It’s no secret that the busiest seasons for shopping revolve around holidays. According to a 2023 survey, consumers will be shopping for an average of 14 people this holiday season, making it an extremely valuable time of the year. With more sales and customers comes more preparation. 

Whether it’s a proper marketing plan or getting your website equipped for an influx of visitors, the holidays can be the best and busiest time of the year for your online shop. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Below, we’ll cover our top e-commerce tips for preparing your e-commerce holiday strategy for all holidays, Black Friday and beyond. 

1. Learn which holidays are most important to your users and vertical  

First things first, you want to determine which holidays are the most important to your customers. Look at past holiday sales and ask yourself questions like: 

• What months have we seen a spike in online sales year-over-year (YoY)? 
• What holiday promotions did well in the past? 
• What product promotions can we tie to specific holidays? 

Remember, though e-commerce sites see a spike for end-of-the-year holidays, there are plenty of other holidays during the year when potential customers are doing online gift shopping, such as Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. 

Aside from larger holidays, there are plenty of holidays that you can tie to your specific audience and run promotions to increase sales. For example, maybe your customer base is strictly women, so you run a promotion in March for International Women’s Day. Or maybe you’re a wellness brand that can lean on International Mind Body Wellness Day in January to increase new year sales. 

2. Create a holiday plan and templatize it 

When it comes to busy holiday seasons, you’ll want to start planning early—ideally a few months in advance. Once you know what holidays you want to target, it’s time to start creating a plan of action. Creating a templated plan is a great way to ensure you’re able to modify it and use it year-round no matter the holiday or the season. 

Your holiday plan should include things like: 

• Holiday marketing strategies
• Discounts and promotions 
• Inventory preparation 
• Holiday goals and metrics to track 
• Holiday budget 
• Website preparation and testing

When thinking about your plan timelines, consider these general guidelines and tweak them based on your business’s needs:

• 6 months before: Start a rough plan 
• 4 months before: Look at past holiday data to help formulate a set strategy
• 3 months before: Finalize the plan 
• 2 months before: Start the content creation process
• 1 month before: Push online content live (i.e. gift guides, etc.) and finalize inventory 
• 3 weeks before: Prepare your website and test all functionalities 
• 2 weeks before: Promote holiday deals 

3. Build holiday marketing campaigns and promotions  

Your holiday marketing campaigns are a crucial component of your overall e-commerce holiday strategy. After all, it’s what will attract new and existing customers to your online store. 

Knowing what marketing channels to utilize can vary based on your target customer base. Look at past holiday campaign data to determine what marketing strategy drove the most conversions and prioritize that in your current campaign. Prepare marketing content for social media channels, email campaigns, paid advertising, and other marketing channels to make sure you hit all of your bases.  

Promotions during the holidays not only lead to an increase in sales—they can also keep your customers engaged and excited for what’s to come. Some holiday promotional ideas include: 

• Holiday discounts 
• Free shipping 
• Social media giveaway 
• Bundle sales   
• Free gifts at checkout 
• Free gift wrapping 
• Discounts on gift cards 
• Limited-time deals 
• Discount codes for returning customers 

4. Keep holidays at the forefront of your site design

When customers come to your site, they want to know you’re just as excited as they are about the holiday season. Having a visually appealing seasonal site design can influence more sales and make it easy for customers to see what kind of holiday sales you’re running. Make sure to update your homepage with holiday promotions and products, update your messaging to have a seasonal spin, and link to any gift guides you’ve created. 

Though a holiday twist is always fun, make sure it still aligns with your branding. You want your customers to still recognize your brand when they come to your site, so adding tasteful seasonal elements while keeping your branding consistent can do just the trick. 

5. Plan for increased web traffic 

During the holidays, you need to make sure your e-commerce store can handle incoming traffic. Holidays are the time of year when you may see a larger influx of users on your site, which unfortunately means there’s more room for things to go wrong if your website isn’t prepared. Here are some steps you can take ahead of the holiday rush: 

Test your site speed using a tool like Google’s Page Speed Tool and make any necessary changes it suggests.

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and test it with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure your site is ready for mobile users. 

• Avoid making large updates to your website layout so technical issues don’t arise. 
• Ensure your website is stocked with inventory based on your holiday promotions. 
• Enable cookies so return customer’s data can be saved for an easy checkout process.
• Make sure plugins and third-party integrations are up to date. 

Ultimately, website issues can damage the customer experience and lead those visitors to your competitors. Make sure you’re properly testing your site to make sure it’s equipped for the volume of traffic you can expect to see. 

6. Make the purchase process simple 

Data shows that 18% of shoppers abandon their cart because of a long and complicated checkout process. Once users have made it to your checkout page, you’ll want to make the purchase process as smooth and quick as possible so they don’t abandon their cart before completing the purchase. 

To optimize your checkout experience, simplicity is key. Here are five steps you can take to ensure the purchase process runs smoothly during the holiday season. 

1. Keep everything on one page 

If the checkout process is too long and takes users through multiple pages, the chances of them leaving your site increase. Minimize this by having a single checkout page to make the process as quick as possible for customers. 

2. Implement guest check out 

Not every customer that comes to your site wants to create a login and have their information saved—and that’s okay. For users looking to checkout quickly, enable a guest checkout option so they can quickly input their shipping and payment information and complete the checkout process.  

3. Give shoppers shipping options 

Consider offering multiple shipping options to your customers. Options like expedited two-day shipping can ensure those last-minute shoppers get their holiday gifts on time. 

4. Allow customers to choose shipping insurance 

Nothing dampens the holiday spirit more than a lost or stolen package. To complete a seamless holiday shopping experience, offer shipping insurance to ease your customer's minds. 

5. Offer multiple payment options 

You’d hate to lose a customer because you don’t offer their preferred method of payment. Consider adding multiple payment options in addition to debit and credit cards, like PayPal and Apple Pay.    

An e-commerce payment processing solution like QuickBooks Payments can help make it easy to accept payments from customers so they have a hassle-free checkout process. 

 7. Make your website easy to navigate

Customers should be able to easily navigate your website without any issues, so make sure your online store is ready for visitors. You want the customer experience to be easy and enjoyable. This means you’ll want to make sure the design and structure of your website reflect your brand and makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for while leading them to the bottom of the sales funnel. 

Don’t overcrowd your main navigation with too many options or you may overwhelm customers and actually lead them right off of your site. Consider creating a holiday products tab in your main navigation so customers can easily find holiday promotions and deals on your site. 

If your site isn’t equipped for a surge of visitors or is tricky to navigate, you risk losing out on potential customers and sales. 

8. Be flexible with your return policy 

There’s a good chance you’ll see an increase in returns around the holiday season as people are returning and exchanging gifts. Consider being flexible with your return policy to make the process as seamless as possible. 

Make sure your return policy is clearly outlined and easy for customers to access and has clear instructions on how to process a return. As an added bonus, consider taking care of the return label so there’s one less thing a customer has to worry about. 

Not only will this make for some happy customers, it’ll also increase the likelihood they’ll return to your site—and who doesn’t love spreading some holiday cheer?

9. Increase your customer support  

During the holidays, more visitors will likely mean more customer inquiries. Because of this, make sure you have enough employees on your customer support team that can respond to customers quickly. You may even want to consider hiring seasonal employees to ensure you have adequate support to carry out the influx of customer requests. Your support team should consist of employees carrying out requests via phone, email, social media, and live chat. 

To minimize the number of customer inquiries you receive, make sure you have content on your site that can guide customers through common questions. These pages and features include: 

• FAQ page 
• Policies page
• Contact page 
• Live chat 

10. Plan ahead based on seasonality

Though the end of the year is one of the busiest times for e-commerce sites, there are plenty of other seasons during the year where you may see a spike in traffic and sales. Staying on top of seasonal trends and holidays can help you come up with a proper e-commerce holiday strategy no matter the time of year. 

Accounting tools for small businesses like QuickBooks can make it easy to manage inventory, orders, and customer insights so your online store is equipped for the holiday season. With a proper e-commerce holiday strategy, you’ll have customers coming back to your store even after the holidays. 

Below, we break down some of the upcoming 2023 e-commerce holidays to keep in mind, as well as holidays and seasons to plan ahead for in 2024 and beyond. 

2023 e-commerce holidays to keep in mind

With the end of the year holiday season approaching, here are some important 2023 e-commerce holidays you should prepare for. 

Black Friday 

When: November 24, 2023

Black Friday is the day to kick off the holiday shopping season, making it a huge day to hold deals and attract customers to your online store. Though Black Friday started as an in-person shopping event, it’s migrated to an online event as well. 

Cyber Monday 

When: November 27, 2023

Cyber Monday is by far the biggest shopping holiday for e-commerce stores. In 2020, Cyber Monday was the holiday with the highest conversion rates in North America It’s a day dedicated to online shopping deals, so make sure your promotions and deals are at the forefront of your e-commerce site.  

Giving Tuesday 

When: November 28, 2023 

Though Giving Tuesday isn’t necessarily a shopping holiday, it’s a great day for you to show your customers you care and increase your brand loyalty. Giving Tuesday is just what it sounds like—a day to give back and show generosity to your community. You can do this by making a donation to a charity your business believes in or by holding a special promotion where customers can buy a product and the proceeds will go to the charity you support. 

Green Monday 

When: December 11, 2023 

Green Monday is an important holiday to note in the e-commerce world, but it’s not typically one that needs to be advertised. The term Green Monday was coined by eBay in 2007 after they realized it was their best sales day. Though you don’t need to hold any special promotions this day, you’ll want to make sure your e-commerce site is ready for a spike in traffic. 

Super Saturday 

When: December 23, 2023 

Super Saturday, also known as Panic Saturday, happens the last Saturday before Christmas and marks the end of the holiday shopping season. Take advantage of those last-minute shoppers by hosting one-day deals and special shipping perks so their gifts can arrive before Christmas. 

Other holidays that can impact e-commerce in 2024 and beyond

Wondering what other e-commerce holidays and seasons you can plan ahead for? Check out a month-by-month overview below.  

January 

• New Year’s Day 

February 

• Family Day
• Galentine’s Day
• Valentine’s Day
• Black History Month

March 

• International Women’s Day
• St. Patrick’s Day
• First Day of Spring

April 

• Easter days
• National Pet Day
• Earth Day 

May 

• Mental Health Awareness Month 
• Asian Heritage Month Month
• Eid al-Fitr
• Victoria Day
• Cinco de Mayo
• Mother’s Day  
• Memorial Day 
• Customer Appreciation Day

June 

• National Indigenous History Month
• Pride Month 
• Father’s Day 
• First Day of Summer

July 

• Canada Day 
• Get to Know Your Customers Day 

August 

• Civic Holidays
• Back-to-School shopping starts

September 

• National Day of Truth and Reconciliation
• Labour Day 
• Grandparent’s Day
• First Day of Fall

October 

• Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• World Mental Health Day
• Thanksgiving 
• Diwali 
• Halloween  

November 

• Day of the Dead
• Remembrance Day

December 

• First Day of Winter
• Hanukkah
• Kwanzaa
• Christmas

 11. Adjust your strategy to stay on top of holiday sales 

Stay ahead of e-commerce trends and holidays by preparing your strategy early—like your marketing plan, inventory count, promotional ideas, and content strategy. Make sure your business is ready for the influx of customers and sales while prioritizing the customer experience. 

When thinking about the holidays, evaluate previous holiday performance to determine what worked and what didn’t and what you can replicate in your next holiday strategy. Analyze things like: 

• Traffic spikes 
• Social media engagement 
• What platforms customers came from (i.e social media, search engines, paid ads, etc)
• Sales volume and sales growth 
• What promotions performed well 
• What marketing tactics you used and how did they perform 
• The amount of inventory sold and left over 

Looking to start your business soon? Then you're in the right place. Take advantage of solutions like Ownr, Canada’s leading online platform to streamline registration, incorporation, and legal compliance. With simple yet powerful tools, Ownr supports entrepreneurs to start, grow, and manage their business in one, convenient dashboard. So you can focus on what matters most—like preparing for a great holiday season.