{"id":3175,"date":"2012-10-19T05:32:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T09:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.instantestore.com\/blog\/?p=3175"},"modified":"2017-06-06T14:39:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T06:39:01","slug":"is-your-online-store-ready-for-the-holiday-shopping-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/is-your-online-store-ready-for-the-holiday-shopping-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Store Tips For The Holiday Shopping Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/42354740@N00\/88487833\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; border: 0px none;\" title=\"sausage platter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/19\/88487833_d1855245fa_m.jpg\" alt=\"sausage platter\" width=\"240\" height=\"162\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/a>Saw the news that Target has already started advertising their <strong>Christmas shopping<\/strong>. Most people may think that was way too early (we&#8217;re not even done with <strong>Halloween<\/strong> or <strong>Octoberfest<\/strong> yet!).<\/p>\n<p>However, this should be a clear sign for online business owners to get their store ready for the holiday shopping season and not wait till the last minute.<\/p>\n<p>Please make sure that your store&#8217; s SEO has been tweaked properly. If you&#8217;re unsure on how to get that done, click <a title=\"SEO Wizard Green Thumbs Up\" href=\"http:\/\/ecommerce.instantestore.com\/the-instantestore-seo-wizard-getting-the-green-thumbs-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HERE<\/a> for a reference to our SEO Wizard Green Thumbs Up article.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a short list of stuff that you need to consider showing on your <strong>FRONT PAGE<\/strong> :<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; the <strong>LOOK<\/strong> of your store (let it have a holiday &#8216;feel&#8217; and show clearly your <strong>BEST SELLING<\/strong> product images or the products that you want to promote)<br \/>\n&#8211; make sure your product images are of <strong>GOOD QUALITY<\/strong> (should NOT be blur, too small or come in weird sizes)<br \/>\n&#8211; <strong>SALE<\/strong> prices or <strong>DISCOUNT<\/strong> percentage clearly shown (show how much customers will <strong>SAVE<\/strong>)<br \/>\n&#8211; <strong>FREE shipping<\/strong> or fixed price shipping<br \/>\n&#8211; <strong>GIFT recommendations<\/strong> (your target group of customers in mind &#8211; boys, girls, men, women, kids, family, friends, colleagues)<\/p>\n<p>Have a <strong>SOCIAL Plan<\/strong> ready to start getting the word out on what are the product offers that your store will be launching through your <strong>social networks<\/strong> &#8211; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. This is also a great way to FIND OUT and engage your customers on what kind of products that they would like to see ON SALE or looking for. And it will also build momentum to your store&#8217;s <strong>Season Shopping Sale Launch<\/strong>. Remember, feedback is IMPORTANT so that you don&#8217;t end up wasting your time.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, make sure that your store is <strong>mobile optimized<\/strong> (just click on the Mobile Commerce icon in your Admin panel and select the mobile commerce template of your choice). Not sure how it works? Here&#8217;s a short video about it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sOVWZLeXt4U\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Why is it important? Based on the data by Techcrunch below, majority of users begin surfing with their smartphones which is then continued on to their PC followed by their tablets. So you want to make sure that your store is accessible to these smartphone users as they <strong>search<\/strong>, <strong>browse<\/strong> and <strong>shop online<\/strong> with their smartphones as a first point of contact.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3178\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 670px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ecommerce.instantestore.com\/is-your-online-store-ready-for-the-holiday-shopping-season\/smartphone-pc-and-tablet-usage\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3178\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3178\" title=\"Smartphone, PC And Tablet Usage\" src=\"http:\/\/ecommerce.instantestore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Smartphone-PC-And-Tablet-Usage.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"340\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Credit Image : Techcrunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you need any help or more advice on how to get your store ready for the holiday season shopping, do drop us an email. We&#8217;re here to help in any way that we can. Have a great weekend!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saw the news that Target has already started advertising their Christmas shopping. Most people may think that was way too early (we&#8217;re not even done with Halloween or Octoberfest yet!). However, this should be a clear sign for online business owners to get their store ready for the holiday shopping season and not wait till [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,17,8,3,4,10,11],"tags":[477,546,445,540,547,432,46,541,431,435,545,469,110,27,483,193,520,535,542,120,514],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3175"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8111,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions\/8111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instantestore.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}