Will Your Company’s Christmas Be Full of Joy Or
Are You About to Experience Corporate “Bah, Humbug”?
Quick Facts
According to eMarketer, United States e-commerce holiday sales rose
24.6 percent for the 2006 holiday season compared to 2005.
For many retailers, the holiday season can represent anywhere between
25-40% of their annual sales.
"The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and he spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." So Charles Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge in the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol. The story begins on Christmas Eve, with Scrooge at work. Later that evening, Scrooge is visited by three Ghosts of Christmas: Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
Our companies all have a past, we live in its present and we’re preparing for our futures. In case you haven’t noticed, the holiday shopping season is in full swing. Various consumer groups estimate that $30-$41 billion will be spent online in the next six weeks. That figure should both excite you and put the full fear of God in you. How prepared is your company’s website for the holiday season and how prepared are you to fulfill orders?
eCommerce has grown bigger and faster than any other form of commerce in the history of the world. There’s never been a time when you can sit in your basement office in Winnemucca, Nevada and purchase cupcakes at Josephine's Bakery in Rome, Italy (http://www.josephinesbakery.com).
Imagine it. $30 billion is out there about to be spent on whatever and you have an opportunity to collect on it. How? There are many reports and studies showing that nearly 70% of companies don’t have the ability to sell their products or services online. With 74% of Americans saying that they’re going to buy Christmas gifts online over the next few weeks it is ludicrous to draw traffic to your site only to lose them to your competitors who allow for eCommerce transactions.
In order to process orders your site must have three key elements:
· Shopping Cart
· Payment Gateway
· Merchant Account
For you to succeed online during the holiday season you’ll need more than just shopping cart technology. First, your site must look professional. Your site should reflect the kind of business you operate and should engender trust and confidence for consumers to buy your products without any reservations. We’ve all seen sites that make us question the security and integrity of their owners. Some sites look like the cliché used car dealership. Your site will lose more customers quicker by having a poorly designed site than anything else.
You need to make your site easy to navigate. If it takes more than one click to find your items for sale and begin the purchasing process you’re going to lose sales. At the least your site should have three items for sale on its homepage. Make sure you highlight those items you most want customers to purchase. Have high-quality photographs of the item with detailed product descriptions. Make sure the price is easily found. You should list products that a potential customer might enjoy to go along with their other purchases.
Help people find your website through a cost-effective online marketing plan. eMarketing is constantly evolving to match the evolution of search engines, Web 2.0 and consumer trends. You must adapt and evolve to stay ahead. Make certain that you work to strategically link your site, use resources wisely for your sponsored links. Optimize your site for search engines. If no one finds your site no one will buy your products.
A recent survey of online shoppers found a 60% increase in the likelihood of purchase if the site offered free shipping. If this is true you ought to consider absorbing that cost somehow. Even if the increased likelihood were 20%, don’t you think it would be worth it?
On November 26, 2007, over $700 million was spent on retail sales. Over 80% of Americans claimed that they’d spend time at home or at work purchasing gifts this week.
