores to beat the queues. If you own an e-commerce website you should be thinking about how you can maximise seasonal sales in times like this. If your business is selling stuff online you must have an online presence that could use a little sprucing up before the impending christmas rush. Putting some finishing touches or even adding a few enhancements could have your online store firing on demands from consumers. Combine this with your social media profiles and you have yourself half the strategic campaign rolling. Here are some tips below on getting your website store ready for the Christmas rush. Improving Website Optimization Website optimization can be termed as the backbone of any online business. How your pages load, how they look, are they user friendly; these are all important aspects that require your attention. Here are few ideas to look upon: Robust Hosting Be ready for a jump in the number of visitors landing on your website. You must know about your server capacity whether it is enough to handle such amount of traffic or not. If your server is too slow most of the times, you must contact your hosting provider and ask them to resolve the problem as not doing so can bring your website to a crash and make it inaccessible. Consider these 4 pages that must really be improved – homepage, products pages, payment page and confirmation page. Homepage is the main landing page. There you can promote your best items and your offers. Make it attractive but simple and userfriendly to keep the visitors coming back to you. The customer must feel that your website is secure and that he can trust you. Display a contact method and icons (like trust services and social media icons or widgets) that show that you are available online. This is especially the case if you are a new brand with few feedbacks online. Product pages are crucial. The product is what the customer will pay for. And we all know that if someone pays for something, he will think twice before (especially for gifts!). You must clearly describe your products with CLEAR pictures. With online shopping, customer cannot try the product to see if it fits his body. Buying online, the view is the only unique sense he can experience. To mitigate these lacks, you must describe the product in as much detail as possible (materials, colors, specifications, etc.). The customer must to be able to zoom in the photographs to see it better. You can discuss with your brand photographer about photography tips for your e-commerce. It is better if the customer can contact you directly from the product page with a contact form or a live chat window. The checkout page is important in term of conversion rate. Many visitors leave this page due to a sensation of insecurity. You can add icons representing your payment methods, making the shopping as a multistep process by indicating each step on the shopping pages (shopping cart, shipping, payment, confirmation). The customer must not feel lost. He must find all the information he needs at the checkout process. Think that during Christmas many of them have no time to wait or try to search information about your brand. If they are not sure, they will leave your website and not return. Confirmation page - This page is underestimated. A "Thank you for your order" is not enough. Why not use unique pages to really connect with your customers? Like a newsletter form to give them the availability to subscribe to your newsletter to follow up and hear from your new collections. You can ask them to be part of your community by liking you on your Facebook page for example. Another one is to Offer them a coupon with a percentage off for their next shopping. Keep in mind that coupon must always have a deadline to create a sense of urgency. Christmas and the holiday season are intensely fierce when it comes to competition. Make sure your offer is compelling and attractive to someone shopping for your product. Lastly, consider offering free shipping or a % off discount.
Digital Organics: www.digitalorganics.com.au - 1/102 Howard Street, Nambour, QLD 4560 T 617 5476 3800
Website Monitoring Most people use website analysis tools like Google Analytics; with some of these tools you can see your conversion and out bounce rates for your traffic. All these data will help you understand how to improve your website and see where the deficiencies are. There are also ways to know your customers: where are they from? Do they use their mobile to do shopping? Things that will also help you in terms of marketing. Focus on Customer Service For any business to sustain, the customer service has to be effective. You must understand the needs of your customers and you must address the queries of your customer. Prepare Stocks You must prepare your product stock early before Christmas period. Its christmas, so the items generally need to be there ON THE DAY. Make sure you are shipping your products in a timely manner. Get into the habit of shipping as frequently as possible in November. Remember that Christmas is a defined period; if the product is out of stock customer will go away as he has no time to wait for you. Online Customer Support During this period you can hire people for your staff to manage the customer support: orders, shipping, support, feedbacks, social media. Why not implement a live chat system for this period? There are so many simple solutions to do so like Meebo. Of course the support by phone is the best. We all prefer to speak with a real human. With these solutions, your business will always connect with the visitors and help increase your conversion rate replying to their questions, turning them to new customers. Then look at your terms and FAQ pages. Are these visible to the visitors in your website? Do they deliver answers to the usual questions about a purchase: orders, payment methods, shipping methods and estimated time for delivery, contact, return policy? Return Policy In terms of Return Policy, Christmas period is special. You must allow more time to your shoppers to return any unwanted items in January as many people do their Christmas shopping early (in November or even in October) to avoid festive shopping rush. Before buying anything at your website, many visitors will look at your Return Policy and they will not spend their money in your shop if you do not allow any special arrangement for the festive period. Three to four weeks are fair enough to return any item. Bio: Choosing the right ecommerce system makes it easy to control your store and make changes to keep it up to date. Digital Organics can set up an ecommerce web site that’s tailored to the needs of your business and your customers with our ecommerce platform.
Digital Organics: www.digitalorganics.com.au - 1/102 Howard Street, Nambour, QLD 4560 T 617 5476 3800