Preparing Your Store for Online Holiday Shopping Season – What Retail Experts Have to Say

This blog has been updated on 19.11.2024.

‘Tis (almost) the season of jolly-good deals, sales going through the roof, and last-minute rush.

Like every year, shoppers are flocking to their favorite e-commerce sites, ready to score the best discounts and find the perfect gifts. For e-commerce businesses, this is a golden opportunity.

And also the biggest nightmare.

The big scares are slow speed, poor customer experience, and the site crashing at checkout. Nothing spoils Christmas more than your customers leaving for your competitors’ because they couldn’t complete their purchase. 

To make their experience seamless, now is a good time to start planning for the online holiday shopping season. We went ahead and asked brand owners, online retail experts, and decision makers about how they are planning to spread the holiday cheer this year. Let’s take a look at what the experts are saying.

In this blog, we’ll share insights from the survey and provide actionable tips to help you gear up for the season.

 

Start Early

This is a highly debatable topic for online holiday shopping season retail. So, when is the right time to start holiday promotions? The short answer is – as early as possible.

Let’s look at the responses from our experts.

 

So the general inclination for starting online holiday shopping promotions is 1st November. As a rule of thumb, the period between late October and the first week of November is a great time to start holiday promotions.

Even with branding activities for the online holiday shopping season, the saying “Early bird catches the worm” sticks.

“During the holiday seasons, consumers are bombarded with messaging, so we work on brand building in advance to introduce ourselves to new customers and to stay engaged with past customers. We do this through digital ads, communications with our email list, public and mission-driven events and PR events that build on our public and mission-driven events.”

 

– Mark X. Cronin, Co-founder, John’s Crazy Socks

Mark X. Cronin is the co-founder John’s Crazy Socks with his son, John who has Down Syndrome, a crazy affinity for socks, and love of making people smile. This father-son venture has a clear mission to spread happiness through socks.

 

Website Optimization

The online holiday shopping traffic surge is real. And there’s nothing worse than a website outage during peak shopping days. So, your web infrastructure needs to be ready for the rush. The three most important things you need to look at first:

1. 1. Speed
   2. Responsiveness
   3. Security

 

1. Speed

First of all, you need to make sure that your website can handle the traffic for the online holiday shopping. Without a dedicated server, the BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) rush could crash your store. Check with your hosting provider directly to ensure you have the bandwidth. Other crucial elements to check:

• • How long it takes for the visuals to fully render and the site to become interactive
  • The performance of checkout and payment gateways at the peak of traffic
  • Whether the third-party integrations are updated & functioning properly. Consider removing the ones that you no longer use.

Scott Benedict, CEO of Benedict Enterprises, an omnichannel retail consultancy, shares that stress testing with higher traffic/purchase volume is a crucial step in preparing for the holiday season.

It helps identify weak points in your infrastructure before they become critical issues. Stress testing allows businesses to simulate peak holiday traffic and ensure their websites can handle the load without crashing, lagging, or compromising user experience.

CODAEMON TIP: Run your website on the PageSpeed Insights tool to find out the red flags.

2. Responsiveness

Next, check the responsiveness of your site. Since mobile devices act as notification aggregators, users are going to be interrupted frequently while placing an order. This is regardless of whether it is online holiday shopping or during regular times. To assist users who have been interrupted, provide easy ways to save desired items, ensure that there are no data persistence issues while filling forms, ensure that all pages have clues that make it easy for users to resume where they left off, etc.

• • Provide breadcrumbs in product pages so that users know exactly where they are in the website and how to go back
  • Use legible font sizing, ensure suitable spacing between tappable elements, and provide hit areas of an appropriate size
  • Keep all forms simple with minimum form fields – applicable for review form, checkout form, etc.
  • Use auto-complete and autocorrect features to reduce customer effort
  • Avoid carousel auto-rotation and playing videos automatically to minimize confusion owing to the small viewport
  • Click-to-call contact details are best for mobile. If it cannot be implemented, ensure that the contact details are copyable.

 

S

Some Elements of Mobile-optimized Sites

Source – Baymard

3. Security

In addition to speed and responsiveness, you would also need to lay stress on security for your online holiday shopping season prep.

“Ensure you have adequate bandwidth to keep your site up and running, as well as to make certain you have adequate fraud protection as fraudulent activity spikes during the holiday shopping season. Last year my clients saw a spike in scam activity on Facebook, with brand imposter pages pretending to run fake giveaways in an attempt to scam our followers by falsely claiming they won a prize and needed to provide payment information to receive their prize, this was a huge problem and took a lot of extra hours to find and take down these fake pages. Also, platforms such as Shopify come with Cloudflare protection included, this will prevent and mitigate common DDoS attacks on your e-commerce site and ensure smooth running during the busy holiday season. My clients also saw a spike in DDoS attacked mid-December that sent tons of fake traffic to their websites in an attempt to crash them as well as to skew their analytics data, which can easily be filtered out if you are using Google Analytics as your main e-commerce data collection platform as a check and balance to built-in analytics that are not able to filter out bot traffic data.”

 

 

– Erik Bucci, Growth Marketer and professor of business management at FIT

 

User Experience

Users expect a friction-free way to get what they need. During busy periods, it becomes even more crucial to make the customer experience smoother because all your competitors are fighting for their attention for their online holiday shopping needs. A few key ways to make it work:

1. Gift finder

Gift finder tools do a lot of decision-making for online holiday shopping. You can create a questionnaire based on your target group and products. The answers can then be used as filters to direct shoppers to a highly focused list of products that they can choose from. This reduces customer effort and eases decision-making, especially when shopping for Christmas gifts online.

An example of a Gift Finder by Pandora

There’s also a certain psychology attached to online holiday shopping for gifts. Reciprocity matters during buying gifts. Check out this short video by e-commerce expert, Linda Bustos where she explains how holiday gifting psychology translates into your e-commerce UX.

2. Product information

Clear and detailed product information saves a lot of after-sale hassle for the customer and business owner during the online holiday shopping season. Optimized imagery with appropriate ALT attributes is useful any time of the year. Incorporate user-generated visuals to help shoppers make an informed decision. If the budget permits, use AR tools to provide a more immersive, store-like experience. When users know exactly what to expect, it cuts down returns significantly.

“We focus on ensuring that the product cataloging is complete, that there are no broken links and that the integrations are working 100%.” (Translated)

 

– José Carlos Ramírez Rojas, Head of e-commerce at Illux de México, a leading lightining company in Mexico

3. Smooth Checkout

In addition to testing your checkout process, ask for customer feedback to understand what went wrong in their checkout during online holiday shopping and how it can be improved. Make form fields clearer by using microcopy. Add a progress bar if you have multi-page forms. Offer multiple payment options to avoid abandonment. Following is a chart of popular payment methods in the US.

Source: Statista

 

Preparing in Advance

1. Inventory Planning

You know you are not alone in this race. Your competitors are doing their best to capture the online holiday shopping market too. So planning ahead can save you from anxiety. Here’s how our experts are preparing for the holiday rush.

“Generally, 6 months of inventory is managed on hand; the relevant purchases are made in advance to have the stock in Q4. (Translated)”

 

– José Carlos Ramírez Rojas, Head of e-commerce at Illux de México

 

“We review sales from past years and make sure we have sufficient inventory to meet the holiday demand.”

 

– Mark X. Cronin

 

Maya Ratcliffe, owner of Hawaii Fluid Art studio suggests ordering extra inventory to cover for the surge in demand. Daniel Valderrama, CEO of retail consulting firm Valcor has pinned inventory down to “2X forecast” during the online holiday shopping season.

 

Scott Benedict, CEO of Benedict Enterprises, an omnichannel retail consultancy suggests “planning 6 months out” to ensure product availability and smooth operations during the busiest time of the year.

2. Customer Service

Online holiday shopping season means customer service teams need to be ready for increased demands. Businesses that excel in this area often plan months in advance to ensure smooth operations.

One key step is scaling up customer service resources, including hiring and training seasonal staff during the online holiday shopping season. These additional team members can manage the influx of queries and ensure that customers receive prompt assistance. Training should focus on equipping them to handle both common questions and holiday-specific scenarios efficiently.

Online retail expert Becky Eakin highlights, “Hire extra staff and offer very helpful knowledgeable staff to work all areas of the store.” Maya Ratcliffe of Hawaii Fluid Art studio and Scott Benedict, CEO of Benedict Enterprises agree on this point.

 

José Carlos Ramírez Rojas, Head of e-commerce at Illux de México mentions, “The team already has previous experience in these seasons, based on trial and error, however they prepare either with a backup for each KAM, I as HEAD have the ability to operate each channel in case a member is unwell.” (Translated)

 

Managing director of KMS in motion, an e-commerce platform selling apparel products with suppliers in the US and abroad, suggests “to always be on alert of customer inquiries and find viable solutions.” We also suggest ensuring that complex issues are routed to experienced team members who can resolve them swiftly. This minimizes delays and maintains customer satisfaction during the online holiday shopping season.

CODAEMON TIP: Implement AI-driven chatbots that draw from knowledge bases to filter out simpler concerns. This allows human agents to dedicate their time to resolving more complex issues during the online holiday shopping season.

Shipping & Fulfillment

There’s going to be a lot of forward and reverse logistics involved during the online holiday shopping season. What customers need is a satisfactory fulfillment experience. Instead, they usually end up with a cumbersome process, delayed delivery, unaccepted returns, problems in refund, etc. You can be better than that if you think ahead.

“A forecast is prepared on the expected increase in sales, this forecast is shared with the warehouse team so that they can increase their staff, all the necessary packing supplies are also purchased (Labels, boxes, etc.) and emergency plans are made in case we have an outbreak with parcels.” (Translated)

 

– José Carlos Ramírez Rojas, Head of e-commerce at Illux de México

 

“I meet ahead with everyone involved, do my best, adjust as needed, keep people informed.”

 

– Timothy Peterson, President & CEO, RobRoySW

RobRoySW is an apparel brand that focuses on inclusion through its gender-fluid clothing line. It provides a platform for unifying people through the common ground of love for fashion.

Third-party logistics can give you a lot of freedom in terms of shipping during the online holiday shopping season. With 3PL, you will no longer need to worry about unexpected circumstances, packaging, storing, etc. However, it’s still important to discuss about the surge ahead with your 3PL partner to ensure that everyone is prepared.

“If you happen to be an Amazon seller, making full use of fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) is a great option to take some of the heat off your in-house shipping and receiving operations as well as easing the number of calls to your internal customer service call center.”

 

– Erik Bucci

If you are handling fulfillment in-house, hiring additional staff during the online holiday shopping season is the right move, as suggested by Maya Ratcliffe, founder of art studio, Hawaii Fluid Art and retail expert, Becky Eakin.

Delays in delivery are expected during the online holiday shopping season. Even customers know that. But what isn’t acceptable is keeping them in the dark about it. First of all, there should be a clarity of delivery date during checkout. If it cannot be met, shoppers must be intimated before the delivery date about the delay, the reason, and an estimated waiting period. People are more forgiving when they are informed beforehand.

If you have an omnichannel presence, you can offer BOPIS – Buy Online Pickup In Store. This is a cost-effective option and gets the products in the hands of customers the quickest.

 

Holiday-special Promotions & Product Bundles

Online holiday shopping is all about gifts. Look through your inventory to identify which products can be great gifting options. You can promote them beforehand through contests, giveaways, etc. to draw shoppers in to your site.

“The biggest insight I can give is that consumers are looking for giftable solutions. In addition to the season starting earlier. Traditionally a holiday season selling period is 4-6 weeks. I’ve noticed this timeline expand outwards of 8 weeks prior to the holiday where online sales begin driving volume for seasonal programs.”

 

– Lindsay O’Dower, Director of Sales, Candy Club LLC

Candy Club offers curated candies in premium flavors, playful shapes, and whimsical names at affordable prices.

“In health and wellness, health packs for mom, dad, etc. On fashion, outfits for a party, a night out, etc. In fashion accessories, a handbag with a wallet, keychain, disinfectant kit, etc.”

 

– Timothy Peterson

 

The website needs to look the part as well during online holiday shopping. Holiday-special elements in the home page, discount ribbons in the header, targeted landing pages are some ways to get started.

“We dress the site with banners and headbands alluding to the season, as the site is focused on b2b, we don’t do anything that is too intrusive.” (Translated)

 

– José Carlos Ramírez Rojas, Head of e-commerce at Illux de México

Personalization is a top priority for retailers this season. Here’s what matters to our experts this year.

“Personalized product options” – Brooke Bowen, E-commerce business owner at Anything’s Possible Designs, a small business startup that seels printables and handwritten greeting cards.

“Custom packaging personalized messages” –  Maya Ratcliffe, founder of art studio, Hawaii Fluid Art

“Exclusive products and personalized messages” – Managing Director at KMS in motion

Sometimes, factors like competitive pricing, free shipping, easy returns, etc. are great promotion ideas for the holidays. These not only keep the customers engaged but also increase their average order value.

“It all depends on the type of products you offer. For example, if you happen to be in the home goods category you can start your holiday shopping season much earlier this year as many families are planning to get together for the holidays this year and offer them all sorts of bundles to help them make prepping their guest bedrooms a breeze by offering basic to deluxe guest bedroom bundles alongside tiered discounts which go a long way to boost average order value.”

 

– Erik Bucci

 

Retail expert Becky Eakin emphasizes that delivering “good customer service” is essential for creating a positive customer experience not just during the online holiday shopping season but all year round.

Alternatively, you can take the less-traveled route and center your online holiday shopping promotion around the purpose of your business. People love being part of something unique. If you know your audience well, you can make a lot of difference.

“Black Friday/Cyber Monday are real events and matter. However, we make sure we develop an approach that makes sense for who we are. Therefore, we kick-off Gratitude Week that starts the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and runs through the Tuesday after (Giving Back Tuesday). We have a mission to spread happiness and believe that happiness comes from gratitude and doing for others. We run promotions that have us saying thank you to our community, giving away treats and finding ways to meet their needs. Since Giving Back is an essential part of our mission, we build that into our Gratitude Week. For example, we will designate on a given day that we will donate $1 for every order to the Special Olympics.”

 

– Mark X. Cronin

Mark also suggests planning holiday offers early – “Especially with the challenges in the supply chain, we make sure we have squared away the special products and offerings we will make during the holiday season.”

 

a few Bonus Tips

“Create incentives and product viewed reminders to customers or send recovery cart prompts.”

 – Managing Director at KMS in motion

 

“List Building: We work on building up our mailing lists and contacts with our social media platforms and website so that we can maximize the reach and effectiveness of our re-targeting efforts.

– Mark X. Cronin

As the online holiday shopping marathon starts, e-commerce businesses need to stay proactive, agile, and customer-focused. The key to success lies in preparation—whether it’s ensuring your website is optimized for high traffic, scaling up customer service, or managing inventory efficiently. Planning ahead and adapting to the evolving landscape can make the difference between a successful holiday season and a missed opportunity. Focus on providing a delightful customer experience all the way to post-purchase. Simplify everything. Make it easy for customers to do business with you. That’s all that matters.

Updated on 19.11.2024