Start an Online Store This Holiday Season

At last, your long wait is about to come to an end–the winter holiday season is around the corner. You must have planned many things to do during the holiday period, from a trip with your family to partying with friends.

Despite all your plans being great, there could be something special too. Why not start an online store business?

Yes, you heard it right. Starting an eCommerce business can be a unique initiative during the holiday season. It can bring you profits and transform you into an entrepreneur, something for which you might have craved from within.

eCommerce business has been showing a growing trend for years now. It is due to many people preferring to buy online from their homes. As such, you can expect a busy holiday shopping season. So, you can gain from the trend to increase your revenue to make money.

But, you need to have an eCommerce website that makes it easy for visitors to purchase and become online customers.

The shopping spree among people ahead of the holiday season can be a boon for creating a revenue stream. And that can become a reality only if you have an eCommerce website.

So, let us look at ways to build a perfect eCommerce website to cash on the shopping spree during the upcoming holiday season.

But, first, you should build your portal through an agency that specialized in eCommerce website development. 

Organize the e-Store

Put yourself in the shoes of a customer. Do you like to purchase from a haphazard eCommerce website? Certainly not.

As visitors are more likely to buy from a well-organized website, you should ensure that your e-store is up-to-date and easy to navigate.

You should check every phase of the buying process to ensure that all transactional elements are working correctly and are easy to follow. Also, review your product descriptions, photos, and videos to ensure that you give your website visitors everything they need to make a buying decision.

There is an important aspect to remember in the context of eCommerce website purchases. If visitors leave your website without making a purchase, they are not likely to return. And that speaks significantly of why you need to provide visitors with a good user experience.

A good way of making visitors pay is to show them multiple ways of making payments. It encourages them to buy from your e-store. Therefore, ensure that you display all the payment methods, such as credit cards, internet banking, etc., to prompt visitors to purchase. Make sure that everything is taken care of with your bank to receive the payments.

You should make it easy for your website visitors to buy your products by giving them more reasons and ways to buy from your eCommerce website.

Optimize Your Website for Increased Traffic

You should ensure that your website can handle increased traffic because it should be able to handle massive traffic during the festive season. 

Also, you should regularly check the speed of your website. It will help you determine whether your website is highly responsive and functional. And for that, you can use online tools like Cloudflare and Speedtest to resolve and improve your site speed. 

Remember that your website should open fast on desktops, laptops, and mobile to excite visitors to purchase. While visiting your website, visitors expect a good user experience.

If a website page takes more than three seconds to load, you can expect more than half of your visitors to go away. As such, you will lose business.

Therefore, you should optimize pictures and web pages to make them load quickly. But, at the same time, you need to ensure that they are fully functional.

It is a good idea to review your navigation bar to ensure your site visitors have an easy path to find what they are looking for.

Bear in mind that good site functionality plays a crucial role in enabling a smooth online experience for your customers.

Secure the Customers’ Buying Experience

You have to build and protect your customers’ buyer confidence. So, you should put in place a mechanism to protect your customers’ private data and shopping experience by adding data protection. And, you can do that with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates.

SSL certificates will make your customers aware that their private data is protected and your website is trustworthy.

Typically, an SSL padlock logo lets customers know that they are in a safe and secure environment to make purchases.

Technically, SSL certificates protect sensitive data from online hackers through an encryption process.

There are three types of SSL certificates

• Extended Validation (EV SSL)
• Organization Validated (OV SSL)
• Domain Validated (DV SSL). 

The encryption levels are the same for each certificate. But, the verification processes are different. Besides, there are also specialty SSL certificates.

Add a Little Holiday Touch

It is an excellent idea to add a little holiday spirit to your website. It will influence your visitors psychologically to prompt them to buy products from your website.

As such, you can add holiday-themed borders and graphics throughout your site to give it a festive look. Also, add a few holiday references in your headlines and product descriptions.

Moreover, you can thank your website visitors for their patronage. In addition, you can send a bounce-back email for every purchase with a thank you message.

Furthermore, you can give your customers a bonus seasonal discount offer on future purchases.

Have a Good Shipping Plan

Getting ready to handle increasing traffic volume is not enough. You should also ease the shipping of products as orders come in. 

It is essential to fulfilling your orders promptly to ensure a smooth customer experience. 

The following are some of the ways to ensure a good shipping experience:

Shipping Rates

Decide whether you will bear the shipping cost or pass it on to your customers. If you plan to offer optional fast shipping options, examine all your costs to make pricing adjustments accordingly.

Packaging

Likewise, decide whether you will use packaging from a service provider or your own branded packaging.

Return Policy

Structure your return policy and decide your processing method.

Conclusion

With the imminent shopping spree among people due to the holiday season, you can gain significant earnings if you start an eCommerce business. First, however, you should proceed with systematic steps to get the best results.