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Ready or not, the holiday rush is coming, and shoppers will be heading online to make their purchases before we know it. With so many more customers coming to your eCommerce store in these next several months, it’s important to ensure your website, customer service, shipping and order fulfillment, and warehousing are ready to successfully take on these orders. These tips will help you prepare your online business for a seamless holiday season.
eCommerce Site
35% of online shoppers will complete their purchases using mobile devices. How will your online store manage hundreds of orders in a day? It’s important to ensure your website is user and mobile-friendly so that holiday shoppers can enjoy seamless shopping experiences. Things to take into account are site speed, inventory, shipping options, mobile responsiveness, and customer service availability. Consumers will likely turn to a competitor if your eCommerce store inaccurately showcases the products they want to purchase or if your pages take too long to load. Additionally, inflated shipping costs and the inability to check out via mobile devices could ruin your peak season sales. Prepare your store now to ensure you don’t experience any of these mishaps during the holidays.
Customer Service
Excellent customer service can help turn holiday shoppers into loyal customers. Providing options for live chats, FAQs, and phone or email exchanges makes a big difference, especially during the holidays. Customers want to feel like their business matters, so providing a little extra attention can help increase your sales. If a shopper has a great experience live chatting with someone on your site, they may be more inclined to make multiple purchases from your online store. Be sure to also clearly communicate any order deadlines or specialty up-charges so customers don’t experience any negative surprises.
Shipping and Order Fulfillment
The holiday season is the largest period of revenue for retail, with November and December generating over a quarter of a seller’s annual revenue. Can your order fulfillment strategy keep up with the peak season rush? If you haven’t evaluated your fulfillment method in a while, now is the time to take a look and see what improvements need to be made. An inefficient system can lead to late or incorrect orders and many unhappy customers. Consider investing in shipping software to help process your orders faster and save money on shipping. Is your order fulfillment taking longer than it needs to? Hire some extra hands to help you out. Whether it’s seasonal help for your in-house team or working with a shipping partner like Rakuten Super Logistics, it’s important to ensure your holiday order fulfillment is a success.
Warehousing
One of the biggest mistakes retailers can make during the holiday season is running out of inventory. Before the summer has even come to a close, eCommerce sellers should be stocking up on all their holiday products as well as their hottest selling inventory. Efficient warehousing is the key to making this possible. If you’re running out of room to house your current merchandise and still need to bring in your holiday inventory, you need to consider recruiting professional help. Working with a shipping partner can give you access to multiple fulfillment centers that have enough room to warehouse all of your products throughout the entire season. This allows you to keep selling your current inventory without worrying that you’ll run dry mid-holiday sales.
The holiday season is one of the most important times of the year for online sellers. From October to December, consumers are making some of their largest purchases of the year. Prepare every level of your online business now to successfully manage your holiday merchandise and ensure 2020 is your best holiday season yet.
Contact us to see how you can sleigh the season by wrapping up your holiday shipping with Rakuten Super Logistics.
Rakuten Super Logistics (RSL) is the leader in eCommerce order fulfillment services and freight brokerage. RSL offers national fulfillment services and a network of 15 US fulfillment centers located in Anaheim (CA), Atlanta (GA), Austin (TX), Chicago (IL), Denver (CO), Houston (TX), Las Vegas (NV), Olean (NY), Reno (NV), Salt Lake City (UT), and Scranton (PA). Their state-of-the-art technology allows for integration with popular shopping cart platforms and online marketplaces including Amazon, Big Commerce, Channel Advisor, eBay, Magento, ShipStation, Shopify, Volusion, Walmart Marketplace, and WooCommerce. RSL offers modern fulfillment solutions for leading eCommerce retailers focused on reducing shipping costs, improving order accuracy, decreasing shipping times, and increasing customer satisfaction.