With a little over a week left for Christmas shopping, consumers from all over North America are undoubtedly making heavy use of the internet. Online shopping is often regarded as the best way to easily find what you’re looking for. However, it’s also known as an excellent last minute shopping option. In many cases, shoppers look for items in brick and mortar stores and when they can’t find them, they hop online to place orders directly to their homes.
This brings to mind a very important facet of your online store’s ability to please consumers – delivery time. Are you able to deliver products to your customers before Christmas Day? Answering this question in the affirmative will significantly increase the number of sales you make via your online store in the ten days to come.
Be sure to deliver your items on time!
“Efficient order fulfillment is important all year round, but during the holidays, it becomes a make-or-break factor,” insists Francesca Nicasio on VendHQ.com, “See to it that you’re able to get products to your customers as quickly (and reliably) as possible. If you’re shipping merchandise, be sure to inform (and continuously remind) your customers of your cut-off dates so they know when to place their orders.”
Speed, by the way, is a worthwhile topic to remain on. During the holiday rush – and it’s certainly called a “rush” for a reason – how quickly you’re able to solve customer problems will mean the difference between boosted sales and disappointed customers. This is certainly true for your in-store customer service. And when it comes to your website, it is absolutely the case.
Is your company website easy to navigate?
How easy is it for your website’s visitors to access your online store? Can visitors quickly locate the items they’re looking for? Can they easily place orders directly from your site? Surely, you know which answers will deliver the best results. Your site’s ease of use and speed will have a huge impact on how successful this holiday season is for your business.
“Speed is obviously critical for online retailers,” affirms Nicasio, noting that studies have found that 40 percent of online shoppers abandon websites that take more than three seconds to load, “This means that a few seconds delay in your site’s load time could result in you losing about half of potential customers. That’s a big chunk, especially during the holidays, so make sure you address all your site speed issues (and prevent them from turning up) before the season’s shopping rush.”
In what ways can you improve your online store?
Nicasio advises that you optimize your images,reduce the size of above-the-fold content, get rid of unnecessary plugins and minify resources. At MeloTel, we understand, of course, if this all sounds like a lot of work that you don’t have time for. This is why we proudly offer Website Maintenance Services that will have our team of experts take care of all of your website’s needs for you!
For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website!
