November 8, 2007

Yahoo Store Holiday Checklist

It’s November: the leaves are turning, we’ve made it through Halloween, and the Holiday season is officially upon us.

As much Joy that comes with this time of year, we all know that it is busy, busy, busy. All of the shopping, making travel plans, fighting over who will bring what casserole to the family gathering …It can be a little stressful! But the holiday times are extremely important, both for our businesses and our families. In fact, most business owners will make 40% of their annual income in the next two and half months.

So what are you supposed to?

Just like your shopping list that keeps you focused, you need a Holiday Check list for your online business.

Here's 10 Must Do Tactics to Survive the Holiday Rush:

1. Check Merchant Account Limit - You don’t want to hit your limit or they’ll hold your settlements, just talk to your merchant account broker.

2. Clean up Adwords campaigns - Stop testing and get rid of keywords that cost a lot and do not convert. Focus your time and energy on the keywords that are proven winners.

3. Run your analytics, find your best sellers, and improve those 65 pages - Once you know what your most successful products are, you will easily be able to improve your pages. Noodle your copy and double check your images-are they the best? Now is the perfect time to tighten up these pages.

4. Check with your suppliers about popular inventory - Make sure that they will have the items that are popular in your store. Also ask if they do run out of a product, how quickly will they be able to replace it? If they are not going to be able to replace the products, it may be time to shop quickly for another, back up supplier.

5. Check with drop shipper for guaranteed Holiday Delivery dates - Find out the last day that YOU can place an order. Then modify that information to apply to your customer (i.e- Order by Dec. 15th to guarantee Holiday shipping).

6. Announce Holiday savings programs and specials - This includes shipping discounts and discounts for bulk orders. Make sure that the savings are sent out in your emails and displayed on your home page.

7. Add the appropriate logo/design elements for holiday - IMPORTANT: Remember that we are on planet earth. And on earth there exist Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Jedis- each with a separate interpretation of the Holiday Season. So don’t be ethnocentric in your Holiday messaging.

8. Make sure that YOU have enough credit to manage your orders - You have to pay your supplier to ship the products, so make sure that you have alternative resources if you do not have sufficient credit.

9. Re-visit your return policy - There are bound to be returns, so make sure that your policy is extremely clear.

10. Now’s a good time to have a phone number on your site and to answer it! – Before you panic, note that you can add the disclaimer “only for orders” above the phone number. Then stick to it, and direct other callers to appropriate email addresses for shipping inquiries at your discretion.

NOTE: This Checklist applies as a HOLIDAY STRATEGY ONLY.