We’re well
into the holiday shopping season, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still ways to
improve your online store and make the most of the next few weeks. Here are
some tips provided by ecommerce experts who are part of the Aabaco Small
Business Developer Network.
Keep working (and improving) your plan
As part of
your Black Friday preparations you should have developed a plan for how you
were going to handle the flood. If so, make sure your team is sticking to the
plan. It only takes one employee being out of sync to throw a wrench in your
well-oiled machine. On the flip side, if the plan you implemented starts to
show an obvious flaw, address it immediately. Both of these situations can very
quickly lead to huge productivity losses and very unhappy employees. Speaking
of unhappy employees, this can be a super stressful time. Make sure your
employees are getting their breaks and maybe even an extra few minutes here and
there to keep a clear head and prevent getting burned out. It’s easy for
employees to take a slave driver view of their bosses. Combat this issue with a
practice you should be using all year round, servant-leadership.
Maximize profit
margin by increasing prices
If you and your staff are struggling to keep up with the pace of
orders, start gradually increasing your prices. The law of supply and demand
suggests that the pace of orders will begin to slow, which may provide needed
relief to your team. Your profits, however, should soar, enabling you to
provide high quality service to your customers while (hopefully) generating
record-breaking profits.
Reduce the cost of
returns
Take advantage of
new features available for managing returns. A return label portal is all you
need to efficiently keep track of returns. The most beneficial part is that you
only have to pay for the postage if the item was actually returned.
Show me the shipping!
There’s
no doubt that shipping factors hugely into buyers’ online decisions, but even
more so around the holidays. Your site should prominently show your
shipping offers, concisely and clearly. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Use your real estate wisely. Place your shipping offers noticeably in
your masthead or better yet, install a universal promotional tool that will
give you easy control over switching up offers as we move throughout the
holiday shopping season. Don’t offer free shipping on all your products?
No problem, consider adding a product specific flag tool so your
customers can easily identify which products come with free shipping.
Lastly, include a shipping countdown tool that incentivizes customers to put
more in their carts to meet the free shipping criteria.
