Holiday eCommerce Business Planning – Head Start – Part 1 of 3
By Debbie Gregory.
If you own and run an eCommerce business, you should have your holiday plan in place well before Halloween begins. As the holidays close in, we all have more demands on our time with the stress, preparation, and activities that the holiday season brings. It will make your life exponentially easier if you prepare and plan for the holiday season well in advance of it starting.
The more you can have created, planned for, have in place and are ready to roll in advance, the better off you will be as the holiday season unfolds. The holidays, as you know, are where retailers make the bulk of their entire yearly sales. If plan for the season correctly, you can more easily grab a significant piece of the holiday spending pie.
Areas of Focus to Increase Customer Sales for the Holiday Shopping Season:
- Put together your promotional calendar
- Plan out any promotional codes and bundles you will be offering
- Prepare special/exclusive holiday offers for your current/past customers
- Prepare all holiday mail/email messaging
- Make sure you will/do have the inventory
- Plan out all your holiday website, newsletter, social media, and blog content
- Create the holiday graphics and imagery you will need
- Plan, write and review your holiday PPC (Paid Per Click) campaigns
- Review and update any policies and procedures that may be impacted by the holidays
- Test and update your website security and performance
Put Together Your Promotional Calendar:
The first step is to put together a detailed holiday plan including a calendar of what you want to promote and when for the coming season. You will want to jot down the important shopping days and what promotions you would like to run for those days.
Popular Online Holidays for 2020:
- Cyber Monday – November 30, 2020
- Black Friday – November 27, 2020
- Thanksgiving – November 26, 2020
- Small Business Saturday
- Green Monday – December 9, 2019 &
- Christmas Eve – December 24, 2020
- Christmas Day – December 25, 2020
Some of the Most Popular Online Shopping Days:
- Cyber Monday – December 2, 2019 & November 30, 2020
- Small Business Saturday –
- Black Friday – November 29, 2019 & November 27, 2020
- Small Business Saturday – November 30, 2019 & November 28, 2020
- Thanksgiving – November 28,2019 & November 26, 2020
- Day Before Thanksgiving – November 27, 2019 & November 25, 2020
- Saturday After Thanksgiving – November 30, 2019 & November 28, 2020
- Sunday After Thanksgiving – December 1, 2019 & November 29, 2020
- Green Monday – usually the 2nd Monday in December 9, 2019 & December 14, 2020
- Christmas Eve – December 24, 2019 & December 24, 2020
- Day after Christmas – December 26, 2019 & December 26, 2020
- New Year’s Eve – December 31, 2019 & December 31, 2020
Don’t forget to use December 26th as a great day for post-holiday clearance sales. This day really appeals to gift card recipients and people hunting for deals.
Plan out any Promotional Codes and Bundles to Offer:
On your calendar, you should have a clear plan for all promotional codes or deals. Write out what they are, when they start, and when they will end. Create catchy promo code names that will be easy for customers to remember. Put together bundle deals to entice customers and up-sell your other products. Announce all sales, bundles, and promo codes on your site and in newsletters, and social media content.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this series – we go into planning deals for past customers, putting together your holiday messaging, preparing your inventory and packing materials ready, and getting your site prepared for the holiday rush.
