’Tis the Season to be Selling…and Shipping!
If you are an eCommerce seller, shipping is the one area where everything you do becomes tangible to your customer; it is what allows them to finally touch your product. At no time is this more critical to a positive customer experience than during the holidays, when the product your customer is touching is likely to be a gift from a dear friend or family member.
But beyond ensuring you don’t ruin someone’s holiday with a late shipment, the holidays offer opportunities to build your brand, streamline your operations, increase revenues, increase customer loyalty, and acquire new customers—benefits that will improve your bottom line 365 days a year.
What’s Your Holiday Strategy?
The holiday demand spike presents a perfect opportunity to take your business to the next level—but be sure to think through your strategy from all angles to avoid disappointing your customers at the most critical time of the year. And do it fast—if you’re not ready by Thanksgiving, you could miss out on 42% of the holiday budget…and all the non-gift purchases that go along with it. Some key stats to keep in mind as you plan your strategy:
Holiday sales in 2016 increased 4% to $658.3 billion
- 54% of people celebrating the holidays begin researching in October or earlier
- 74% of online shoppers shopped online on Black Friday
- 36% of online shoppers shopped online on Thanksgiving Day
- More than 122 million consumers planned to shop online on Cyber Monday, with a quarter of them purchasing from a mobile device
We recommend evaluating holiday initiatives in terms of their impact on Revenue, Cost, and Customer Experience. Here are the initiatives we’ll cover in this guide:
We’ll look at three distinct phases for each of these initiatives:
- Strategic Decisions you need to make now, and how they will impact your holiday planning
- Preparations you need to make to implement those strategic decisions
- Specific Actions necessary to execute, measure, and institutionalize your plans
This article is from the ShippingEasy Holiday Shipping for eCommerce Guide
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