Holiday decor is now on the shelves, people are making plans for gathering and some even have their shopping well underway. That means it’s too late to make adjustments to your Q4 tactics or holiday e-commerce campaigns…right?

Not exactly. There’s still plenty you can do to manage the holiday rush and ensure a smooth season. Our Rithum Managed Services experts put together a list of “quick hits” to help you tie a bow around your 2022 holiday efforts. 

10 Last-Minute Holiday Planning Tips

You may have gotten a head start this year in anticipation of holiday challenges like supply constraints and economic pressures. Or maybe this holiday season got ahead of you and now your team is scrambling for holiday e-commerce best practices. Regardless, we recommend these quick tips to help you tie up loose ends as the holiday season approaches.

Ensure Stock for Fulfillment Services

If you work with a third-party fulfillment service like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) or Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), you should be in the process of stocking them with plenty of your top-selling items for the holiday. Ensure adequate supply now so you don’t have to spend money or increase stress rushing later.

Identify and Publicize Your Last Ship Date

Calculate your last possible ship date to ensure delivery by December 25. Pair this with your shipping carrier’s last send dates and make it clear to customers so there are no surprises.

Account for Lead Times

Review your on-time delivery metrics, and assess whether or not you need to adjust lead times for fulfillment and delivery.

Prevent Overselling

Keep tabs on inventory and listings to prevent overselling, especially on Amazon, resulting in frustrated customers. Implement a “supply buffer” so you always have some stock on hand.

Avoid Big Changes

Now is not the time to be trying something new. Avoid big changes in your e-commerce setup, including pricing strategies and product description page setups. Instead, adopt an “all hands on deck” approach that highlights your biggest strengths and doubles down on advertising and promotions. 

Know Your Deadlines

Anticipate marketplace cutoffs for adding new products to the site. Adjust accordingly and list all your items as soon as possible. 

Set Up Critical Data Monitoring

Make sure reliable monitoring is in place for your feeds, quantity/price updates, orders, listing errors and top-selling items. That way, you can stay focused on urgent needs and the bigger seasonal picture when you’re in the thick of holiday selling. 

Double-Check Promotional Pricing

Double- and triple-check any promotional pricing you have scheduled through a deal planner or promotional fields. Check pricing is correct and dates are formatted correctly. Make sure to allot extra time for your feeds on marketplaces that have longer processing times.

Boost Last-Minute Advertising

Go big! Plan to boost your advertising and retail media spend in the final weeks before Cyber 5 and Christmas. This is also an appropriate time to increase your budget caps. 

Watch Marketplace KPIs

Keep a sharp eye on your marketplace KPIs to avoid suspension during Q4. 

The Time Is Now

This is what you’ve been waiting all year to execute. Make sure your program is all buttoned up to not only put your best foot forward among digital shoppers, but also ensure the best turnout at the end of the 2022 holiday season. 

Need help? Rithum Managed Services leans on decades of holiday planning expertise to help e-commerce brands and retailers get ready for the biggest selling season of the year. Contact us for guidance and a more confident approach to your Q4 sales.

The post Scrambling Before the Holidays? Try These 10 E-Commerce Tips appeared first on Rithum.

The holidays are fast approaching and brands and retailers of all sizes are busy with last-minute preparations. To help sellers plan for the season ahead, we decided to highlight some advice from our Managed Services experts in a Q&A blog series. 

The Rithum Managed Services team works with clients every day to provide strategy and execution in their e-commerce efforts — maximizing their presence on marketplaces and optimizing their digital marketing campaigns. 

With marketplaces on top of everyone’s mind this season, we spoke to our client strategy team about some of their advice to help brands and retailers prepare for the upcoming shopping season.

Q: It’s August, what are the three most urgent things sellers should be doing right now before the holidays? 

Laura Jackson, Senior Client Strategy Manager: To prepare for the rapidly approaching holiday season, sellers should focus on their strategies in three major areas: marketing, selling and fulfilling.

For marketing, now is the time to finalize holiday budgets and set up final advertising campaign structures so they can be implemented prior to the start of the holiday season. The more time allowed for optimizations to be made to the campaigns on the seller side and for the campaigns to build history and relevance on the marketplace, the better!

As far as selling, make sure that your items are not only available for purchase on marketplaces but the listing content is fully optimized too. Reviewing titles, descriptions, bullet points, images and appropriate item specifics now will ensure success during the busy holiday season.

In the area of fulfillment, remember that increased volume of orders can pose many challenges for sellers during the holiday season and strategize accordingly. Finish out the season successfully by ensuring appropriate stock levels on popular items and have a plan in place to to ship orders in a timely fashion.

Q: When it comes to product listings, sellers always hear about the importance of “optimizing” product content. What does that mean in real terms?

Brad Haynes, Team Lead, Client Strategy: You have to remember that your content is how a buyer will understand the product you’re selling and if it truly meets their needs. If you go into a physical store, you can look at the item, hold it, see all angles of it, look at the mechanics of it, ask an associate questions. You need to consider that when creating your product listings. Are your titles strong enough to catch someone’s attention when scrolling through multiple listings?  Do you have multiple images (at least four) to show the buyer all angles and different views of the product? 

Think about your product line as well. If you’re an apparel seller, and you were shopping for your own products, would you have all you needed to know to make your decision such as fit, size guides, fabric content, care instructions, colors, sizing, etc.? If you’re a consumer electronics seller, do you show all the compatible makes and models of other items that work with the products you’re selling?

Q: What should sellers be doing now to ensure their inventory doesn’t go out of stock?

Kristin Sester, Team Lead, Client Strategy: Be proactive and review your inventory forecasting plan early — looking at Q4 last year, year-to-date trends this year and projected growth goals for Q4 2022. Consider: What were last year’s top sellers during the holidays? What are this year’s new featured styles or product lines that should be prioritized? Make sure to have enough stock available for your most popular and prioritized products to satisfy early shoppers, the Cyber Five and last-minute shoppers. 

Be sure to have a backup plan and ability to offer product alternatives. Review your current inventory buffer settings and implement or adjust/increase accordingly to help prepare for increased orders and balance products across multiple channels. Take note of key Q4 inventory replenishment dates if using marketplace fulfillment services such as Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and plan to replenish items early in preparation for the holiday buying season.

Q: Any timely tips on making sure your delivery capabilities are in place and your packages reach consumers in time for the holidays? 

Brad Haynes, Team Lead, Client Strategy: Understand your last ship dates and plan accordingly.  You need to have your replenishment strategy in place by the middle of October, and it should consider how long it would take to restock certain items, focus on top-selling products, determine items for FBA and so forth. Start evaluating metrics from past holiday seasons and see if there were any issues around lead times, products being oversold, shipping carrier delivery timelines and adjust accordingly.  

If you found you were late shipping items last year, consider adjusting your lead time to ship to match the more accurate timeline. Be on the lookout for last ship dates from your shipping carriers so you can factor that into your last ship date to deliver to your consumers.  

If you had to cancel items for being out of stock, consider raising/adding a buffer to ensure you always keep quantity on hand. Understand your current stock at FBA. Are those top selling items? If not, consider replacing those with your anticipated top sellers for Q4. Determine your appropriate stock levels for FBA and start replenishing items now so you can get them shipping into FBA and available for purchase in time for Q4.

Q: Can sellers do anything to prepare for marketplace suspensions during the holiday season?

Kristin Sester, Team Lead, Client Strategy: A marketplace account suspension during the holiday season can be one of the biggest obstacles and detriments to a seller. Preparation should start now by reviewing and resolving any early warning signs and being cognizant of any marketplace performance notifications. Marketplace health monitoring should carry on with a proactive approach and top-notch customer service throughout Q4 and Q1 when holiday return and refund activities ensue.

To prepare, meet with key members of internal or external teams that will take ownership should there be any increased trends of fulfillment/shipping delays, order cancellation rates and customer complaints or negative reviews. Ensure that all members are aware of the marketplace guidelines and specific performance criteria/thresholds in their relevant area for each channel in which you list. Identify trustworthy teammate(s) who will proactively monitor your channel health, metrics and feedback at least three times per week from mid-October through the end of December and report any concerns to the appropriate owners for quick action.  

Q: How can sellers drive more traffic to their marketplace listings?

Nick Castillo, Team Lead, Client Strategy: You want to ensure that your content is optimized for search results on each marketplace. Focus first on titles, descriptions and bullets/features. Maximize the use of characters allowed, making sure that your content is legible and you’re not “keyword stuffing” with terms that are out of context. One size doesn’t fit all; you may need to customize the content to each marketplace for optimal results. Make sure your descriptions are formatted correctly and don’t include HTML formatting if it’s not allowed. Simpler is better. 

Next you’ll want to provide as many additional product attributes as possible beyond the minimal requirements. Not only are these additional product details used for search indexing but also filtering that shoppers use when browsing the catalog. This will help potential customers refine their search results and maximize click-through to your listings.

Finally, if available you can use keyword/search term fields to include additional words you couldn’t fit into your content. You can sometimes gear these toward related items or competitive items if allowed. If you’re using paid advertising that provides search term data this would also be a great place to include long-tail search terms that you find perform well.

If you’re interested in learning more about how our Managed Services team can help you prepare for this holiday season, contact us today.

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Check out part two of this Q&A with the Experts series where we dive into digital marketing best practices. 

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