The Countdown Is On

Small business owners and marketers everywhere are in the final stretch of the holiday season. Everyone here is making the final push to pull in as many sales as possible. If you did your homework and ran holiday promotions, along with special Black Friday/Cyber Monday and Green Monday sales, you were primed to capture that precious holiday traffic.

So now what? You’re busy filling orders and your PPC is humming along, but it’s not time to kick back with the egg nog just yet! Before you take a well deserved holiday, read on and see what you still need to do this holiday season. I’ve made my list and checked it twice (I know, I know… lame joke, but I can’t help myself):

• Shipping dates - Take a moment and look at the last date you can ship packages by regular mail. If you’re doing free or flat rate shipping promotions, this is when you’ll want to cut back on those. In the last few days before Christmas, customers will need to choose expedited shipping in order to receive gifts in time. In some cases, it may be cheaper for them to go out and buy their gifts at a retail store, rather than online. Save yourself the headache of having to refund orders that don’t show up in time by taking down any shipping messages you have running once you hit your cut off date.
• Promotion codes ending - Have you done any special holiday promos outside of shipping, like free gifts or a percentage off orders? Now’s the time to review the end dates you set for them and set reminders for yourself. If your coupons all expire on December 24th, shut those ads off!
• Decreased search traffic - While some of us will be using all the gift cards we received on Christmas night, in general there’s a bit of a slump in search traffic and buying on Christmas eve and day. If you’re not able to check in, it might be in your best interest to turn down bids a bit for the actual holidays while people aren’t buying as much.
• After holiday sales - Once you’ve made it to December 26th, the work still isn’t over! Many businesses will be doing after holiday sales to take advantage off all the gift cards/cash gifts/etc that are floating around. It’s also a chance for you to push any extra inventory you’d like to move.

I hope this list helps everyone prep for the final week before Christmas. If you have ideas to add to this list, please comment and share!