November 24, 2009 by Matt Thomas
As anyone who sells goods online should know, we’re fast closing in on the most important day of the year for the ecommerce industry, Cyber Monday. For the uninitiated, Cyber Monday is statistically the busiest day of the year for the vast majority of ecommerce sites. It typically happens on the first Monday of December, right after people have been paid for the last time in the year and when the highest numbers of shoppers are making online purchases agead of christmas.
This year it’s really more likely to be a cyber Tuesday as the first Monday of December actually falls on the 7th, a long way into December, but still the principle stands. What’s important is how you as an online retailer prepare for the onslaught of customers your site. The following tips should help…
1. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this doesn’t apply to you. People give crazy things as presents, anything from scart cables to yachts are affected by cyber Monday. Of course, some industries are affected to a greater or lesser extent than others but the principle applies to almost all ecommerce stores.
2. Make sure your PPC account is ready. Do a full check of your PPC account, add all the necessary negative keywords you can to avoid irrelevant clicks and make sure you’re appearing in good positions for keywords that have consistently converted in the past. However, I would shy away from making wholesale changes, you probably won’t have time to deal with the ongoing optimisation necessary to make sure these changes work. Also, if they don’t have the effect you’re anticipating, you may miss out on sales.
3. Up your budgets. Unfortunately, there’s no getting around this. With higher search volumes come higher costs. However, people are also in the mood to buy, so conversion costs should fall sharply too. You don’t want to miss out on potential sales because your account is offline due to lack of funds.
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