How To Prepare Your eCommerce Store For Christmas

The festive period is hectic for everyone:  customers and retailers alike. The earlier you can come up with a comprehensive approach to Christmas ecommerce, the more time you’ll have to execute it – and the more likely you are to achieve – or even surpass - your targets. To give you the best possible chance of coming away from the year’s busiest – and most commercially lucrative – period happy, we’ve detailed the foundations any successful ecommerce Christmas campaign should have.

Prepare for increased traffic

Your website needs to be able to handle the surge in traffic that the build-up to Christmas portends.  With customers frantically scouring the internet for the perfect gifts for family members, friends and colleagues, the volume of people visiting your site is bound to significantly increase. And if your website is incapable of weathering increased traffic, your business’s performance is going to be dramatically impaired, resulting in frustrated customers and lost revenue. Preparation is the best way to prevent this problem from rearing its ugly head at the worst possible time. Test your server’s load capacity well in advance of the run-in to Christmas and make any adjustments that need to be made to ensure that your business’ performance isn’t hampered by your site’s shortcomings.

Flexible delivery options

With so many different things to consider in the build-up to Christmas - decorating the house, writing and sending cards and preparing not only the right amount of food but catering for everyone’s tastes too – it is all too easy to let the buying of presents slide down the list of priorities. Pressed for time, customers are looking for flexible, competitive delivery options that allow them to get exactly what they need quickly and affordably. Making it easy for customers to find details of your delivery service is essential. Prominently featuring a countdown clock that lets customers know the deadline for ordering in time for Christmas engenders a sense of urgency that can spur deliberating customers into action.

Reduce cart abandonment

Neglecting to address a seemingly insignificant hurdle in the customer journey can be a critical misstep for online retailers. What might, at first glance, look like a far from pressing issue, can actually be the deciding factor in whether or not a visitor to your site makes a purchase. Exploring cart abandonment issues in advance of the lead-up to Christmas - trialling fixes and implementing ones that prove successful - is an integral part of delivering results over the festive period. A robust site, reliable delivery, and a streamlined, straightforward customer journey can all help maximise your site’s profits in the competitive Christmas period. They are, however, just three of many essential considerations online retailers have to make in preparation for the flurry of spending at the end of the year. Want help and advice from experts? Contact us for a free consultation on Christmas ecommerce ideas that are tailored to your business and carefully selected to maximise your success.