Network Solutions recently released a new whitepaper with information about how merchants can better plan and prepare their sites for the upcoming holiday season. The whitepaper is called, “7 Steps to Improve Your Online Holiday Sales” (link goes to the form you need to fill out in order to download the PDF). The paper uses data and statistics from other trusted industry sources such as Internet Retailer, eMarketer, Vertical Web Media and Practical eCommerce.

The whitepaper provides pretty good insights into eCommerce holiday shopping preparedness and also includes some hidden gems of information within it, however I thought they could have done a lot better job on the document length, topics covered and release date timing. Overall, I still enjoyed reading the PDF and recommend others read it, but in my opinion the topics and tips they provided were things that all merchants should practice, not only before the holidays, but year round.

Before I get into why I thought the paper could have been better planned and written, I will briefly mention what the paper’s 7 holiday tips are, then I will provide a little of my personal opinion as to why many of the tips should be practiced all the time, not just before or during the holiday shopping season.

In short, the 7 tips mentioned in the paper are as follows …

• Update your product catalog and inventory
• Make it easy for your customers to shop for gifts
• Enhance your site design with holiday flair
• Make potential buyers comfortable about your business
• Provide specific delivery lead times
• Use pay per click advertising to drive traffic to your site
• Use holiday specials to convert shoppers to buyers

First, let me start off by saying that I completely agree that these tips, if practiced, will lead to better performance for nearly any type of eCommerce enabled site. These are rules I personally recommend and they are things I personally practice with my own eCommerce stores, however there is one main difference, I try to do all the things mentioned above year round, not just during certain times of the year. I agree that there are times of the year where marketing and site performance factors need to be “bulked up” or improved on a large scale, but I think the most successful Online sellers use these rules all the time within their marketing strategies or design/usability goals. I think that the 7 rules are a necessity for any merchant who plans to take the next step or attempts to grow their business from small to large.

In my opinion, this paper is nothing more than a reminder to merchants who wait for the last minute to prepare for upcoming seasons or events that require design changes or process upgrades, including anything related to the catalog management or inventory. The paper is barely in time for the holidays itself as it probably should have been released two weeks ago, near the beginning of October, rather than the middle of the month. Now it’s going to be a lot harder for merchants to implement all the things mentioned in the paper BEFORE the holidays are upon us. We are almost two months from Christmas and Online sellers should already be doing many of the things mentioned in the paper. Personally, I like to have all my additional holiday campaigns and design changes in place before Labor Day, but certainly Halloween is the very latest that these changes should be implemented. If you are just now thinking about bulking things up for the holidays, you had better hurry, Halloween is just around the corner.

I will give my own little spin on each tip mentioned in the paper, keep in mind that not every merchant, especially smaller sellers, are going to be able to accomplish these rules during the entire year due to time, knowledge, support or budget restrictions. The following tips are meant to be an ideal way of doing things, I understand budgets and time do not always allow for ideal circumstances. Each business should always consider their own individual circumstances before attempting any or all of the following recommendations at once.

Network Solutions says to Update your product catalog and inventory in order to prepare for the holidays.

• I say you should be updating your catalog and inventory all the time, but especially before upcoming seasons or the busiest times of the year. The holidays aren’t always the busiest time of the year for Online sellers. For some it is the summer months, for others it is around Christmas. No matter what time of the year it is for your business, try to plan for the time of year it is and always make sure you are updating catalog prices, descriptions and information. Always try to make sure you have enough inventory to match consumer demand based on past years sales or shopping market trends.

Network Solutions says to Make it easy for your customers to shop for gifts in order to prepare for the holidays.

• I say merchants, especially those with gift sites, should always be adding features to make it easy for shoppers to find gifts by occasion (birthday, marriage, special occasion, etc) or by the type of relationship you have with the person (sister, mother, greeting, etc). Many sites have implemented cool product refinements and sorting options that allow shoppers to narrow results by topic or theme. I recommend always allowing shoppers to find gifts, whether it by a specific gift section of the site or whether it be a sorting option in the sidebar. Ideally, it’s best to offer a gift section that updates depending on the time of year and occasions that commonly warrant gift purchases during those times of the year. Walmart does a good job of this with their promotions for back-to-school followed by Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and finally New Years gift ideas.

Network Solutions says to Enhance your site design with holiday flair in order to prepare for the holidays.

• This is a great tip that many Online sellers forget to implement. I think a lot of merchants underestimate the power of quality graphics and the placement of those graphics in order to reap the highest return on each campaign. I say that you should always be adding in fun, exciting, new graphics that change up the look and feel of your eCommerce site depending on the time of year or the occasions that come during those times. Fresh graphics are appealing to shoppers and act as excellent promotional tools on an eCommerce site. Ideally, every eCommerce business should have an in-house graphic designer that works on upcoming graphics for the site year round.

Network Solutions says to Make potential buyers comfortable about your business in order to prepare for the holidays.

• This is definitely something merchants should be doing year round and not just during upcoming busy seasons. I say that every eCommerce enabled site should have the proper security certificates, trust badges and banners in place so that shoppers/buyers feel comfortable about the business all the time, not just special occasions, or when merchants expect higher volumes of traffic. Why would this be done in preparation for the holidays and not all the time? Who knows. To me, this is one of the first steps new merchants should address and implement before attempting to enter any niche in the Online selling space.

Network Solutions says to Provide specific delivery lead times in order to prepare for the holidays.

• Again, this is something that should ideally be practiced year round. Of course, the lead times change depending on the seasons and we know how hectic things get with delivery companies around the holidays, but if merchants had the system in place to begin with, the only thing that should change would be the actual time or days it takes to deliver shipments. You should always have a system in place that presents the delivery time to the customer, followed by a tracking number for them to use. Don’t wait until the holidays to implement this system, it should be something that is addressed right away, maybe even before you consider going live for the first time.

Network Solutions says to Use pay per click advertising to drive traffic to your site in order to prepare for the holidays.

• Pay per click is a form of advertising offered by major search engines and comparison shopping engines. Many merchants who currently use pay per click bulk up their PPC ad budget around the holidays (not always by choice, many CSE’s and search engines will increase ad costs during the busiest shopping seasons each year, especially around Christmas). I say that PPC is always something that should be used, whether it is the simplest form or a large campaign across multiple channels. It works great when done right and can really help round out a search marketing campaign and has the potential to increase sales across the board, no matter what time of year it is. PPC works great for new product releases as well. To me, it is something that should be considered all the time, whether you use it to promote a new item, a new feature or as a part of your regular marketing.

Network Solutions says to Use holiday specials to convert shoppers to buyers in order to prepare for the holidays.

• Again, another great tip, but not necessarily something that should only be considered during the holidays. Specials and promotions are a part of eTailing and retailing. They always will be as far as I can see and, in my opinion, the most successful sellers use them all the time, year in and year out. Companies like Macy’s run new promotions and specials nearly every week and have their largest promotions two times a year. One during the holidays and one for back to school, generally. Even though they spend a little more money or come up with something extra special during the holidays, they do not limit their specials and promotions to that time of the year, they do it year round. Specials are great and they work. Why not use them all the time?

Basically, I agree with the points Network Solutions has made, but I think these are great tips for any merchant no matter what time of year it is. To me, all these tips and suggestions fall under the classifications of eCommerce best practices or site design and usability. Tomorrow I plan on releasing This caused me to release my own list of 21 eCommerce Usability Best Practices that can be used all the time on nearly any type of store.

Great tips Network Solutions, next time maybe come up with some more holiday specific ones and try to get the document out sooner in the month. You did provide a great recap of data and stats from other industry sources over the past year and for that I liked the pdf.