Your 2016
Guide to Holiday
Readiness
From site readiness planning
to post-holiday, here’s what
retail brands need to know
to ensure a happy holiday.
Introduction
Table of Contents
It’s hard to overstate how important the weeks between
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Holiday Wish List
Thanksgiving and Christmas are to retail brands. For
many, this short period of time accounts for the bulk
of the year’s sales and because of that, can make or
Macro Factors – The Retailer’s 2016
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Mobile Optimization
break the year.
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Site Readiness
That being the case, no stone must be left unturned
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The Art of Giving Back
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Maintaining Momentum Post-Holiday
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Make the Most of Returns
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The Ultimate Holiday Checklist
in terms of planning; marketing, merchandising, site
readiness, product mix, logistics, post-holiday…the
list goes on. Our experts, who work with some of the
world’s biggest brands, know what it takes to have a
successful holiday selling season.
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Macro Factors –
The Retailer’s 2016
Holiday Wish List
By Christa Matukaitis
Industry Principal, Retail Practice
The Christmas holiday season represents a full
one-third of annual sales for many retail brands. It’s
a critical time of year. This section looks at macro
retail factors presented as a retail holiday wish
list, including seasonal weather, foot traffic, high
conversion, great SEO and more.
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The Retail Holiday Wish List for 2016
Extra shopping days for the season
There will be two extra shopping days during the
peak period between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
In 2015, the one extra day drove a 3% increase in
orders, meaning that retailers need to prepare and
account for additional promotions, inventory and
spikes in demand.
Seasonable appropriate weather
Be prepared for unpredictable weather, and adjust
your promotions accordingly and on the fly. Consider
the 70-degree weather last December in New England,
which didn’t set many holiday shoppers in the mood to
buy down coats and other cold-weather gear.
Top SEO ranking
Build your SEO to capture early bird shoppers, and
make your best offers early in the season. In 2015,
traffic was higher on the days leading up to Black Friday
as shoppers pre-shopped and build shopping carts and
wish lists.
Eager shoppers
Using daily flash sales is a good idea, but consider creating FOMO or “fear of missing out” by emulating what one
retailer did – create an advent calendar with the previous
day’s sale item grayed out so shoppers could see what
they missed.
High open rates
Don’t underestimate the importance of email subject
lines. Experiment with emojis, mystery offers, humor,
branded hashtags, a sense of urgency or even refer to a
specific dollar amount promotion. Commerce Cloud customers have access to Predictive Email to deliver personalized offers. Shoppers will be buried with email offers.
Yours must stand out.
Increased foot traffic
Don’t forget last minute shoppers. Drive them in store
with incentives once free shipping deadlines have
passed. Create in-store events for shopping laggards and
communicate how store associates can help “save the
holiday” by finding the perfect gift.
Your 2016 Guide to Holiday Readiness: Macro Factors – The Retailer’s 2016 Holiday Wish List
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Easy gift selection
Use guided selling gift finders using a series of questions
and answers to suggest items. Consider updating the content slot headers and footers with holiday-themed text.
Higher conversion rates
Offer at least one alternative payment type and always
offer shoppers an option to check out as a guest. Need
proof for that last point? Eight-five percent of checkouts
on the Commerce Cloud are as a guest.
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Shipping accuracy
And speaking of shipping – during holiday, consumers’
expectations are raised exponentially. They want to know
precisely when product will be delivered, so retailers
should offer real-time tracking and SMS alerts.
It is never too early to start planning for Christmas holiday,
and it’s not too late to address some of the aforementioned elements, which will help ensure a happy holiday.
Customer satisfaction
Step up your game with respect to pre and post-sale service. Consider a “holiday services” page with shipping and
returns information, and give an opportunity for customers to leave feedback, expressing excitement about their
gift or unboxing.
Your 2016 Guide to Holiday Readiness: Macro Factors – The Retailer’s 2016 Holiday Wish List
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2016 Holiday Shopping Days
NOV. 11 th
NOV. 24 th
NOV. 25 th
NOV. 28 th
NOV. 29 th
Veterans Day (US)
Singles Day (China)
Thanksgiving Day
LY: 11/26 (4.5% of holiday sales)
DEC. 18th
FREE Shipping Day
DEC. 24th
- JAN. 1 st
Hanukkah
DEC. 25th
Christmas Day
DEC. 26th
Boxing Day (UK)
DEC. 24th
- JAN. 1 st
Kwanzaa
Black Friday
LY: 11/27 (8.8% of holiday sales)
Cyber Monday
LY: 11/30 (10.3% of holiday sales)
Giving Tuesday
JAN. 1 st
New Year’s Day
.
Your 2016 Guide to Holiday Readiness: Chapter Name
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Optimize For Mobile
By Rick Kenney
Head of Consumer Insights
The story of this holiday shopping season will be
mobile, as phones now account for all of the growth
in traffic to retail sites. Advancements in payment,
like Apple Pay for the web, will further drive adoption
of m-commerce.
This holiday shopping season may be the first where
most people cannot shop without their phones. This
has huge implications for retailers, as those who don’t
take a mobile-first approach will be left behind by more
fleet-footed competitors. According to the
Q2 Shopping Index, phones accounted for 47% of
traffic to retail sites, and 27% of orders.
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How can retailers optimize their mobile presence
a phone, creating a bad user experience and giving shoppers
to engage with and retain easily distracted,
an invitation to visit another site.
impatient shoppers?
Mobile Site Design and Functionality
First and foremost, mobile site design and functionality
must cater to the unique needs of mobile users, starting
One Commerce Cloud customer said they invested in several
dozen phones to test all elements of their mobile experience,
ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks in the lead up
to holiday.
with large and persistent search boxes. On mobile,
Geolocation
site search usage is 44% higher with a persistent
Just as mobile users have unique needs, mobile devices
search box expanded in the header. It’s no secret that
provide retailers with unique advantages, like geolocation,
friction in the checkout process gums up the works of
which should be leveraged to the fullest. Retailers should use
mobile commerce, so optimizing your checkout flow is
geolocation to suggest the nearest store – it is one of the top
absolutely vital. Apple Pay for the web, for one, promises
use cases on mobile – and link to phone numbers and other
to accelerate the checkout and payment flow, and has
contact information. This is enormously important as many
the potential to increase conversion and drive higher
mobile users will search for a brand not to shop, but for the
order share on phones.
express purpose of finding a store.
While retail brands might not be taking a mobile-only
approach just yet, they should be thinking mobile-first
when it comes to development and design. An element
that looks great on the full web might render horribly on
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Optimize For Mobile
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There are several ways retailers can leverage
Mobile Performance and Load Times
geolocation to personalize the mobile shopping
On mobile, more so than on the full web, shoppers
experience this holiday:
will quickly abandon a site for poor performance. In
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Display the closest store and store-specific
fact, the optimum load time for a mobile site is about
promotions
four seconds – that’s not easy to maintain during peak
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Determine buy online, ship-to-store or pickup in store shopping times.
availability based on proximity to participating store
Here are some tips to improve mobile performance:
Use content slot messaging to highlight ship and
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payment options for a shoppers’ region
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Target specific products and promotions based on and use web services where possible
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regional preferences or the weather, and prepare
for the unexpected; recall the 70-degree Christmas
holiday in New England in 2015.
And speaking of store, during holiday, retailers should
cater to last-minute shoppers by driving them from
Keep the site simple; minimize third-party downloads
Streamline and lighten critical pages in the
conversion funnel
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Lighten the number of page elements and use image
compression (image weight is a performance killer!)
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Reduce server roundtrips and minimize latency by
using a content delivery network
their mobile device into the store, particularly once
free shipping deadlines have passed. Retailers should
promote the expertise of store associates to help
shoppers find the perfect gift.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Optimize For Mobile
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Usability and Simplicity
Save Carts
Of course, usability and simplicity is key in mobile. The
More than half of shoppers abandon their online
fewer clicks, the better.
shopping cart because they are not ready to purchase;
Some tips:
•
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retail brands can save the sale by giving shoppers the
option to save or email their cart to themselves. One
Give shoppers the option to check out as a guest
global retailer at a recent Commerce Cloud holiday
– 85% of checkouts on the Commerce Cloud are
readiness roundtable said they like ‘Email my cart’
made as such
because it does not require registration and thus, tends
Consider a zip code lookup to minimize
to improve stickiness.
required fields
As the recent Mobile Shopping Focus report
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Provide at least one alternate payment type
demonstrates, phones represent the biggest disruption
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Use big, clear buttons to make the path to
to retail since retail went digital. But it’s even more
purchase crystal clear
disruptive given the astonishingly short period of time in
Provide an extra layer of confidence by using a
which it has occurred. The story of this Christmas holiday
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padlock icon on checkout buttons
shopping season will be mobile, mobile, and mobile.
You must make sure you are ready.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Optimize For Mobile
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Site Readiness:
Common Issues &
How To Address
By Gary Barnes
Technical Director, Customer Support
Every day should be Black Friday. In the run up to
holiday, retailers pull out all the stops to ensure
that their systems are thoroughly optimized to
handle big and prolonged spikes in traffic and
purchasing activity. But we advocate for retailers
to be in a continuous state of peak readiness if
they want to deliver the best possible experience
for shoppers.
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Our Technical Director of Customer Service, responsible
for peak traffic preparedness, scalability and
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Let’s examine each one.
performance, identifies three primary reasons retailers
Pipeline runtimes
experience site problems, and how to address them
Retailers should strive for a pipeline average runtime
during the most important time of the year.
target of about 500 milliseconds. Anything under
The Commerce Cloud Customer Service team focuses
on (among other things) peak traffic preparedness
and identifying and implementing best practices for
scalability and performance. Experience shows that the
primary reasons retail brands experience site problems,
which are more likely to occur during peak times, boils
down to three things:
this threshold is considered “safe” while anything
approaching or over one second is a red flag indicating
that the site is not scaling properly. How do you know
what’s causing slowness? A pipeline profiler shows a
processing breakdown by site and pinpoints problem
areas and allows you to monitor performance after a
code deployment, which is common around peak selling
times. And to dispel the myth, pipeline profilers do not
1 Slow pipeline runtimes
degrade performance so, really, there is no reason not
2 Ineffective caching
to use one.
3 External integrations
Caching
Retailers should strive for 50-70% caching rate on
product detail pages and about 90% on the homepage.
The more data that’s cached, of course, the faster it’s
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Site Readiness: Common Issues & How To Address
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Slow Site Performance = Lost Sales
Source: Aberdeen Group
Optimal page load time for smartphones:
2 - 6 seconds
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available to users as it avoids making a trip to the server.
All third party integrations should have explicit and
In fact, a web service call lasting more than two seconds
appropriate timeout values defined. For brands on the
is considered poor and will likely frustrate your shoppers
Commerce Cloud, third-party providers should maintain
and drive them away. So how can you determine why
a complete list of outgoing IP addresses in their firewall.
something isn’t being cached? One way – limit the
Finally, here are several obvious (but sometimes
amount of custom or unique iterations for a landing page neglected) tips for ensuring peak performance during
from a large email campaign. While a more personalized holiday and year-round:
web experience may seem ideal, a shopper will definitely
appreciate site speed more when clicking through a
promotional email, especially on a mobile device.
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retentions and be cognizant of system quotas
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Integrations
Many times, poor performance has nothing to do with
the retailer itself but is the result of ineffective planning
on the part of a third-party provider. It is therefore critical
when preparing for peak traffic to ensure that third-party
Keep a clean house; purge old data, set object
Optimize backups, imports and exports, indexing
and custom jobs
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Complete performance testing after each release
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Perform load testing to determine visit numbers
and traffic patterns
vendors can effectively handle additional stress. Retail
brands should always have a way of shutting off the thirdparty integration and still have a functioning site.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Site Readiness: Common Issues & How To Address
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Consumers, And
Retailers, Give Back
Irina Kyselova
Retail Practice, Team lead
The holidays are the time of year when consumers
are most active and focused on end-of-year charitable
giving. So it’s a good time for retailers to start thinking
of implementing charitable campaigns.
Every year, encouraged by the growing cohort of
socially-conscious consumers, we see more and more
charitable campaigns launched by our customers
during the holiday season.
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Research by Cone and Ebiquity found that more than
1. Plan
90% of Internet users worldwide expect companies to
It is easy to start with charitable campaigns. After you
do more than focus on their bottom line. And they’re
choose a cause that aligns with your social responsibility
putting their money where their mouth is: 84% said they
strategy, plan campaigns that will enhance customer
tried to purchase products and services from socially
loyalty and brand reputation. Decide on the channels,
responsible companies.
dates, format, frequency and communication. Consider
Simply put, ecommerce and philanthropy are a natural
fit, and positive attitudes toward a company translate into
best practice principles when creating your plan:
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email campaigns, social media, and in-person events.
positive beliefs about the company’s products. Some
retailers are quite creative and select a variety of causes
Use a mix of channels that fit your business: website,
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Decide on the dates. You can link your campaign to
to support. As a result, it becomes easy for shoppers
key dates throughout the season, or create your own
to make a buying decision when they see a company
calendar.
contribution that resonates with their own values. Planning, content preparation and execution are
three pillars of success for running your online
charitable campaigns.
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Be creative with formats. Use all modern media
available – images and video for digital channels,
and traditional print for in-person events.
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Align communications among channels.
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If you communicate it on the website, make sure you
person events, communicate achievements and monitor
reference the campaign in your email newsletters,
public response. If you support a cause throughout the
in social media and in stores. Include the closure of
year, be sure to reinforce it repeatedly during the festive
the campaign in your plan and communicate the
season. You may want to link your campaign to key days
achievements to inspire your customers.
and increase the communication frequency
2. Content
Here are a few great examples from last season:
Create appealing visuals, video and texts for campaigns.
Health-related causes are great thing to support, and
Ask the charity you support to provide basic outlines
there are many charities that are committed to making
and creative, and adjust it to your media strategy. Adjust
health care equally accessible, improving quality,
content for different channels; website, email, social,
and supporting medical research. The beauty brand
and in-person events require the same content to be
philosophy supports the Hope&Grace Initiative by giving
presented in different formats.
one percent of net product sales to support community-
3. Execution
Depending on the way your program is structured,
you may need to implement a third-party system for
donations, or just use order reporting if you are donating
a percentage of sales. Communication is key for social
responsibility campaigns. Make sure the campaigns have
based mental health efforts.
Brooks Brothers supports a children’s research hospital
that treats children with cancer and other life-threatening
diseases. They featured the campaign and asked for
donations on their website as well as in email campaigns
throughout December.
top visibility on all channels - use social media and inYour 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Consumers, And Retailers, Give Back
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Charity #GivingTuesday
Life is Good supported Kid’s Foundation and had an
Giving Tuesday is a day devoted to charity, and
8 week tour starting in the fall. They reinforced the
occurs the day after Cyber Monday. As a response to
campaign in holiday emails and featured the tour results
commercialization of the post–Thanksgiving, the day now to draw the attention to the results – 40 communities
in 8 weeks and $1 million for kids in need.
have gained popularity in over 70 countries.
Hickory Farms launched a #GivingTuesday campaign,
At the end of the year they sent out a special email
where they communicated that each $1 donation can
featuring this charity initiative and a generous way
help connect a child with up to 10 nutritious meals.
to close 2015.
Land’s End is also using #GivingTuesday for a good cause, The numbers around #GivingTuesday, now entering its
supporting the National Coalition for the Homeless and
fifth year, are staggering. The campaign has generated 1.3
donate coats for every coat purchased.
million social media mentions, raised more than $116
Community-based causes are another way to draw
million online, and seen more than 700,000 people
support. Cole Haan, for example, supports organizations
make donations. It’s clear that consumers are civic-
providing free literary arts tutorials for under-resourced
minded, and are willing to put their money where their
children. They launched a hashtag campaign to spread
mouth is. Retail brands will do well to make sure their
the word and solicit donations.
ethos, and their charitable giving initiatives, aligns
with the them.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Consumers, And Retailers, Give Back
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Post-Holiday Strategies
To Maintain Momentum
Sara Fuhs
Senior Strategist, Content and Community
Traditional retail seasonality is marked by the
hustle leading up to Christmas, followed by
the post-holiday doldrums when retailers are
overwhelmed by returns, merchandise leftovers
and markdowns, and consumers pull back the
reins on spending.
However, retailers should not take their foot
off the gas. Post-holiday is the perfect time to
continue the momentum into the New Year. Get
creative and start planning strategies now to build
customer engagement and drive sales going into
2017. As a Senior Strategist in our Retail Practice
organization, I’ve seen what works.
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Here are six post-holiday marketing strategies to
get you started:
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Create a branded sale hashtag and invite shoppers to
post photos of their end-of-season steals on Instagram.
1. Give a great bargain and maximize sale messaging
2. Encourage gift card redemption
It goes without saying that there will be markdowns
According to CashCard.com, 72% of gift card
and that consumers expect them. Post-holiday bargain
recipients will spend an average of 20% more than
hunters will shift the focus from gift giving to scoring
their gift card value. As sales cool off post-holiday and
great deals for themselves. Your sale event will likely
consumers’ gift cards burn a hole in their pocket, it’s
span several days as you clear out seasonal merchandise.
the perfect time to encourage gift card sales. Dedicated
Consider these strategies to maximize sale event
emails with personalized product recommendations and
exposure and keep the message fresh:
secondary gift card redemption messages throughout the
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Create segmented sale follow-up emails by category.
Use past purchase history to target shoppers with
top sale items for the categories they are most
likely to shop.
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site are a great way to persuade gift card recipients to shop.
3. Promote complimentary items to take advantage
of the post-holiday gift glow
Don’t miss the opportunity to promote cross-sells and
Refresh the message on the homepage or in emails
accessories. For example, mobile phones require protective
by featuring trending sale items in which you still
cases, winter coats need hats and gloves, and cameras
have ample inventory. Social proof drives conversion
need lenses and other accessories. Assume your customers
and shoppers are keenly interested in knowing what
received gifts from your brand, and suggestively message
deals others are taking advantage of.
complimentary items to go along with top-selling gifts
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throughout the site and in email campaigns. If you
The week after Christmas can be a great time to promote
can identify gift recipients through warranty registrations
these hashtag campaigns as many people are relaxing
or some other means, that’s a prime opportunity
with their families and spending more time on social
to send personalized email campaigns featuring
media. You might also consider a branded hashtag
complimentary items. campaign to tie into the New Year when customers start
4. Socialize! Keep the conversation going post-holiday
using your products in pursuit of their resolutions. Spread
the word about your hashtag via inserts in outgoing
Get creative with hashtags, and invite customers and
shipments, email marketing campaigns, site messaging,
gift recipients to join the conversation. Undoubtedly,
order confirmation emails and of course on social media.
consumers will fill their phones with photos and videos
of their favorite holiday moments, selfies and gifts
5. Refresh remarketing and abandoned cart campaigns
they received that deserve social recognition. Create a
More than ever, we see consumers using their shopping
branded hashtag and invite them to share their unboxing, carts as wish lists. Chances are they’ve saved a
gift experience or first usage of your product. For
couple items in their cart during holiday for purchase
example, in 2015, UGG used the hashtag, #MyFirstUGG,
consideration later or on another device. Remind them
to capture post-holiday excitement and build social proof
of the items they were interested in and promote
for future sales. complimentary products in remarketing banners and
abandoned cart emails. Given high traffic volumes during
the holiday shopping season, don’t miss the opportunity
to reclaim abandoned carts with fresh messaging and by
revisiting your campaign strategy. Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Post-Holiday Strategies To Maintain Momentum
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6. Get creative with email campaigns
We don’t need to tell you that the last three months of
Post-holiday, most email marketers are happy to catch
the year are enormously important to your business.
their breath after the big Q4 push, but campaigns
But holiday can create a halo effect that drives sales and
don’t stop. Here are some creative post-holiday email
generates positive engagement with your brand well into
campaign ideas that blend full price messaging with
the New Year. Start planning your post-holiday marketing
typical year-end markdowns: strategies now to set your brand apart and keep the sales
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Best of 2016 – highlight your 2016 top
momentum going!
selling products and incorporate product
reviews into the creative.
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Back in stock – if inventory got wiped out in some
of your key items during holiday, “back in stock”
messaging may help recover some sales.
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Reintroduce the benefits of your brand – holiday
brings new customer acquisition and new email
subscribers. Post-holiday is a good time to let
customers know the benefits of your brand,
highlight your loyalty program and encourage
them to follow you on social.
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Make The Most
Of Returns
By Graeme Grant
Vice President, Store Solutions
Not long after all the gifts have been opened, the
next great holiday tradition commences–the return.
Historically, most retailers view returns as a plague
on their business. The National Retail Federation’s
2015 annual survey of North America retailers
found that about one quarter of all merchandise
returned–$63 billion worth - derived from holiday.
Who wants that?
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Actually, you do!
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show that you know them and value them? For
example, they may need to come to your site to print
A return represents a valuable opportunity to not
a shipping label. Why not personalize the page to
just save the sale, but to impress your shopper
suggest alternatives to what they are returning? If you
(even if they are not the original buyer) and deepen
have to include a small inducement to make that more
your relationship with them.
compelling - so be it. Even a nominal offer will do the
Case in point: Zappos.com, whose entire business is
trick. Retailers might be surprised the lengths to which
based on a better, easy return process. The same is true
consumers will go for something that’s free.
for subscription businesses like Stitch Fix and Trunk
Club, and even store retailers like Nordstrom whose no
hassle, no limit return policies give total confidence to
the customer that this is the right - and safe - retailer from
which to buy.
Open return policies, however, are not the only
opportunity. To make a return, a consumer has to identify
themselves. Why not return the favor and
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Make The Most Of Returns
Another idea is to follow up a return from a new
customer with a letter - yes, a snail mail letter - saying
“Sorry our stuff didn’t work out this time. Here’s a little
something to convince you to let us try again.”
As a consumer, wouldn’t you be pleasantly surprised
by that? Wouldn’t that be enough to let you try that
retailer again?
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Guideboat Co. did just that for me this past holiday and
Another opportunity with returns is feedback on why
I can safely say that this the only offer from the past year
customers are returning. Bad fit? Bad quality? Off-trend?
(or month, or week or day!) from any retailer that I still
This is invaluable information for the retailer, as any
remember. THAT is successful marketing!
insight helps them improve their business. However
Multichannel retailers in particular need to seize this
opportunity. The fact that they have stores gives them a
huge advantage for returns. It saves the cost of shipping,
creates an opportunity for an exchange rather than a
return, and creates an upsell opportunity for additional
merchandise. You can also encourage store returns
with preferential pricing for returning to stores, or free
alterations on new items.
The advantage of stores in the return process is
one reason why more and more online pure-plays
opening physical stores (Bonobos, Warby Parker,
even Amazon!).
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: Make The Most Of Returns
many shoppers, if they provide a reason at all, simply
check the first box in a list of reasons. Retailers might
consider offering a small incentive for providing a return
reason, or even making it a condition of printing a free
return label. Again, store-based retailers have a distinct
advantage as they can ask the customer directly and
then see if they can solve the problem in real time (“Yes
that shirt does cut a little tight in the arm. How about
this one?”)
By capitalizing on any engagement with the customer,
initially unsatisfied customers can be enticed to return
for a second, more fulfilling retail experience.
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The Ultimate
Holiday Checklist
No matter what, preparation for the holiday
onslaught of traffic is both exhilarating and scary.
To that end, here are some things you can do now
and right up to the last minute to drive business
wins and operational efficiency.
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Update your merchandising strategy
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Tune your site search results
 Create product sets (outfits) that display mittens, hat  Add the most common misspellings to your
and boots that match a ski parka. Adding multiple
dictionaries, and review weekly during the holiday
products to your shopping cart from one page
season. Keep an eye out for low-converting terms
increases your AOV. Feature these sets in content
that are getting results. Are the correct items being
slots or top level categories.
returned?
 Launch Product Recommendations. Begin gathering
data for holiday optimization now.
 Launch a Holiday Gift Guide. Make gift guides
targeted to a theme (beach bum, jewelry lover,
stocking stuffers, etc.) and by price. Update
consistently, and feature them in emails. Target
female shoppers earlier in the season and male
shoppers in the last two weeks. (experience tells us
that women are early shoppers while men tend to
procrastinate)
 Implement holiday specific sorting rules. Our
 Create dedicated landing pages for “holiday gifts”,
“sale”, “gift ideas” and other popular search terms.
Consider using redirects for holiday-curated categories.
 Test your top 50 site search terms from last holiday
season – where do they end up?
 Make sure to avoid the dreaded “No results found”
experience. Even misspellings should take your
shoppers to their destination so there is no money
left on the table.
 Update “No Results” page to target holiday gift guides.
customers can check out the Holiday Resource
Center in Xchange in for some award winning ideas.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: The Ultimate Holiday Checklist
27
CHAPTER
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Update your SEO
Don’t forget your campaigns and promotions
 Analyze keywords that drove success last year.
 Create and share your holiday promotional and
 Check the health of your site – Review 404 errors
in webmaster tools.
 Create sneak peek or “coming soon” pages –
perfect for when you are planning your gift guide,
and it provides a nice boost to your SEO rankings.
 Get a head start on indexing Christmas-specific
queries, with keywords included in the page
metadata and copy.
communication calendar. Our customers should let
our support team know if there will be peak traffic
days beyond the norm; for example, an off-day flash
sale.
 Map out an email strategy to ensure the right
segmentation and frequency of messages are being
used.
 Keep in mind that more messages are opened
on mobile devices, and that using emoticons and
emojis in the subject lines drive open rates.
 Build a page to clearly communicate delivery dates
for holiday, and push this out through social media
and email.
 Experiment with tiered promotions to help drive
AOV and customer engagement. For example, Buy
More — Get More.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: The Ultimate Holiday Checklist
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5
 Make sure promotions communicate urgency and
FOMO (fear of missing out): Online only, Limited
Quantities, Ends Tonight!
 A free shipping promotion is a must. This is widely
6
7
 Use a single holiday hashtag for consistent social
interactions.
 Launch holiday-themed Pinterest boards for your
best selling products. Activate our Pinterest Buyable
expected by customers, and not offering it for at least
Pins cartridge. Consider a “Win your Wishlist”
some portion of the holiday season will put you at a
promotion, which are popular.
disadvantage.
 Offer a “Gift with Purchase” promotion – this is
one of the most successful and highest converting
promotions a retailer can offer during the holiday
season.
 Experiment with an Instagram hashtag. Encourage
customers to share images of them wearing/using
your products. “Share a Photo to win!”
 Investigate potential tie-ins with charities for a
“Giving Tuesday” promotion.
 Use source codes and customer groups to offer
“holiday previews” to your most loyal customers.
 Post top holiday products to Facebook to drive deep
links and consumers to your site.
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: The Ultimate Holiday Checklist
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The 11th Hour
 Put together “12 Deals of Christmas.” Offer a new
In all of this, make sure you take a mobile first focus. A
deal each day leading up to shipping cut-off. Reveal
significantly higher number of your visits, visitors, and
one deal each day to drive repeat visits. Schedule
orders will be coming through mobile devices. Whether
content slots in advance to relieve the burden of
your customers are checking inventory, shopping on the
daily content slot swaps.
train, or placing a large order, your mobile experience has
 Last minute holiday shopping is a given. Call out
to be seamless.
available shipping upgrades, extended shipping
Maybe you will get to sit back and enjoy some
deadlines, etc. Push these through affiliates and
eggnog while you’re spending your holiday bonus –
social media. Create a sense of urgency…”only three
online of course.
days left” – “There is still time!”
 Push gift cards after the holiday shipping cutoffs
including redirecting key site search queries. Use
content slot scheduling and the storefront toolkit to
test so your staff can have a few days off!
Your 2016 Guide To Holiday Readiness: The Ultimate Holiday Checklist
30
About the Salesforce Commerce Cloud
The Salesforce Commerce Cloud empowers retailers to unify customer experiences across all points of commerce, including web, social, mobile
and store. From shopping to fulfillment to customer service, the Commerce Cloud delivers 1-to-1 shopping experiences that consistently delight
customers, driving increased engagement, loyalty and conversion. With embedded predictive intelligence and a robust partner ecosystem, the
Commerce Cloud delivers customer satisfaction and growth from planning to launch and beyond.
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