Don’t miss out on the biggest online shopping days of the year.
Christmas is a huge milestone in the calendar of a catalogue retailer. After months of military-style planning, your promotional campaigns are in full swing and your well-oiled fulfilment operation purrs effortlessly as it shifts into a higher gear. Not long to go now!
As you ride the festive wave and count down the days to the holiday, you’d be forgiven for looking forward to spending some time out of the office and forgetting about business for a few days. But will your business keep on working for you over the Christmas shut-down, even if your staff are at home enjoying their mince pies?
The fact is, you can’t afford to neglect the busiest online shopping days in the entire year. In 2009, like the year before, Boxing Day was the busiest day for online shopping. The next day, the 27th, was the second busiest day. Online sales on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were up 36% on the previous year. Although YOU might be ready for a break, your customer has different ideas! They have gift money and vouchers to spend, and new gadgets to shop with. And more than anything – they’re hungry for some bargains.
Last year, John Lewis began its online clearance at 6pm on Christmas Eve and reported an increase of 23 per cent in sales for the first three days of its online sale, compared to the same period last year. On Christmas Day, their website took an order every ten seconds on average – the peak shopping hours being between 9pm and 10pm.
Have you planned to take advantage of this opportunity? If you’re looking no further than the Christmas postage deadlines, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Here’s a checklist of actions you should be thinking about now.
1. Have your site update ready to roll out on Christmas Eve.
Time to clear away the tinsel on the header, ditch the last posting dates, and re-organise your featured categories and products. Your customers are ready to change gear, and it’s your job to make the site relevant to their changed requirements.
2. Set expectations for customer service.
Your customer service team is likely to be depleted or absent altogether over the holiday period. Make sure your customers know when to expect their purchases, and when they can expect to get an answer to their queries.
3. Make sure all your gift voucher recipients can redeem their vouchers online
There’s nothing worse than having a gift voucher and not being able to spend it online. It’s a bugbear of mine – and surprisingly common. If your system can’t handle it, it’s time you did something about it.
4. Use your social media channels to build the hype.
Build a dialogue of engagement with your followers and use it to remind them about you during the holiday period. Use scheduling functionality to maintain the dialogue, even when you’re at home enjoying your Christmas lunch.
5. Launch your sale.
There’s no better time to create some empty space on the shelves and turn those slow-moving lines into cash. If you run just one clearance sale a year, make sure you launch it over the Christmas holiday rather than waiting until January.
6. Land an email in your customer’s inbox on Christmas Day.
Come on, you’d be mad not to. Whether it’s Christmas Day or Boxing Day, let your customers know you are open for business! If you don’t, someone else certainly will.
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