Get Ready for the Holidays With 5 Easy Steps

It’s that time again. The holidays are back and it’s time to prepare for anything and everything in the ecommerce world! The holiday season is full of higher sales, shipment frenzy, and a whole lot of logistics for your ecommerce site. Are you prepared for a massive influx of customers? Whether the answer is yes or no, we’ve created a checklist to help ensure that your business is prepped and ready for the holiday season.

1. Test Your Site for Speed

If your page takes too long to load, can’t handle a certain amount of traffic, or doesn’t load the way a user would expect, you will lose out on revenue. According to KissMetrics, 47 percent of site visitors expect pages to load within the first two seconds. Testing your site is an important first step to make sure everything runs correctly. If you see any glaring errors, fix them and move on to the next step in the checklist.

2. Check Search Engine Rankings

Check and see how well you are ranking on different search engines. Are you still being found? Did Google’s recent updates make you drop a ranking? You need to ensure that you are showing up when people search for your product. Ranking well on Google will not only build credibility and trust, but it will also increase traffic. This can then boost organic sales and grow your business as a whole.

3. Check Your Inventory

Do you have enough inventory for all your anticipated orders? Check with your suppliers to see if there is any backlog on any of the products you’re expecting to sell. Think about what products you’re going to sell over the holidays and make sure that there is enough for the added influx of shoppers. You don’t want your customers to purchase something only to find out that it isn’t available.  

4. Review Checkout Process and Shipping Policies

Does it have too many steps? What is your shopping cart abandonment rate? Can you get by with simple straight-line shipping? Do you provide free shipping? These are all important questions you need to ask yourself about your site. Incentivizing people to complete the checkout process is vital if you want to see more conversions this holiday season. 

5. Optimized for Mobile

Does your site load correctly on mobile? The majority of transactions today are done through mobile devices and people love the convenience of purchasing something from a device that fits in their pocket. Is your site optimized to receive those conversions? Will people have to scroll or fiddle with the site to work on their mobile devices? If you answered any of these with a yes, you need to update your site and make sure it’s optimized for mobile. 

While there are many more things to check for on your website, these are five pressing things that we believe can prepare you for the holiday season. If you need help with prepping your site or are unsure of how to strategize for the holidays, contact us and we can help excel your ecommerce site – for the holiday season and beyond.