This is the holiday season when shopping cart providers report an increase in sign-ups as well.

So what do you need to do to get prepare for the virtual holiday crowd?..

Before we discuss more about store preparation, here are a few more attractive notes about holiday shopping:

* Men outspend women by as much as 15% during holiday shopping
* Rural shoppers are more likely to visit online stores than urban shoppers
* Consumers search for characteristics rather than prices

Remember those points in mind as we go on to store preparations.

Product & Packaging

It seems boring, but it’s really true: customers usually look for gifts this time of the year. Now, you can’t change your products but you can change the way you package and market them to fit customer needs. Portable MP3 players, digital cameras and watches make wonderful gifts and are usually hot items for the holiday season.

What if, for example, you own an online shoe store? It gets a bit tough because shoes don’t actually come across as natural gifts, and various brands measure sizes differently, making shopping for shoes for someone else a bit of an art. So how about selling one of a kind holiday gift certificates, complete with holiday packaging? Make sure the designs for men and women are exclusive but equally captivating.

Having said that, most shoe stores do allow exchanges for different sizes. Fortunately, you can still work on making the packaging as captivating as possible so that you are able to trade your products as bona fide holiday gifts.

SEO & Marketing

Once you have an idea of what the market wants with regard to your products, you need to be sure that your site is fully optimized with all the adequate keywords (What does this mean? We’re not going to go into this here, but check out our other posts about keyword research and usage for more information). Needless to say, you should go all-out with your marketing campaign to take full advantage of this once-a-year buying phenomenon (well, of course there are other holiday periods throughout the year, but the year-end holidays are still when most shopping is done).

Ensure that you make full use of the tools your top website ecommerce hosting carts has to provide such as newsletter broadcasting, a basic piece of shopping carts technology. Many hosted shopping carts providers offer this feature for free. Start the ball rolling with your present customers by enticing them with early bird promotions, invitation-only discounts, recommend-a-friend deals and tie-ins.

And just because the holidays are over does not mean the shopping season is over. The only thing shoppers love more than holiday sales is post-holiday sales. According to statistics, over 60% of shoppers make purchases during this period. So ensure you are ready for that. As a matter of fact, if you were a bit late with your holiday prep, you can still make up for it by preparing your store for post-holiday sales.

Reminder

With all the excitement (and maybe even panic while you ruminate over the points presented above) in the air, its easy to overlook one very important factor - the inventory level. Make sure the items you are heavily promoting are sufficiently stocked. If you are using the services of a drop shipper, be sure you have enough stock during this festive season. You must give this special attention because your drop shipper might be shipping the same products for other merchants as well. Not being able to provide what your customers have ordered before the holidays will cost you customers and any hope of future sales, so be certain you have enough inventory.