AMZ Seller Financing   •   December 17, 2018

The holiday season is already in full swing, but the “main event” is yet to come. Christmas is the day all your annual sales lead to.

It’s quite normal for an e-commerce business to judge its annual sales by how it performs during Christmas. When it comes to shopping, Christmas is still #1 time of the year.

That is precisely why you should be completely prepared for what’s about to come. There can be no half-measures here. You must be absolutely ready for the Christmas sales.

In order to help you, we’ve put together what we call the ultimate preparation checklist for Christmas e-commerce sales. These are all the steps you must take in order to do well.

Without further ado, let’s see how you should prepare for the Christmas season, and crush it with your e-commerce store.

How to Prepare for Christmas E-commerce Sales

1. Triple-Check Your Inventory

The last thing you want is to run out of those high-selling products in your store. Imagine customers piling up to order for Christmas, but no actual products to back you up. It would be a disaster, right?

That is why it’s extremely important to make sure you have enough products in stock. If you don’t know where to start, check last year’s sales and see which products sold the most. This will give you a good idea of what you absolutely cannot stay without this year.

Start with the best-selling products, and slowly move down the list. If you see that some products didn’t sell well last year (or didn’t sell at all) it’s okay to go without them this year. However, whatever you do – make sure your best-selling products are there.

And if you want to add some new products, go and check social media, customer forums, and your competitors’ stores to see what’s hot this holiday season. This will help you decide what to add to this year’s offer.

2. Find Extra Staff

Maybe you can do all by yourself throughout the year, but here’s the thing – Christmas is different. If high sales hit you, and you find yourself overwhelmed with orders, what will you do?

In order to avoid a meltdown from Christmas hustle, be sure to find an extra hand to help you out. Maybe you won’t need any help, but there’s no point hoping for that because you actually want to have a lot more work during Christmas.

More work means more items sold, meaning higher income. Having extra staff members on board will save you a lot of time and ensure all the orders are fulfilled.

You choose the people to bring on board: it can be a family member, a close relative, a friend or neighbor… Anyone you have complete confidence in. Give them proper training, so that they know exactly what to do, and you’re off!

Marketing, customer support, shipping…these are all things extra staff members can help you with. So be sure to plan ahead, because once those orders come rushing in – it will be too late.

3. Revamp Your Website

You don’t have to do an entire makeover of your website for the Christmas season, but it’s smart to make adjustments as possible. These tweaks will prove highly useful for what’s about to come.

First, make sure that all your product images are correct and that they represent your actual products. You wouldn’t want customers returning products just because they didn’t match the images on your website.

If you have some poor-quality images, try to replace them with better ones. People like the visuals, so the better your products images are – the more sales they will bring in.

Then, make sure your product descriptions are informative and to the point. Remember, no fluff content, no extra words – just the basic information. You need to keep only the content that brings value to the customers and explains your products in full detail.

4. Create Special Discounts

If it’s Christmas time, then go and offer some Christmas discounts! Yes, you may already have discounts for the holiday season, but what if that’s not enough?

Having discounts created for Christmas will let your customers know you actually care for them and want to offer them even more.

It doesn’t have to be a lot, but even lowering prices for 1-2% could mean a lot. Discounts on top of discounts are what customers adore! The more you offer to them, the more you will get in return.

5. Promote Like Never Before

Now is the time to get in full gear and show what you can do. Promotion is everything, especially during the Christmas season.

Always keep in mind that the vast majority of your competitors are working like crazy, around the clock, to promote their product listings. If you let them win, they will.

You have to stay in the game by using all the resources available: social media, email, Google Ads, blog posts. Every one of these channels can make a difference.

If you run a newsletter, create a special Christmas campaign where you talk about your products. Tailor your blog posts to suit the holiday spirit (use holidays colors and design).

Obviously, you’re not required to use all of these channels, but be sure to use as many of them as possible. And give them your 100%. It will definitely pay off.

Happy holidays!!!