Is November and December ecommerce really all that important? You’ll need to confirm the answer to that question with your own analytics and reporting tools, but a little bit of context never hurt anyone. Direct your attention to this chart from comScore:
Top 10 U.S. Online Spending Days of 2013
This chart shows the top ten spending days made online from desktop computers in 2013. Guess what. They were all in November and December.
Suffice to say, November and December sales are important for brick-and-mortar and online stores alike, and there is a lot you should be doing to maximize your holiday season revenue. You should have started by assembling your colleagues and partners who are responsible for SEO and PPC focused content, email campaigns and all the relevant landing pages for those channels. You should also perform load tests to make sure your ecommerce platform is ready to handle an increase in traffic, and that your servers and networks are capable of processing at least several times the expected amount of orders and their attendant confirmation pages, receipts and login information. At the same time, work closely with your customer service team to provide them the knowledge they need to satisfy any and all customers inquiries, whether they are issues related to coupons or how to access a program.
This infographic from AmeriCommerce called Holiday Sales: The Numbers, gives some advice you can count on. Cyber Monday is definitely the big kahuna of holiday season shopping, but your bottom line is going to depend on more than one day. These past three weeks and the next month are going to set the tone for your entire previous year and your approaching one. Shoppers are hunting online for gifts starting in October and all through November and December. Your job now is to help them make their purchasing decisions early and easily.
Holiday Sales – Infographic [Infographic] by the team at AmeriCommerce
