OrderDynamics Holiday Guide 2012 - Website Checklist

As retail approaches the busiest shopping period of the year, OrderDynamics shares key dates, notable trends, and tips and tricks for social media, email marketing, and promotions to ensure your holiday season is a profitable one!

(Click here to view Part I of our Holiday Guide: "Know Your Dates")

Part II - Website Checklist 

The most important part of preparing for the holiday season is setting up your website to reflect that you are ready to provide excellent service to your customers. According to an infographic by GetElastic, 39% of shoppers obtain information about a brand, its products and promotions by visiting the site itself. A study by Shop.org also indicated that absolute transparency of all details pertaining to order fulfillment is the make or break point for shoppers when deciding whether to make a purchase from an online retailer. This means providing great products, at the best prices, and making necessary information readily available so as to make shopping on your website as stress-free as possible.

Naturally, seasonal products should be highly promoted and easily accessible on the website. However, these are an easy sell as many shoppers are looking for Thanksgiving and Christmas-branded items anyway. Hubspot asserts that as many shoppers can become overwhelmed during the holidays and simply want to get through their Christmas list as quickly as possible, they are highly receptive to being told what to buy via Holiday Gift Guides. This gives you the opportunity to promote higher margin products that shoppers may not necessarily pay attention to earlier in the year as great gift ideas. Gift guides should be placed on the homepage for high visibility; Hubspot and Level 343 even suggest temporarily updating the meta data for focus product pages to boost the likelihood of them showing up in search engine results when shoppers are searching for gift ideas or holiday sales. Aim for page titles and meta descriptions that are labelled “Black Friday/Cyber Monday Specials”, “Holiday Gift Guide/Ideas” or “Holiday Staff Picks”.

Murale.ca's Holiday Guide featured on their home page.

While you may be able to push higher margin products during the holidays, shoppers are also strict about getting the most value for their money. Shop.org reported that the importance of perpetual visibility of shopping card totals including shipping charges was ranked 4.5 out of 5 during their pre-holiday consumer study, as shoppers want to constantly be aware of how much they are spending. Many retailers including Walmart, Toys R Us and Target are offering – and highly publicizing – price matching for the holiday season to reassure shoppers that they will get the best value. PayPal has even jumped on this trend by offering price adjustments within 30 days of purchase should they find the purchased item at a lower price during that time.

Hollisterco.ca's auto-update shopping cart total and shipping cost banner

Along with value, consumers also want reassurance that their holiday gift items will arrive on time – there is nothing worse (or more awkward) than a Christmas gift that does not arrive in time for Christmas. Dell, Sears and Amazon, among others, have outlined the details for order cut-off dates for shipping to local, remote national, US, and various international areas. There are also few things as awkward as not being able to return a gift should it be the wrong item, size or an overall miss. Ensure your website is transparent about shipping and return policies.

Amazon.ca's order cut-off dates for Christmas delivery

Shoppers also want to know that there is sufficient inventory to fulfill their order, so that it won’t be backordered, or at least have advanced knowledge of it in the event that the item does need to be backordered. The inventory management feature within the OrderDynamics On-Demand eCommerce Platform has shown great success in clients such as Kitchen Stuff Plus, by providing shoppers with advanced knowledge of inventory availability, and what stores they may be able to purchase them in should they be unsure of delivery times.

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Don't forget to read the other parts of the 2012 OrderDynamics Retail Holiday Guide:

• Part I - Know Your Dates
• Part II - Website Checklist
• Part III - Social Media for the Holidays
• Part IV - Holiday Emails