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Advice
Get set for
an online
Christmas
Each year, Christmas seems to start earlier, so in order to be ready for what is often
the most profitable time of year, you have to start fattening the goose even sooner.
Here are ten tips about the special requirements of Yuletide retailing online, backed up
by the experiences of site owners.
W
hatever marketing you are planning while to prepare them. We also boost our PR sure that the business can cope with the in-
for your site in the run-up to Christ- activity with a press release in September.” crease. This includes web hosting and having
mas, run some small-scale tests as
Can you handle the extra traffic?
extra staff to help with shipping. Bill Steven-
soon as possible. son of
www.spicesofindia.co.uk advises or-
Establish what works best, and refine it. And If there is anything worse that having no or- dering extra stock and advertising for
if search engines are important for traffic, then ders, it's the frustration of going out of stock, temporary packing staff in September. “Last
prepare, optimise and submit your Christmas or having fulfilment problems and having to re- December visitors fell, but conversion rates
pages now. Don’t wait, or you may be too fund the money. Problems like this produce went from 1% to around 3%. We ran out of
late.Keith Milsom at www.AnythingLeft- unhappy customers that won't be coming many Christmas gift sets and could not get
handed.co.uk advises, “We plan ahead for back. An average ecommerce site sees a 30% new stock in time. This year we have ordered
promo emails to various groups as it takes a rise in orders in November/December, so make enough to allow for a 5% conversion rate.”
48 • issue 164 Business Matters
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