What Are You Doing For The Holidays?

Fall is made for shopping. Starting with “Back to School” and zooming through to the climatic buying sprees of December (with Halloween and Thanksgiving now mere speed bumps), retailers salivate at the prospect of holiday sales. In their minds, the official holiday season starts in early October.

While it remains to be seen how the current state of the economy and the fallout from the September 11th tragedy will impact holiday sales, retailers everywhere are still gearing up for a big Christmas. A recent U.S. government report stating that retail sales rose over 7% in October seems to indicate that a good holiday season is in store for consumer retailers.

So what about e-tailers? If you’ve spent any time at all on the Internet lately, you’ve realized that e-tailers are mimicking their brick and mortar counterparts in the notion that promoting early is now the way to go. Virtually every major e-tailer’s home page is dominated by a Christmas or holiday theme. Online research firm eMarketer predicts online consumer spending will hit $10.7 billion in Q4 2001 – a record quarter for the online channel. If you’re an online retailer too, what can you do to ensure a Merry Christmas for your online business? Let’s turn to some leading e-tailers for clues.

Ideas from the e-Tailing Elite

By mid-Fall industry leaders such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Lands End, Macy’s, and L.L. Bean began work to build early and sustained holiday sales. To do so, many have focused on what they believe are their strongest holiday product lines. Amazon has created a “Holiday Central” to promote gifts by category, Lands End wants to “Deck Your Neck” with its shirts, and Macy’s touts its “Gifts of Joy” collectibles. Some e-tailers are changing their home page offers daily, encouraging repeat visits. One element that’s universally being emphasized and was learned from holidays past is attention to customer service. Shopping aids, better pricing and shipping information, and handling returns are all part of the customer service mix.

Interestingly, few of the product lines being pushed on leading e-tailers’ sites are their most expensive ones. Smart e-tailers have realized that consumers may take a more frugal approach to gift buying this year — furry slippers might likely be replacing the Palm VII as a stocking stuffer. Limited time free shipping as a way to stimulate sales is a tactic being taken by some e-tailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. This is smart business. According to the “Holiday Readiness 2001″ report issued by Vividence Corporation, shipping charges are the number one reason why shopping carts are abandoned. The study also shows that besides price and shipping, consumers’ holiday purchasing decisions are influenced by availability and promotions.

Some other cool features and great ideas you can glean from the big guys include:

• Gift Wizard – organizing gift ideas by recipient, price, or most popular item.
• Gift Recommenders – input the parameters and the site helps select an appropriate gift.
• Gift Messaging & Wrapping – not only can customers have gifts wrapped, they can put their thoughts into a personal message that will accompany their gift.
• Wish Lists – family and friends can open an account and select the gifts they want – sure, the surprise is gone, but it’s perfect for Uncle Louie, who you haven’t seen for 2 years!
• Gift Giving Survey – the visitor takes a survey to learn what kind of gifts they feel best about giving and are then given suggestions for those gifts.
• Customized Gifts – design-your-own tools let gift-givers personally tailor their gift items.
• View Gifts in 3D – 3-dimensional interactive view allows you to rotate an image 360 degrees using your mouse.
• Holiday InfoVideos – Your own personal online screening room to see products in action.

   

Avoiding the Ghosts of Online Christmases Past

In addition to the innovative ideas above, don’t overlook the traditional best practices that can help ensure a successful selling season. Although written over a year ago, the information in our article, “‘Twas A Month Before e-Christmas… Let’s Not Repeat Last Year’s Mistakes” still holds up today.

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