ECommerce Sellers: It is Time To Get Ready for the Holidays! (Yes, You Read that Right)

Sleigh bells are ringing, pocket change is jingling, the holidays are here! Wait, what? We’ve all heard of Christmas in July but Christmas in… April? But if you’re an ecommerce seller, April is the time to start preparing for the holiday season, your most wonderful (and profitable) time of the year. Here are a few things you need to be doing today to get ready for the post-Halloween holiday bonanza:

Trend Watch – You already keep up with the news and rumors in your industry, so now is the time to put all that knowledge-gathering into action to try and determine what will be the 2011 holiday season’s hot seller. To identify trends, look at the hot sellers from last year. Is there an update or a better alternative that fulfills the same want? (Think the iPad and the iPad2).  Or perhaps a particular product has the internet rumormongers buzzing already? Trend spot now, bank later.

Create Your Promotions Schedule – It’s never too early to start working on your promotions schedule. The numbers showed that ecommerce sellers wracked up the sales on Cyber Monday last year, so perhaps you want to think about buying a PPC ad campaign or ad space on related websites for that day. Or perhaps you sell smaller ticket items and knickknacks, which tend to get purchased later in the season by last minute shoppers. Last year Logicblock examined ecommerce holiday purchasing trends, so study history and then set your ecommerce sales and promotion schedule accordingly. Don’t forget to look at your own holiday selling trends for the past years, too.

Plan Special Holiday Content – When you walk into a retail store during the holidays, you’ll hear Christmas music, smell cinnamon and hot cocoa, see Christmas trees and maybe even observe Santa taking down holiday wishes. Create some of that Christmas ambiance on your site, either with a banner, or some special holiday content or product descriptions.  Your customers will get the “experience” of Christmas shopping without the hassle and killer long lines.

Go Social – Industry insiders predict that the popularity of shopping within social media – browsing an online catalog from within Facebook, for example – is on the rise, too, so integrate your ecommerce and your social presence.  Your customers won’t have to seek you out – they’ll find you where they already are everyday.

Christmas in April may not feel quite right, but an ounce of preparation now will be worth huge holiday sales as the big days approach.