5 Ecommerce Mistakes To Avoid This Christmas

Christmas is one of the most important times of year for most retailers, especially for ecommerce businesses. With more people choosing to shop online this Christmas it’s important that your business gives your customers the best experience and that you don’t make any serious mistakes in the process. 

While you might not get it right every single time, it’s important that you avoid as many mistakes as possible. With planning, extra care and the following tips in mind here’s how you can avoid these seasonal selling errors and maximise your sales in the process.  

Not Having Enough Stock 

You’re guaranteed to find an increase in sales over the Christmas period, which is why it’s important you make sure you have enough stock in your inventory to last the busy festive season. Christmas is hectic enough and customers want to be able to make a purchase and leave, they don’t want to spend hours looking for the perfect item just for it to be out of stock. By ordering stock based on your predictions and analysis from previous years you can effectively estimate how much you’ll need in order to meet the needs of you customers.  

A Lengthy Checkout Process

A checkout process with too many steps is likely to frustrate your customers and send them running to another business instead. People shop online because it’s easy, convenient and quick, a lengthy checkout process defeats the point of this, increasing your chances of customers abandoning their carts. In order to give your customers the best experience you should offer a short checkout process which preferably shows what steps are left in the process, instead of leaving your customers feeling frustrated.  

Making Guesses 

You shouldn’t have to make guesses when it comes to your ecommerce store, especially at Christmas. Using analytics and data from the previous Christmas and the past year, you can gain more insight on what you can expect from your Christmas sales and customers. Guesswork can leave you with stock problems, a slow website and even failed marketing attempts. Using data allows you to get a realistic figure, rather than pulling numbers from thin air.  

Unclear Prices and Dates 

If you’re unclear about any additional shipping prices or delivery dates, it’s likely customers aren’t going to be very confident about shopping on your website. People want to know if their product is going to arrive on time for Christmas and if they need to pay any extra for shipping, it’s essential your shipping costs and shipping dates are as clear as possible for your customers.  

Failing To Test Your Website

If you haven’t already tested your website, it’s important you do so in preparation for the Christmas season. Your website needs to be able to keep up with the increased demand over Christmas, which is why you need to test it’s capabilities of handling high volumes of traffic. If your website is unable to handle the pressure and happens to crash, then customers will head elsewhere. 

As the busiest time of the year, it’s likely at least something will go slightly wrong, however you need to be prepared. Not only can making mistakes in your ecommerce journey cause problems with your sales but it can also discourage customers from thinking of your brand as reputable.  Mistakes can cost business, especially at Christmas, but you shouldn’t panic just yet, there’s still plenty of time to follow these tips, optimise your website and get you business ready for Christmas.