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Well, it’s October, and the craziness of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and Boxing Day is just around the corner! Fortunately for you, there’s still a little bit of time for some last minute holiday prep, so when the busiest shopping days do arrive, the stability of your business won’t be jeopardized. In order to have a successful holiday season, it’s imperative that you not only prepare your site, but your support team as well. This post provides merchants some key last minute do’s and dont’s when preparing for the busiest shopping time of the year.
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Last Minute Holiday Prep for your eCommerce Site
October 8, 2014
Presented by: Jamie SchreterVP Strategy, Demac Media
About us
Overview
Your key promotional days are around the corner. How will you prepare?
1. Marketing2. Customer Service3. Infrastructure4. Merchandising 5. Fulfillment6. Do’s and Don’ts7. Questions
THERE ARE ONLY
52 DAYS
UNTIL BLACK FRIDAY
AND 55 DAYS
UNTIL CYBER MONDAY
1
Marketing
1.1 - Marketing Budget
Be Proactively, Reactive:
1. Need to react quickly during the holidays2. Run through different scenarios with your team3. Be prepared to up your budget4. Monitor and adjust campaigns on the go
1.2 - Marketing Content, SEO & SEM
Review your content ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday from a Marketing and SEO standpoint
1. Create content in advance • Have contingency content prepared
2. Need time for Search Engines to crawl your content• Sooner you can get your SEO content updated the
better3. Is the most relevant content available during the
holidays?
FINAL TIPS: Marketing
Plan ahead but leave room for adjustment!
1. By now, your strategy should be solidified• (or at least finalizing it)
2. Don’t make strategies air tight• Leave room for adjustment
3. Have backup plans to smooth out customer experience• Ie. If products sell out
2
Customer Service
2.1 - Document and Review your Processes
How you treat your customers during the holidays is how they remember you for the rest of the year.
1. Document and review processes• Are additional hours needed?
2. Run your team through scenarios• “What’s the status of my order?” / “I can’t check out!”
3. Ensure your team is knowledgeable and has access to all necessary information before key promotional days
4. Customers expect extra service during the holidays• Remind your team to be courteous and polite
2.2 - Reward Your Team
Why should your customer service team care? Internal moral can be a hard thing to keep up during the holidays.
1. Set expectations from beginning• Holidays = high stress time
2. Reward outstanding talent• Bonuses, Holiday party, bottle of wine etc.
FINAL TIP: Customer Service
The swiftness in which customers receive their order and the information you provide during the holidays has a big impact on their
impression of your customer service, and your brand!
3
Infrastructure
Site Stability
As we get closer to the major shopping season, all sites have to take measures to ensure site stability while enjoying (hopefully) higher visitor volume and conversions.
1. Code Freeze = no major changes in code get promoted2. “Major code changes” can be slightly ambiguous3. Always weigh risk vs. reward4. Is it worth destabilizing your site?
4
Merchandising
4 - The Front-End
Don’t scramble before key promotional days. Ensure your content is prepared ahead of time!
1. Have your content ready and prepared• Ie. catalogue, descriptions, images etc
2. Late for major UX changes, but is your tracking set up?• Track funnels in Google Analytics
3. Minor UX can be made (weigh risk vs reward)• Ie. Checkout “Secure Checkout”
5
Fulfillment
5.1 – Your Team and Orders
How you forecast your inventory has a dual effect of making you operate at maximum efficiency and also has an impact on your customer service.
1. Notify your customers of what holiday shipping times are like
2. Make sure all shipping options are well known • Ie. Pick-up in-store, reserve in-store
3. All rules that apply to customer service, apply to your fulfillment process and team
5.2 – Shipping Options
The more shipping options you offer your customers, the better!
1. Many shipping methods available for merchants• Ie. Ship to post office, ship to store, expedited
shipping, etc.2. Pick up in-store means your customers come into your
physical location – opportunity to up/cross sell
What To Avoid
What to Avoid During the Holidays
Here are 2 high level things we recommend you should stay away from during the holiday shopping season:
1. Avoid anything that has a big weight on your eCommerce system, or would destabilize your site • Run reports through your eCom site during a sale• Modifying product info, can invalidate your site cache
2. Don’t let other sites sway you!• Just because a competitor is doing X, doesn’t mean you
should too! Know YOUR business!• Evaluate risk vs. reward!
QUESTIONS?
Gavin CozensAffiliate Manager
www.affiliatetraction.comEmail: [email protected]
Tel: +44(0) 203 326 5436
Jamie SchreterVP, Strategy
www.demacmedia.comEmail: [email protected]
Tel: 1-888-860-0364
