The 12 Posts of Christmas (or more broadly, the Holiday Shopping Season): Post One—Get your shopping season started early

In this series of posts, we will provide some short tips and thoughts for pumping up your holiday sales. You can also refer to our general overview of the holidays in the Here Comes Cyber Monday post.

Why would anyone want to start their holiday shopping early? If you can answer that question correctly, you can effectively target the type of shoppers that shop online and start early. So what is the answer? I can think of a few (you may add others):

• Convenience—Shopping online does not involve hauling yourself down to the mall, battling thousands of other shoppers for a parking spot, and navigating crowded aisles only to find the last Tickle Me Elmo® is gone. Instead, shoppers can browse and comparison shop in the comfort of their pajamas at a time that is right for them.
• Peace of mind—The holidays are busy enough. If you can help a buyer cross off some or all of their shopping list in one stop, you have done them a major service.
• Price—After finding a spot in the mall, who wants to drive to the next mall to see if you can save a few dollars? It’s not worth it but with so many gifts to buy, even the most “spendy” shoppers want to make sure they are getting a good deal.

So how do you speak to these points? Again, I have some ideas, but you can likely think of others:

• Emphasize convenience: Add content to your home page, header, or other global regions of your store design that speak to the convenience of buying online such as “Start crossing items off your holiday list today”, or “Deck the halls, and avoid the malls”.
• Emphasize hassle-free shopping: Add content on your product pages that emphasize low-cost shipping available when they order early. Include links to your shipping policies and return policies so shoppers know that ordering from your store is trustworthy. Show availability of items so buyers know an item is in stock before ordering. If an item is likely to run out before the holidays, you can include a message emphasizing the urgency of ordering early.
• Emphasize price: This is one area where you may not wish to compete depending on your products. If you offer value added services such as faster shipping or lower cost shipping, or easy returns, you may be able to emphasize those and not have to compete on price alone. However, if you can source products at a lower price than other merchants and you wish to pass along the savings, then emphasize this message to buyers. Do you offer to match prices? Do you offer a low-price guarantee? If so, make sure your buyers know. Ideally you want a comparison shopper to stop comparing sites, and choose to buy from you.

If you are leery of changing the look of your store too early (like a neighbor that put out their plastic lawn reindeer before Thanksgiving) start with just changing text. You can then make more gradual changes to the visual design of your store closer to the holidays.

Up next—customizing your header for the holidays.

Happy Sales,

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

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