[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/10\/06\/black-friday-is-fast-approaching-is-your-e-commerce-store-ready\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/10\/06\/black-friday-is-fast-approaching-is-your-e-commerce-store-ready\/","headline":"Black Friday is fast approaching: Is your e-commerce store ready?","name":"Black Friday is fast approaching: Is your e-commerce store ready?","description":"Stay on your customers' nice lists this season and get ready for holiday shopping now - before it's too late to improve and prep your site.","datePublished":"2014-10-06","dateModified":"2024-04-12","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/paroma-sen\/#Person","name":"Paroma Sen","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/paroma-sen\/","identifier":335,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1fe6b3b2d90921fef2923a35bc8d88870d618452c85002de654f6df7eb407449?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1fe6b3b2d90921fef2923a35bc8d88870d618452c85002de654f6df7eb407449?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/retail-holiday-season.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/retail-holiday-season.jpg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/10\/06\/black-friday-is-fast-approaching-is-your-e-commerce-store-ready\/","about":[{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},"Commerce Platforms + Software",{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/e-commerce\/","name":"E-Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E-commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q484847"]},"Retail Trends, Data, News"],"wordCount":1073,"keywords":["Customer Engagement","E-commerce","Holiday Shopping and Trends","Retail"],"articleBody":"While it\u2019s only the beginning of October, the 2014 holiday season is less than two months away, beginning on Friday, November 28 and kicking into high gear for you multi-channel commerce retailers on Cyber Monday, December 1.With that in mind, there\u2019s still time for you and your team of product, marketing, technical, business, and content managers to make like Santa\u2019s elves and prepare for what will be, if history is any indication, the biggest online holiday shopping season to date.We\u2019ve created this list, and you should check it twice, to make sure your customers\u2019 experiences are better than nice.Performance testingFor online retailers, it\u2019s important to utilize what\u2019s known as a pre-production or \u201cstage\u201d environment. While most businesses probably only leverage the pre-production environment to regression test new features or defect remediation, we at ICF Interactive highly recommend configuring the pre-production environment to continuously validate that the e-commerce store can handle at least 25 percent more traffic than its busiest day of the year. In recent years, that day for e-commerce merchants is most commonly Black Friday\u2019s online counterpart: Cyber Monday.To properly test your current platform\u2019s load capacity, you have a few options at your disposal. First, if you don\u2019t have or can\u2019t use internal resources, consider hiring e-commerce system experts. If you\u2019re a day late or dollar short of that option, there are both free and licensed online tools that you can download and run to diagnose potential issues. Review your returns and exchanges policyDuring the gift-giving season, returns and exchanges are imminent. For multi-channel retailers with both brick and mortar stores and an e-commerce site, it\u2019s essential that your instructions on returns and exchanges are clear, easily found within your site\u2019s hierarchy and take all scenarios into account. In doing so, you\u2019ll not only improve the customer experience, but you\u2019ll ensure that accounting and inventory level reports are accurate.In looking at your current policy, ask a few key questions:If a customer purchases an item online, can he or she return it to the store? If so, will he or she be eligible for a full refund or store credit? If not, how does the customer return the item \u2013 are the return shipping instructions easy to understand and as hassle-free as possible?What if the online purchase was part of a promotion in which a discount was applied, but the in-store exchange item is full price?What happens if the customer buys in-store and finds a better price online? Will the store honor the online price by refunding the difference?And if grandma purchase in a store in Canada, what is the policy if the recipient lives in the United States?In determining these processes and outlining clear rules, you\u2019ll provide the best experience possible, while avoiding the pitfalls of ambiguous instructions. Mind your analyticsMost organizations have an analytics platform or tool (think Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and etc.). E-commerce merchants will want to create a top five list of improvement areas. Look into where the majority of your users are coming from \u2013 was it an email campaign, or perhaps a social media channel outreach post, such as a tweet or Facebook update? How are your customers viewing your online content \u2013 via desktop or primarily mobile?And when a purchase takes place, knowing how well customers moved through the conversion funnel will help to replicate success. It\u2019s likely you\u2019re planning to run special campaigns or holiday promotions; make sure these fit well within already established marketing processes \u2013 you don\u2019t have to reinvent the wheel, simply throw some tinsel on it! By looking at how well your efforts are working now, you\u2019ll have plenty of time to make improvements for the most wonderful, and busy, time of the year. Evaluate your disk spaceAn often overlooked but critical function of site performance is clearing disk space on your hard drives. Much like anything else that stores things: physical filing cabinets, your junk drawer at home, your desk at work or the files on your computer, if they become overloaded, performance will be less than optimal. Be sure to clean the log files and delete old entries; failure to do so may result in a slow site or perhaps a crash; slow sites can cause headaches where there should be hustle and bustle, so make sure your site isn\u2019t turning away customers. Identify and define holiday promotional tacticsLanding pages, web content, product descriptions and campaigns are sure to be a few of your favorite things when the holidays (speedily) roll around. Use the slower end-of-summer months to ramp up on marketing productions. Make improvements to your product details and descriptions, streamline the user experience for fast and easy navigation and design with the customer in mind.In conjunction with your analytics research, determine where and how the majority of your efforts should be concentrated; if you have a massive social following, think about a Twitter or Facebook campaign. If you find your customers are straight shooting site visitors, develop targeted landing pages for individual segments. Ho-Ho-Ho and SEOIf your consumers can\u2019t find you in search engine results now, how will they find you during the extremely competitive holiday season?Complete a full analysis of your content, keywords, and strategy \u2013 what may have worked six months ago could need to be adjusted. In addition to ranking, updating your content will make it more relevant and engaging; consumers will be searching for holiday sales, free shipping, online discounts and the season\u2019s hottest items. Implement an SEO plan now so you\u2019re not scrambling in a few months. Consider your omnichannel strategyIf you don\u2019t already have an omnichannel marketing and commerce strategy, you\u2019ll need one.Consumers demand a seamless experience, and they\u2019ll expect it in every channel in which they\u2019re interacting with your brand. Additionally, the content displayed in a particular context and on a specific device, think mobile, or tablet, or desktop or even in-store, needs to be relevant to the customer in that moment.For the best results and to stay on your customers\u2019 nice lists, get started now.  Relationship status: Complicated.AI in e-commerce is critical, but obstacles around data privacy, talent, and integration are slowing adoption. Our powerhouse panel has the stats + strategies you’re looking for. Register HERE."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2014","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"10","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/\/10\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"06","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/\/10\/\/06\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Black Friday is fast approaching: Is your e-commerce store ready?","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2014\/10\/06\/black-friday-is-fast-approaching-is-your-e-commerce-store-ready\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]