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The holiday’s are here!  For eCommerce website holders, at least.  It’s time to get your site ready to capture not just the most traffic, but the most conversions possible out of the frenzied holiday season, quickly approaching.  Marketing Sherpa recently published finding on what many eCommerce stores are doing to get their sites ready.  Are you ready to compete?

Below are the top six tactics to be used to increase website conversions, according to 1,500 eCommerce sites surveyed by MarketingSherpa.com

Explanations of the above graph

1. Perpetual shopping carts.
   The chief point is stickiness.  If a consumer on your site is interested in a product enough to consider buying it, allowing them to have that product waiting for them when they return can make a big difference in an impulse buy situation.  (Which when it comes to the holiday gift-giving, applies to most situations)


2. Optimizing internal search results
   If I can’t find it, I’ll just assume you don’t have it.  The online pizza ordering business has been lead by Domino’s for quite some time due to its intuitive way to navigate, edit, and order.  The same applies to all online eCommerce transactions.  Whomever makes it easiest to comfortably get what I want, will get what they want.  My Money.


3. Enhanced display
   Zappo’s has famously shot numerous detailed pics of their products, so much so that the FBI asked them if the FBI could access their shoe sole photo archive.  for a company that was just bought for $928 million dollars, there’s some lesson to be learned there. 


4. Live Chat
   Quick and easy contact with a live customer support person.  Without being put on hold.  Enough said.


5. Targeted Cross-sell/up-sell
   Amazon may have pioneered it, but the now nearly ubiquitous up-sell “Customer like you also bought” is still lacking from some websites.  It’s built into many free eCommerce platforms, such as Magento and OSCommerce, and it should be part of your site, too. 


6. Product Comparison Grid
   Simple and easy user experience.  In a brick-and-mortar store, this comes down to helpful clerk who’s able to tell you the differences between the two products you’re debating.  Online, that translates to tools that enable you to quickly see the differences yourself. 

Other Tactics:

• Expand your audience by extending your social media efforts.  Maintaining a Facebook, twitter, or blog (Find an free and intuitive blog engine at blogger.google.com)


• Consider search advertising now, while it’s cheaper.  Elements like the perpetual shopping cart will allow those that are thinking at all about buying for the holiday season to return and pay when they’re ready. And while the competition for the online retail market is reduced, so will be your cost per click for your PPC ads with Google or Yahoo


• Adjust your budget. The holiday season is not the time to reduce ad spending according to My Solution Spot Columnist Jill Rafalowski. 

This holiday season may be the first sign of a recession lifting. If you don’t want to be left out of a potential windfall, you should take a look at the competition and be sure that you’ll be worthy of some of the online dollars.