An estimated 75% of shoppers will do their 2020 shopping online, thanks to COVID19 and the ongoing social distancing efforts, experts anticipate this holiday shopping season to be bigger than ever before. As more and more customers are going online to do their holiday shopping and look for local services, small businesses can expect huge opportunities funneling through their online portals.
Is your business ready for the increase in volume this holiday season? Small business should have an action plan to help better manage the new realities of 2020 and the approaching holiday shopping season. Ease your holiday sales preparation with the must do tasks for online sales success.
Here are some key dates to consider that are fast approaching:
October
31 Halloween
November 03 Election Day
26 Thanksgiving
27 Black Friday
28 Small Business Saturday
30 Cyber Monday
December 01 Giving Tuesday 10-18 Hanukkah 18 Free Shipping Day 19 Super Saturday
24-25 Christmas 26 Boxing Day (CA) 31 New Year Eve
Establish a strong foundation early on is key to a successful holiday season for your business. Here are some key elements to your success:
Ensure you're able to accept fast and secured online payments
Get your online secure payment solutions ready and make the customer feel comfortable by making it easy on them to pay online.
Offer multiple options to your customer. Connect a verified payment provider as well as another option such as PayPal.
Be prepared to handle refunds by having an efficient system that tracks the process and that will bring you a peace of mind.
Modify or create a webpage that is intuitive for your customer
Make it easy for your customer to quickly find and add product they're looking for you on your site.
Include product gallery as well as the ability to safe product on their wishlist
Add cross-sell recommendations to your checkout page.
Analyze your business and customer data ahead of the competition
If you're selling online take a look at your analytics and reports to get a handle on the sales trends and your customer's behavior during COVID19. Use this data as a forecasting tool to understand what products your customer will buy and consolidate a plan to meet the upcoming holiday sales demands.
Manage your inventory
Order the right quantity and types of product based on your sales trend.
Analyze your profitability and logistics risk.
Plan on managing your inventory according to products that will be on sales / heavily marketed to determine the correct quantities of your product.
Price your items / services based on profitability
Always look at what the bottom line will bring to your business and make strategic business decision on how to improve that.
Having Allexie as your digital partner will ensure you're ready for this holiday season and all of the challenges that come with the planning and preparation for this holiday season. At Allexie we understand that every business has uniques challenges, let's solve yours today.
Get in touch with one of our reps to get started today!
Sam
Allexie | Digital Solutions
srostane@allexie.com