5 Must-dos for your eCommerce business before the festive season

The Festive season is here. As an online seller, you know that this is your time. You know that if done right, this can catapult your eCommerce business to a different level. It’s the best time of the year for this industry. People spend more. They try more brands. They create new relationships with brands, which are crucial to marketers.

Customers you acquire now will continue to purchase with you. So remember – this is a golden opportunity for your eCommerce business that you should seize. You’re targeting a huge revenue spike this festive season. But wait – Its important to make sure your operations are in line with your revenue goals. Do your preparation work beforehand.Do it now, if you haven’t already.

Here are some of the absolute essentials that you take care of for your e-commerce store before the customers start streaming in:

• Step 1: Right Merchandising: Assess the trends of the market. Remember, you should always keep an eye on the recent trends catching everybody’s eye. Stock your store well and showcase the best products – best price, best design, best value. Work backwards and ensure you know your profit margins per product. You will have to heavily discount a few products, but set targets for overall growth in sales as a part of that offer.

• Step 2: Appeal to Early Shoppers and Gifters: Try to figure out the people who shop early and the ones who look out for the items just before the festivities start. Try to maintain the stocks likewise so that they are satisfactory for both the types of shoppers.

• Step 3: On-time Logistics: Meet with your logistic partner’s account manager. Talk to them about your higher estimate of orders. And ensure you are aware of their workload as well and then plan accordingly. Maintain punctuality during the festivals. If you need to ship orders earlier in the day, please change your process to suit the overall higher load on the logistics partner. You need to understand that the customers are about to buy some item that they are looking forward to gift someone or for themselves during the festival. Therefore, you should not delay the delivery process. If you have to tweak the messaging on the site to clearly indicate this, please do so.

• Step 4: Offer Value not blind discounts: Festivals are the periods when people look out for mind boggling offers. You should consider that almost all of your rivals in the market will be giving out offers to attract customers and hence you too should go with the flow. However, you should be careful in demarcating the offers and discounts according to the profits before you really give out any. Be smart about offering discounts – Incentivize social shares with discounts, offer higher discounts on larger order values.

• Step 5: Increase Capacity: Keep it in mind that your website will be visited by innumerable customers during the festive seasons. Therefore, you should be aware whether your server is able to handle the traffic. Also hire more manpower if needed. Ensure you’ve got enough packaging material to take care of increased orders.