If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to rethink your holiday themes or come up with one for your online store. I’ve used mine now for two years and it’s become stale and dull to me. I’m thinking more red than green; I need brightness, something cheery. What I’m trying to say here is that everything has to change from time to time and if your customers get use to that same holiday theme you’ve displayed for years, they will assume there’s nothing new to be seen or purchased. Maybe that nothing’s has changed but a new banner or theme will catch their eye and they will stay a while to see what is new if any. So think of redesigning your site from time to time to keep it fresh.
Make buyers comfortable about your business. If you’re working within your own personal site make sure your checkout page is encrypted and secure and the license is prominently displayed. Shoppers look for security when checking out. Let’s not lose a sell because we are not secured.
Publish your store’s policies, refunds, cancellations, exchanges and shipping. Make this information accessible for your customers by a simple click of a mouse, along the bottom of the page, or in the left or right margins of your page. Make visible the type of payments you accept and if nothing more use PayPal Shopping Cart.
Announce specific shipping and delivery dates if possible is not a bad idea, i.e., “Orders placed by November 7th will be delivered by November 14.” Shoppers want to be assured that their gifts will arrive in time.
You may not be placing your Holiday banner or theme into play now but you could post in your shop’s announcement that there are ‘x’ amount of days to the ‘Big’ day, a call to action. I've added as you can see a counter to my blog, free at http://www.timeanddate.com.
When describing your items use useful search terms as much as possible, for this is how your customers will find you and or your items. If you ship internationally, think in what language they speak in picking your keywords. For instance, some call a shirt a blouse whether male or female, a sweater can be a jumper or vest so think in terms of the markets you want to reach. Remember, the internet works on search engines.
