R u ready?
Holiday season dramatics have peppered the press in recent years with really rather inhuman antics as people clamour for deals ... stepping on one other, snatching goods from another's arms, queues wrapping round the car park and truly worrying scenes of selfishness and consumer rage ... oh for the yesteryear challenge of sold out cabbage patch dolls and the stars wars lego compendium rather than this scramble of greed.
If this is the reality in the physical store then imagine what is occurring online in the virtual store ...
... ecommerce retailers today have had to ramp up their operations to deal with an increase in digital orders (25%+ of overall retail sales), an ever more demanding consumer expectation, the pressure of supply chain disruption, green must haves and escalating costs from every angle.
Yet many small and medium retailers still manage their commerce operations on a spreadsheet with mostly manual processes to handle this increasing complexity.
When peak season hits and Black Friday / Cyber Monday kick in ... can they cope? Because if they don't, the cost could be crippling not to mention the loss of customer of loyalty.
So what to do ...
PREPARATION: it is never to late to prepare for the onslaught, with just over a week to go, connect with your partners, line them up with your forecasted needs. Get your product bundles in order with a strategy for pricing. Pre-pack ... get ahead of the inevitable tasks.
MARKETING: don't wait until the last minute to speak to your ideal customer target, do a bit of pre-sales education and messaging. Whet their appetite now and see if you can refine that forecast a bit further.
RESEARCH: do a bit of last minute research on what the hot trends and interests are, tweak your web pages to ensure you'll be top of the rankings when those searches begin.
SOCIAL: get your groove on across the airwaves and do a bit of networking. I have to confess I do my best shopping sat on the sofa scrolling from offer to offer. Push your goods across multiple marketplaces and see what happens.
TECH: update your listings across all potential channels and check your inventory levels.
PEOPLE: make sure you've got the requisite staff in place upstream and downstream to be on hand to handle customer requests and fulfilment needs. If you're short, enlist family and friends, use your network.
PROCESS: dig out the cheat sheets and documented procedures for standard operations and 'what if' scenarios.
The better prepared you are, the smoother the rush will be.
Now if all goes well, grab a mince pie and a glass of grog and give yourself a massive pat on the back for a job well done.
But if all goes a bit topsy turvy, schedule a call with us here at Linnworks so that we can help you revamp your Connected CommerceOps and set you up for a bonanza New Year with efficient and effective operations both front end (order management) and back end (warehouse management) to support your online sales business.
Ready. Steady. Grow. ... and Happy Holidays