For many retailers, the Christmas season is vital to profitability for the whole year. Yet the season can arrive very suddenly, and before we know it, the rush to service orders has replaced any consideration on how to optimise sales.  Chris Barling, CEO of ecommerce supplier Actinic, has some tips about the special requirements of Yuletide retailing online.

Make sure you can handle the increase in traffic

If there is anything worse that having no orders, it's having more than you can deal with, and then having to refund your customers’ money. Delayed or unfulfilled orders result in unhappy customers who won't be coming back. On average ecommerce sites see a rise in orders of 30% in the Christmas period, although obviously this varies greatly. So if your sales are seasonally affected, make sure all your systems can cope with at least that level of increase. This includes having extra staff for getting orders out in time.  And if you are planning any special promotions, allow for even more.

Keep control of your store

In peak periods your stock position can change really quickly. You need to be able to respond immediately. You don't necessarily want a web developer setting the priorities for what products are online. Only you really know your business. There again, you may want to change prices or specially promote slow-moving stock, or to substitute products when you get alternative supplies. You need to be able to add, modify and delete things yourself, at any time, day or night.

Cater for last minute shoppers - promise what you can deliver 

Christmas shoppers fall into two camps: those who buy in September and those who buy after the 20th December. You need to make sure that your shipping can shape up. Make clear what is the last day when customers can order for delivery by Christmas. Ideally, put this on the header or footer of every page in your store. Once the deadline has passed, change your message to make it clear that orders can't be fulfilled in time.

Help customers who are in a rush

Most online shoppers are in a hurry. When they come to your site, make the key information that they will need as obvious as possible, particularly any special information relating to Christmas. Most of all, you must have a lightning-fast search capability.  This should be able to match both by category and by price range. Your ecommerce product must integrate the

two: search engines may be fine for text-based searching but they're very poor when you want a gift that costs less than £10 for, say, your eight-year-old niece.

Delivering the goods

Make sure your logistics supplier can cope. It may be worth considering a courier for the peak period or Special Delivery. If deliveries do require a signature or won’t fit through a letterbox this often means that the parcel is returned to the depot until the customer arranges to collect it, which rather defeats the convenience of buying online. So give customers the opportunity to have a delivery to their work address to avoid delays.

Use upsell to maximise your opportunity

Many gifts don't stand alone, they need other items to go with them. What's the use of a DVD player without any DVDs, or a PS2 without any games? But in the hurry of Christmas shopping, such things can be easily forgotten. So explicitly offer related items with your products wherever relevant. You might also suggest other similar gifts to buy.

Use seasonal promotions

Find creative ideas to support the season of good cheer. Add a festive page design, put likely presents and links to gift packs on your home page, offer a gift-wrapping service, and stock Christmas-themed items. Depending on what you sell, an email or letter to past customers with a special offer might produce a result.  Spend some time with friends who are also in business to kick some ideas around.  People buying presents can be susceptible to offers like 'buy two and get one free'. You can steal a march on competitors who don't offer the same value.

Thank your regulars

Remember that all important 'Thank You’ Christmas card to all your regular customers. Perhaps it's gimmicky, but as a customer I like it when I get remembered. Or better still, you could add a ‘present’ of a discount during January.

Test your marketing ideas now

Whatever you are thinking of doing to market your site in the run-up to Christmas, run some small-scale tests now and monitor the results.

Then you can find out what works best, and refine it to maximise the results. And if search engines are important for traffic, make sure you put extra effort into your optimisation, in plenty of time.

Advertise January sales

You may also want to start your January sales with appropriate delivery dates. Give the “value shoppers” who held off at Christmas a chance to clear all your dead stock for you.

Finally, maybe it’s time to book your well-earned rest in Tenerife for February.  You will have earned it.  Just watch out for all those marketing tricks where the tour-operator tries to up-sell you to something more expensive!

Visit www.actinic.co.uk or call 0845 129 4800.