With the festive season now less than two months away, and general retail sales down in the UK year to date, Christmas is THE most important time for online retailers! More and more people are doing their Christmas shopping online, avoiding high street and shopping centre crowds, so if you are an online retailer, have you got your online shop optimised and ready to go for the Christmas rush?

One of the firsts place that people start to search for the perfect gift is on Google (and other search engines) so it’s important to make sure that your products rank well in Google. For quick wins, make sure that each individual product in your online shop is optimised, as one product could be the hook to bring visitors to your site, but make sure once they've landed on that particular product that it’s clear at a glance what other products/categories are available for them to browse.

If you want to draw potential customers to your website, and keep them coming back between now and Christmas, why not add a wish list function to your online shop? This not only creates demand for one particular item, it will get people browsing through your site to find other items to add to the wish list, which will increase your average transaction value overall. Make it easy to share the wish list with their friends and families, and you are far more likely to get customers buying from your site, rather than shopping around for the “cheapest deal”.

Pull together individual items to create gift sets, as this approach will ensure that you maximise the basket value, and make sure that the checkout process is painless and completes in minimum number of clicks. As the customer reaches checkout, be sure to make batteries available for purchase if the product takes batteries, or offer suggestions to go with their selection to optimise sales opportunities.

Update the look of your website to reflect the Christmas season. If you were retailing on the high street or shopping centre, you’d have the Christmas decorations and POS out, so make sure you do the same online with a Christmas theme.

As Christmas is the most important time for online retailers, contact us for a free website review to make sure that your site is fit for peak season trade, or to discuss a new e-commerce/online shop. Tel: 0845 258 1208 Email: info@covenantsolutions.co.uk Twitter: @cslweb Facebook: Covenant Solutions