OK, so maybe you’re behind the curve, but it’s still not too late.  Even now there are a lot of things that you can do to ensure that this Holiday season is an improvement on the 2008 holiday season.  While the recession is not over yet, and the NRF still expects a 1% decline in 2009 Holiday sales compared to 2008, there are indications that things are going to turn around for retailers.  Jeff Roster from Gartner recently blogged about the recovery and it’s likely impact on retail.  He came to some interesting conclusions based on reading the NRF’s 2009 Holiday  forecast, including:

• The economy is recovering
• Consumer confidence is improving
• The stock market is stabilizing
• Consumer savings are increasing

All of these are positive indicators, but aren’t likely to have a big impact on this year’s Holiday season.  If anything they seem to indicate that Holiday 2010 is expected to be a much better season.  While many retailers are going to have a freeze on changes to their website going into holiday, or may already have implemented a freeze, there are some basic common-sense policies that retailers can implement that will make it easier for them to capture the 2009 Holiday dollars.  So what policies and site changes can retailers do to help themselves for this Holiday season?

1.  One of the most effective things that you can do is add Holiday product categories, or navigation, to your site to make it super easy for customers to find what they are looking for.  Categories like “Gifts for Dad”, “Gifts for Mom” or “Gifts under $20”, will really resonate with shoppers.  Couple this with specific Holiday landing pages and effective SEO strategies like good Holiday metatagging, and you can push customers strait from search engines to those specific Holiday categories and landing pages.

2.  Always allow anonymous check-out.  Retailers love to capture customer information and add it to their mailing lists and CRM databases, but make sure that while you are extolling the many benefits of creating a profile on your site that you always give customers the out of shopping anonymously.  Some consumers are still fearful of creating a profile for security reasons, or even because of privacy concerns, and you don’t want to lose a sale for the sake of gaining an email address.

3.  Use “back to basics” promotions and coupons as a way to engage holiday shoppers.  Free Shipping is still one of the most effective promotions, and many argue that Free Shipping may be an even more effective tactic than dropping core prices.  Many retailers have even dropped regular prices instead of discounting this season.  A couple of good examples are Walmart’s “100 Toys For Just $10” or Toys R Us’s holiday hot list, which only features one toy over $100. 

4.  Make sure cross-sells and up-sells are relevant and personalized wherever possible.  The more relevant products that accompany the main product are to each other, or to the customer shopping on the site, the more that will resonate with the shopper.  The negative emotional impact of discordant product offerings is easily avoided with a little effort to ensure cross-sells are appropriate.

5.  Use “bounceback” strategies, like a discount off the next purchase or a gift card with purchase, as a way to incent customers to make a purchase right now, and many will be likely to come back and use the gift card or discount before the end of the Holiday season, improving sales.

6.  Make returns as painless as possible.   Advertise your return policy in as transparent a way as possible, preferable on a specific Holiday page and/or in the shopping cart.  Use your emails and your FAQ to reinforce that message.

7.  Clearly advertise shipping dates and rates.  Again, make sure that the drop dead dates for delivery, which may vary by region, are very prominently displayed on the site, and not just hidden away somewhere in a FAQ.  Reinforce these messages in your Holiday emails for the biggest impact.  Also, like the return policy, make sure that your FAQ is also really clear in case customers go there for the information.

8.  Prominently display the way to contact customer service, with 800 numbers and emails, and make sure that the hours of operation are there as well.  As with return policy and shipping dates don’t make it difficult for customers to find this information.  The more transparent this information is the higher consumer confidence will be, and you will see ait in your conversion rates.

9.  Make sure that inventory is accurate on the site.  Use reasonable product quotas if your solution supports it, in order to prevent selling the last hot item 3 times, and disappointing 2 of your customers.  Keeping a small quota threshold will not only prevent that problem, but will also solve the issue of small shrink discrepancies in the warehouse that can cause the same customer satisfaction issues for non-delivery.

10.  Allow In-store Pickups.  Letting the customer order on-line and pick up in the store of their choice is something that appeals to them, particularly when it is for products that attract the instant gratification crowd, like technology or games.  Allowing In-store Pickups isn’t just convenient for customers, it’s also likely to give you an extra day or two on your e-commerce drop dead dates for shipping.  Since most retailers are still shipping product to the stores throughout the season, there is little or no additional shipping cost and there is always somebody to receive the shipment, unlike a private residence.

If you haven’t started implementing your 2009 Holiday strategies, then you should start as soon as you can.  That said, all of these strategies are really just general e-commerce best practices and would be just as effective, and as likely to have a positive impact, if they were implemented during the rest of the year.  If you can’t get to them this year, start your planning for Holiday 2010 now.  Hope you all have a great 2009 Holiday season.