First Holiday Season online.tips? tricks? liquor recommendations?

[ItsAllBallBearings]

This will be our first holiday season being just an online store (closed brick and mortar in January). To be honest, I am getting a bit nervous as i have no idea what to expect and when to expect it. Our brick/mortar store was pretty much the bread and butter (reasons for closing it are a whole new thread). But, i was in a routine with that store and the holidays.

Any general or specific advice or tips anyone wishes to share about onine biz at the holidays? Anything from sales peaks to PPC to post holiday returns/exchanges.

TIA

[pbradish]

I'm in the same boat. We've been running for 4 months steady here online and it feels like that 'calm before the storm' now. Any tips would be very helpfull.

[martyt]

Be sure to have your holiday hours and shipping information plainly visible -- if customers need to order by December 3 to guarantee Christmas delivery, say so. If you're not sure, it's better to under promise and over deliver -- pick a date you know you can meet and then do your best to ship orders as fast as possible; that'll win you points with your customers. Same goes with out-of-stock items -- let the customer know ASAP if you're out of an item and when you'll have more.

I've already sent one mass mail to my customers to tell them about some of the big holiday items we're offering; I'll follow it up with another e-mail right after Thanksgiving, and I'll include our holiday hours in that e-mail.

In my business, we get a reasonably large influx of customers between now and Christmas, but we also get a big influx during January and early February -- we sell the "supplies" that folks need for the new gadgets they got for Christmas, so we do what we can to capitalize on that need.