The Christmas period is guaranteed to spark a large wave of traffic across ecommerce sites. Preparation for this surge in numbers is key.
Payments are the priority
You could have the best looking, most user-friendly website on the internet but you would fail to reap the benefits of the Christmas rush if your checkout and payment process was not up to scratch. A payment gateway must be robust enough to withstand and process a large number of transactions in a short space of time. Visitor numbers will almost certainly be higher than you‘re used to.
Any gateway downtime can cause huge problems and significantly affect the number of transactions processed, making a huge dent in an etailer‘s takings. Before you take on any payment processor, make sure you‘re fully aware of their uptime record and reliability, so you can be confident your gateway won‘t buckle under the pressure of additional traffic.
Mobile gives you more
The retailers that take full advantage of the festive season will be those that are accessible to all customers, regardless of the device they‘re using. A fully mobile optimised website enables online retailers to reach customers on the move via their smartphone or tablet. This customer base is becoming increasingly more valuable with 15% of all online retail sales now being purchased through mobile devices.
Keep your eyes open
Busy periods are the optimum time for fraudsters to target ecommerce sites. And you may not know you‘ve been hit until it‘s too late. Online retailers that have fraud management solutions and monitoring systems in place, will have a real time view of potential fraudulent activity and will be better protected as a result.
Don‘t overlook the obvious
The final and potentially most important thing for etailers to remember is their stock levels. It may sound obvious, but your stock is likely to diminish rapidly. If stock checks are inaccurate you may be caught out by the sudden rush, resulting in disappointed customers and failure to exploit the sizable increase in traffic.
