The holiday season is currently in process, however, there's still enough time left to gear up your site to maximize orders and conversions! 

This holiday season, shoppers will purchase items online more than ever before in history! Just this year alone, eCommerce companies within North America are projected to generate over $900 billion in sales in Q4, giving companies of all shapes and sizes a chance to take a piece of the pie.

Today we wanted to give you an early gift by providing you with our checklist specifically for eCommerce brands during Q4 to maximize conversions and engagement.  

Your 5-Step eCommerce Q4 Checklist For The 2021 Holidays 

I’m sure you would be surprised to know that many businesses both retail and online fail to prepare for the craziest time of the year, especially when it comes to online sales. Whether it’s lost packages, increased costs, or customer complaints most businesses are bound to go through a couple of challenges during the holiday season. Below is a 5-step checklist of what we believe eCommerce brands should focus on to ensure a successful holiday season. 

1. Make Your Website Optimized For Visitors

During the holiday season, big named brands get higher than normal rates of visitors onto their website. While right away this may seem like a great thing, in many cases it can cause more issues than good when it comes to the website loading for example.

A lot of eCommerce sites aren’t optimized for an unexpected high visit rate, so when it occurs typically, the website may freeze, slow down, or crash completely. And what good is it having 100,000 visitors on your website at once if the screen won’t even load properly? That’s why we suggest that before you launch any advertisements, new products, or deals, make sure your site can handle a large number of online visitors and that your host is capable as well. 

2. Double Down On Your Best Sellers

You may have one product that is your staple and stands out or a bunch of them. Before and during Q4, you want to make sure that you are stocked up on your best sellers and perhaps even have an extra shipment or two on the way.

The last thing you want for your business during the busiest time of the year is to run out of your best-selling item. Also, be prepared to possibly upsell your best seller with your second best item, or to create a separate bundle. This could also increase your conversion rate on your current best sellers while now creating a new product through a bundle option! 

3. Have Your Online Advertisements Ready To Launch 

If you’re not running any ads, now is the time to get started immediately. Most consumers will shop online during Q4 whether it's before Cyber Week or after and you have to be prepared. We suggest creating multiple advertisement variations and trying to become omnipresent with your audience. So instead of advertising on just one platform, try adding another one to your arsenal.

Or if you’re already running a few ads, add a couple of more and see if you can gather more sales through it. The main point is to constantly have some sort of advertisement going on during the busiest time of the year. This makes it so that you’re constantly being seen by your target audience during the target season. 

4. Prioritize Shipping And Tracking 

In 2020, over 1 million packages arrived late to customers AFTER Christmas day. The last thing you want for your customers during the holiday season is for their product to be lost or delayed. This can cause angry customers, constant returns, and even a loss of business forever. We recommend you prep and ship your items from a few days to up to a week before the desired delivery date. This ensures that your customers will get their package in the quickest way possible, as opposed to delays. 

5. Provide Top Tier Customer Service 

We wanted to save the best for last in our list and the best thing to do during Q4 for your eCommerce brand is to provide top-tier customer support whether your customer’s package will be delayed, lost, or delivered. We recommend communicating with your customer ideally daily so that they can constantly be updated on the whereabouts of their order. 

Want to switch to smart delivery?

In the case where the package is taking longer than usual, we found that most customers appreciate it when retailers or brands reach out to them with an update of their order. While you may receive an influx of customer emails, messages, and complaints, it’s extremely important to be just as communicative and understanding whether it's a slow season or busiest season of the year. Customers that have received updates about their online purchases are more likely to come back and continue shopping with the brand.

Conclusion:

Our team created this checklist based on past clients and our experience with eCommerce during the busiest time of the year. While we can’t control all aspects of your business, we can assist you, and we hope we did that with this guide.

However, if you’re looking to save money, increase conversions, and offer your customers the best possible shipping experience during the holiday season, then we suggest clicking here to schedule a consultation call with our team today to learn about Fenix Commerce’s AI-Shipping & Delivery solutions for your customers and how we can help take your brand to the next level in the busiest time of the year!