DON’T LET THE GRINCH STEAL YOUR CHRISTMAS!

With the market in turmoil, tightening credit markets and consumer confidence low, holiday sales are projected to grow just 1.9% this year.

The good news? ONLINE SALES ARE PROJECTED TO GROW by 9%. Still, the competition for holiday sales dollars is going to be tough. It’s time to optimize your web site and get creative in your marketing campains so that you can make the most of fourth quarter sales. Online holiday sales will begin the first week of November (just two weeks away!) and peak the first week of December.

Here are a few tips to get you started on optimizing your web site:

• Push your Promotions: Offering free gift wrapping or shipping for the holidays? Make sure you advertise this on the home page of your web site. Offering coupons to loyal customers? Start sending newsletters now.
• Update your Keywords: It’s not too late to target your customer by updating product descriptions and creating meta keywords for each product. Also, consider adding holiday specific keywords to your products.
• Get Social: Social bookmarking sites have really taken off in the last year. Consider adding links on your product pages so that browsers can easily recommend your items on social networking sites such as StumbleUpon, Furl, Wists, Facebook, and others.
• Add a Holiday Gift Category: Add a gift center to your web site by creating categories just for the holidays. Stocking Stuffers, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him are all great ways to draw customers in to your site.
• Test the Performance of your Web Site: Visit your site regularly to make sure your featured products are current. Place a test order on your web site to make sure everything works as smoothly as possible.
• Offer Multiple Forms of Payment: Don’t turn off customers by only offering only one form of payment. Make sure you accept credit cards, payPal, and consider accepting money orders too.
• Offer Multiple Forms of Shipping: The closer we get to the holidays, the faster your customers will want their items. Allow them to choose between standard and expidited delivery. As the holidays draw nearer, publish a holiday shipping cut off date on the home page of your web site. This ensures your customers that they can still get your products in time for the holidays.
• Expand Your Holiday Season: It’s not just Christmas, don’t forget Hanukkah and New Years.

My first official Zen Cart contribution, Where to Buy, is now available at Zen Cart. It is a module that allows store owners who sell their items at brick and mortar stores to enter store information via the Zen Cart admin panel. The information is displayed on the web site grouped by state in a table format. The table is given a css class so that it is easily styled.

See a live demo at: Luv2Lounge.com

Download the contribution here.