Here Come the Holidays, Part Three: Make Ordering Easy
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Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
Yesterday on the blog, we looked at ways to impress your customers during the holiday shopping season, your holiday promotions, recommending items to customers, and tools you can use to get the most from your store. On Monday, we discussed that all-important first step of getting organized before the holiday rush. In today’s post, which is the last of our three-part series, we have a couple of tips for making ordering faster and easier so customers don’t encounter hurdles while shopping from your store or during checkout. We’re also leaving you with a few resources to check out for more great holiday advice.
Make ordering faster and easier
While it may seem obvious, one of the most important things you can do to help increase your conversion rate is to provide a smooth and speedy ordering experience. Here are two ways you can do this:
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Shop from your own site. If you haven’t placed an order from your own store recently, you may be surprised at some of the hurdles you run into. Complete the shopping and purchasing process from start to finish by navigating through your site, adding items to your shopping cart, and completing all steps of your store checkout. If you think you’re too familiar with your store pages and checkout to do this yourself, ask a friend or an employee to place an order and watch them as they shop. Once you’ve identified and fixed any problem areas, be sure to test the shopping and ordering process again.
- Enable the Saved Cards feature (requires our Customer Registration system to be enabled). If you’re using our Customer Registration system, you now have the ability to speed up the ordering process by allowing registered customers to save their credit card, debit card, and billing address information. By letting registered customers select a previously saved card and billing address during checkout, you help make ordering from your store a fast and easy process.
Selecting a saved credit or debit card and billing address can make checkout faster and easier
Other great holiday tips
If you missed the first two posts in our series of tips for getting your store ready for the holiday season, you can find them here on the blog:
- Here Come the Holidays, Part One: Getting Organized
- Here Come the Holidays, Part Two: Impressions and Promotions
If you’re looking for more holiday advice, be sure to follow @YSmallBusiness on Twitter and to visit our Yahoo! Small Business Facebook page. You can also check out the following:
- 12 Tips for Optimizing Your Site and Making the Season’s Sales Bright (PDF)
- Holiday Planning That Yields Big Returns
- Maximizing Your Holiday Routine
- Creating a Better Holiday Rush
- Don’t Pass on Service in the Holiday Rush
If you’re not already in tip-top shape to welcome the holiday rush, the time to act is now. By spending some time each day to prepare for the holidays, you can help position your store to make the most of the holiday season.
Amy Parker-Harris and Jennifer Farwell
Yahoo! Small Business
Follow @YSmallBusiness on Twitter and "Like" us on Facebook
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