September 23, 2009
By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team
The holiday shopping season of 2008 was the most disappointing of the last 40 years, but luckily things are looking slightly better this year. Holiday sales fell 2.4% last year and this year Deloitte issued a forecast that it is expected to stay flat. So outperforming 2008 might not sound that great when learning that sales will be flat, but this is a solid indicator that things are slowly starting to recover.
A slower holiday shopping season may hurt some retailers stock performance as investors have less confidence in forth quarter sales. Online holiday shopping is a wild card, however, as each year more and more people are shopping online. In fact, many consumers prefer to shop online for the holiday season because they can save money on gas and time on commuting. In addition, online shoppers have an easier time finding great bargains as they can browse numerous sites and compare prices to find the best deal possible.
Online store owners should not be as worried as long as they are prepared to capitalize on the influx of web traffic during the holiday shopping season. If you own an online ecommerce store and have not been thinking ahead to the forth quarter, then you should start working on your game plan today. First, review if you have the right ecommerce solution and shopping cart that will help you convert as many visitors as possible into paying customers. Then make sure to have the right security measures in place to help shoppers feel secure so they will buy from your online store. The next step would be to organize your sales and promotion plans for the holiday shopping season to lure in shoppers. The last step would be to prepare you customer service strategy where you can aide shoppers in whatever way they need so they will complete their transaction.
Scott is an avid fan of all things ecommerce. His claim to fame is that he "puts the Zip in ZippyCart." He considers himself the world-wide number one reader of TechCrunch, C|Net, and The Ecommerce Times. Scott has worked in the SEO industry for many years, but found himself always shifting his focus to review sites and ecommerce blogs. When we decided to start the ZippyCart Ecommerce news, Scott was an obvious fit. He handles most of our OpEds as he is a very opinionated guy. Scott is also our Twitter guy, so don't hesitate to send him a tweet if you see him online.
