Sustain Christmas sales in January and beyond

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) says online Christmas sales put in the strongest performance ever in December, rising by 17.8%, the fastest growth since December 2011.

By Dominic Monkhouse at PEER 1 Hosting

Why? Well, Helen Dickinson, Director General at British Retail Consortium, claims: “Shoppers are increasingly taking advantage of the convenience that online shopping offers at every stage of the customer journey”.

Consumers no longer want to trawl the busy high street, fight the Christmas rush or queue for hours to purchase goods. And why would they when they can shop online from the comfort of their own home and have their gifts delivered to their door step?

Having made it through the Christmas eCommerce traffic rush, January is the perfect time for online retailers to begin prolonging the success of the festive season and maximising on the online shopping trend.

By maintaining the standards of customer service from the Christmas period and providing consumers with New Year promotions and discounts, online retailers can ensure consumers return to their websites and continue to spend throughout January and beyond. What better way is there to pull in buyers than offering fifty per cent off or free delivery?

To take advantage of this opportunity, retailers need to ensure their websites are prepared to deliver the ultimate customer experience. Successful eCommerce is dependent on a smooth and enjoyable experience so it’s crucial to have a speedy and reliable site.

As reported by Compuware, 86% of consumers are less likely to return to a company’s website after a poor experience and 54% will abandon a site after one or two bad experiences. With this in mind, online retailers need to invest in the right technology solutions in order to meet the demand of online shoppers and ultimately sustain the success from the Christmas traffic rush.

Integral to this is a strong and reliable infrastructure that will meet a retailer’s eCommerce needs and handle spikes in traffic. Knowing where and how a website is hosted is also critical to ensure site performance. So optimising the performance and scalability of the hosting infrastructure powering an eCommerce site is vital.

Every transaction matters, as every purchase made equals revenue. It is therefore crucial for a retailer’s website to be secure, reliable and fast – in order for consumers to find what they want, when they want and ultimately purchase goods securely and with ease.

With a steady platform and reliable infrastructure, online retailers can sit back and reap the benefits of eCommerce without having to worry about their sites crashing from an unexpected influx in web traffic or users having bad experiences.

The key to sustaining eCommerce success is delivering an optimal customer experience. Once you have a sustainable platform in place, retailers can concentrate on creating an outstanding customer experience without worrying about the technology in the background.

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