ADNET Audio & Internet Advertising

Buying online for Christmas starts as early as September but the real peak starts from mid-November.

Christmas is about gifts for others more than about personal purchases. This may mean that you can offer different categorisation for your store at Christmas. For example – “Gifts for Dad or gifts for Grandma for the 18 – 24 year olds”.

It is no use selling to a customer who expects pre Christmas delivery if you cannot get the product delivered on time. So you need to let your customers know the last date for orders that you can guarantee to be delivered by Christmas Day.

Consumers will be more careful this Christmas and look for security when buying online so make sure you give your customers the confidence to buy from your site.

Think about promotions? You can setup special Google AdWords Campaigns just for Christmas and help drive Christmas traffic to your store.
You will be competing with lots of other businesses for customer attention but we know that most online purchases with start with a search and around 70% of those will be via Google.

Offer free shipping for purchases over a certain value. Free shipping at Christmas, or anytime, can be a great incentive to buy online. If you are selling a product online you can structure an average shipping price into your costs. Then allow free shipping by Australia Post.  You can time the shipping and delivery so that as you get closer to Christmas shipping is no longer free but maybe at a premium to ensure delivery.  You can have multiple shipping addresses so your buyers can ship directly to an alternative address. Offer this service and make sure you get the gift there on time.

Free Christmas gift cards and gift wrapping. Discounts are less of a value proposition at Christmas for buyers.

Christmas specials – Christmas only products that have special pre-Christmas offers. Gift buyers come in many different types and good quality novelty items sell well at Christmas.

Products are all important and you might think of price ranges for gifts so that you fit everyone’s budgets.  Gift buyers want ideas so set up special categories like “Gifts for him”, Gifts for Mum”, “Gifts for the dog”, “Take a chance gifts” etc.

Give your store a Christmas theme. It is easy to setup a new style and change the colours and banners for Christmas. You can even start doing that right now and publish it later in the year. Set up a count down to Christmas – it can be a easy as a little added text to your home page.

Be ready with Boxing Day and New Years specials campaigns.

Bottom line is Christmas is the most important retail selling time and online selling time in the year and you need to be prepared to take advantage. Your online store needs to be complete and setup for Christmas as soon as possible and you need to start Christmas promotions early and not wait until a week before Christmas.

Start to promote for Christmas only when you are ready and you store is complete. Remember you don’t need thousands of products just a few of the products that sell. Unique products with good descriptions and images will sell at Christmas.

Like it or not Christmas is the retail time of the year and online sales are expected to exceed $24 Billion in Australia. Are you ready?

This year Christmas Day is on Saturday.  More people will buy online and they will be looking for novelties, quality, added value and special offers.  Online shopping enables comparison shopping on a level not available by any other means.

If your business plan is not in place you now have only a short time to consider:

How long does it take you to pick, pack and ship? That will determine the last date for selling online and delivering by Christmas. Remember there may be backlogs in delivery so check with your courier.
What are the peak number of orders that you can handle each day and still get the deliveries out?
How much stock will you need on hand?
What content changes do you need for your online shop?
Do you have photos and new stock information from suppliers?
What about pre-Christmas promotions and sales?
What about Christmas gift cards and gift wrapping materials?

Christmas is guaranteed and people will spend up on gifts and food for the holiday season.