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Preparing your online business for the holiday period - First published 12 September 2022

12 September 2022

Preparing your online business for the holiday period


The holiday period is upon us. With Christmas just around the corner, now is an excellent time to

ensure the business is ready for this busy season.

Here are some things you can do to prepare:


Analyse the past


When preparing your online business for the holiday period, it's essential to look back at the past.

Reviewing your sales data from previous years will help you understand what worked and what didn't, as well as any trends in your data.

You can also look at competitors' data to see if there are any trends may.

For example, if one competitor was particularly busy during a specific time of year, it might be worth putting more effort into marketing your products during that period.



Know your best-selling products and offers


You're going to have to be prepared for the holiday rush. If you don't know your best-selling products and offers, you won't be able to prepare accordingly.

However, it will give you a good idea of what products sell well over the holidays, which means that when it comes time to order stock with your suppliers,

they can help suggest alternatives if there is any delay in delivery or additional costs associated with increased demand.




Plan your warehouse and logistics


  • Prepare for the peak season
  • Stock up on your most popular items
  • Make sure you have enough storage space to hold all your inventory and that it's not too far away from the shipping area so that packing
  • and shipping can be done quickly.
  • Ensure that you have all the equipment to pack and ship products, including tape dispensers, paper cutter/gluer machines, hand-held
  • counters (for counting items), large box cutters (to cut open boxes), bubble wrap/packing peanuts and other packing supplies like tape.
  • If necessary, hire temporary staff during this busy time so they can help with processing orders or whatever else needs to be done around the warehouse.


Get your online store ready.


The holiday period is a particular time for your online store, but it can also be stressful. There's a lot to think about as you prepare for the season:

  • Make sure your website is ready. The holiday season will be hectic, so ensure your site is prepared for the traffic influx.
  • Have enough stock of your products in place. If you don't have enough supply of certain items or designs, this will reflect poorly
  • on your business and may mean some customers are disappointed with what they find when they arrive at the checkout page.
  • Be prepared to handle any extra traffic on the web during this period. For example, if there is an increase in orders due to increased
  • interest during this time of year, ensure everything runs smoothly by having sufficient resources (for example, servers).
  • Ensure that orders are processed quickly and efficiently so that customers aren't kept waiting unnecessarily before receiving their goods/services
  • through being shipped out promptly after being paid for them successfully firstly before anything else takes place afterwards secondly eventually
  • Maybe even later on down towards later end towards end finally finishing up lastly ending up finished now full stop no more talking about this anymore except just one last thing...



Plan your marketing activities now


It's essential to plan and ensure that you have enough time to do all the marketing activities you want to do, rather than rushing and doing them at the last minute.

Here are some examples of things you can start planning for now:

  • First, write a holiday update email/webpage/blog post about your business, its history, what makes it unique and why customers should
  • buy from you instead of elsewhere.
  • Decide on great ways to promote your products or services (e.g. social mee. g.a, ads) during the holiday period so that more people see them!
  • It's also a good idea to make sure these promotions will be sustainable in future years too - don't rely on short-term boosts from big companies like Amazon etc..



Get a move on with building your email list.


Online businesses should start building their email lists now. This is crucial to your business because:

  • Email marketing is an excellent way to reach the right people. You can get them directly without paying for expensive ad space
  • on other websites.
  • Email marketing is an excellent way to build relationships with customers and prospects to close deals later.

There are many ways you can build up your email list as a small business owner:

  • Start by asking people who subscribe through social media (such as Facebook) if they'd like to join your newsletter list, too
  • – this will help you multiply!



Prepare to offer good customer service.


Your customer service is probably the most crucial part of your business. It's not just about answering emails; it's about being helpful

and friendly; it's about being respectful and understanding and honest and transparent.

It can be tricky to maintain a good level of customer service when you're busy. Still, it's worth making an effort because customers

notice when you're doing it well - they'll tell their friends, write reviews online and recommend your store to others.



Make sure you are prepared for the holiday period because

customers will want to buy from you.


Now is the time to be prepared for the holiday season. Your online business will benefit from being ready for this period because:

  • More customers will be shopping online than ever before. If you have a successful online store, those customers will want a great
  • experience from their purchases, and you need to be ready for them!
  • Customers are more likely to buy from you if they know your website is secure and reliable. This means that it's essential that your
  • the website can cope with high volumes of traffic during this period.

To ensure that your website is ready for the holiday period, it's also worth spending some time planning how you want it to look now so

that any significant changes can occur later in the year when there isn't as much pressure on both yourself and your business.



Conclusion


You've worked hard to build up your online business, so now it's time to make the most of it during the holiday period.

First, ensure you are prepared for the holiday period because customers will want to buy from you.

If you haven't done so already, now is an excellent time to analyse how well your business did last year and plan accordingly.

You can also move on with building your email list and planning some marketing activities that will help bring in new customers during this busy time of year.




Allison S


If you have any questions, you can find me here:

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If you want to have a chat to see if we are a good fit working together, book a call here


Wishing you an abundant week.


Until my next blog......

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