December has long been the most crucial sales season of the year. A significant portion of purchases is shifting from physical stores to online shops, as shopping online is simpler, faster and customers can avoid the crowds.  

Online retailers must ensure they are well-prepared for the December sales season to run smoothly, as this is key to achieving the desired sales results. The preparation for the sales season must be comprehensive, covering all processes within the company. If any process is not optimized or adjusted to accommodate increased sales, it will hinder the overall performance and result in the opposite effect – dissatisfied customers waiting for their orders. 

The fact is, more and more people are making their purchases well before the holidays, wanting to avoid crowded shopping malls or waiting until the last minute for package delivery. This means that holiday sales strategies must begin earlier than usual. Statistics show that online stores generate 80% of their revenue in the first half of December, well before Christmas, while only 20% of their revenue comes in the second half of the month. 

How and Where to begin?

Reviewing the Previous Year
Data from past years is incredibly valuable and should never be overlooked. Before crafting a new strategy, it’s essential to analyze last year’s holiday sales performance: what worked well, what didn’t, what satisfied customers and what frustrated them. Answering these questions before developing a new strategy ensures that insights gained from experience are put to good use. 

Implementing Multiple Sales Channels
The holiday season is an excellent opportunity for online retailers to reconnect with previous customers and remind them of their offerings. This can be done through various channels. At MetaKocka (https://ordermanagement.biz/), an ERP solution for online retailers, they observe that businesses increasingly succeed in generating repeat purchases. This success is often linked to leveraging multiple sales channels, with SMS proving to be the most effective. SMS can be utilized in several sales strategies, including upselling at checkout, suggesting complementary products to existing customers and re-engaging shoppers who abandoned their carts. Cart abandonment is a challenge for every online retailer and becomes even more frequent during the holiday season. With so many deals available, buyers can feel overwhelmed, make multiple purchases and sometimes forget to complete their transactions. Therefore, during the holiday sales period it is especially important to remind the customers about their abandoned carts and motivate them with special promotions, price reductions or added perks.

Website Optimization:
Businesses focused on long-term growth don’t want to keep increasing their spending on paid visibility every year. Instead, they seek ways to attract more visitors organically. One of the most effective methods is website optimization, which involves a step-by-step approach:

Onsite website optimization refers to the process of ensuring that the content and structure of your website adhere as closely as possible to Google's guidelines. These recommendations are designed to help Google's algorithm better understand the content on your website, which can lead to improved visibility in search results.

Offsite website optimization involves activities that are carried out online but outside of your own website. The main objective of these efforts is to build backlinks—links from other websites that point to your online store. The goal of offsite optimization is to generate as many high-quality backlinks as possible, as these significantly influence how search engines rank your website.

Technical website optimization focuses on improving the overall functionality and performance of your website, ensuring a smooth and satisfying experience for potential customers. If an online store is not fast or responsive enough, this can have a negative effect on the user experience, often leading to potential customers leaving the site without completing their purchase. 

Optimisation of Support Systems: 
In addition to optimising sales and websites, it is crucial to ensure that all support systems are optimised to keep pace with increased sales. Otherwise, seemingly secondary or support systems may actually become the bottleneck that hinders sales and overall success during the holiday season. 

First and foremost, it is essential to secure stock in time products that will be featured on online shelves during the holiday period. By reviewing the previous year, we can identify bestsellers and eliminate poorly performing products, replacing them with new ones. 

Selecting and optimising an ERP system and implementing automation is important not only during the holiday season but throughout the entire year. However, the holiday period highlights deficiencies and weak points that need to be optimised or improved. 
MetaKocka, with its Order Management system, continuously develops functionalities throughout the year to simplify and automate the e-commerce process—from purchase to package delivery. This allows the system to handle increased sales volumes while also serving as an auxiliary sales channel.
The functionalities that MetaKocka identifies as key include:

•    automated invoicing and fiscalisation
•    automatic creation of shipping labels for the selected courier
•    package tracking
•    automated customer notification via SMS and email
•    implementation of an abandoned cart recovery system

The final, and arguably most important, support system that must not be overlooked in preparing for the holiday season is the optimisation and preparation of the warehouse. Warehouse processes must be efficient, fast, and automated in order to maintain quality when faced with a high volume of online orders.
MetaKocka has addressed this need with its mobile warehouse solution (https://ordermanagement.biz/citalec-za-odpremo-in-prejem/), enabling warehouse operations to become modern, fast and error-free: something that is absolutely vital during peak sales periods. With the mobile app, stock intake becomes more accurate and quicker. Likewise, dispatch operations ensure that packages do not get lost during packing and that the contents always match the order, guaranteeing customer satisfaction.

Logistics organisation

Warehouse organisation

ERP system