Simple Tips for Making the Most of Your Website

Posted Tuesday, Nov 21, 2006

"While sleigh bells will be ringing and your cash register jingling this weekend, expect traffic to your store website and online sales to peak each Monday between Thanksgiving and Christmas," said BookSense.com Director Len Vlahos.

To prepare for "Cyber Monday," aka the Monday after Thanksgiving, and beyond, Vlahos offered these few simple reminders to help booksellers make the most of increased traffic to store websites and to help make the shopping experience better for customers.

Store Hours
If there is a change in store hours for the holidays, be sure to update this information on your BookSense.com website.
Holiday Content
Reinforce both the store brand and the website brand by making the content online match the displays in-store. (Be on the lookout for an issue of Your Content Conscience, the BookSense.com content newsletter, in the coming weeks).
Shipping Notice
BookSense.com recommends that booksellers put a note on their websites that says something to the effect of:

"Order any item with an inventory status of 'Usually Ships in 1 - 5 Days' or 'On Our Shelves Now' by close of business on December 17 and receive it in time for Christmas."

Whatever language a bookstore uses, the idea is to make sure customers know that books ordered after a certain date may not arrive in time for Christmas.
Gift Cards Galore
Book Sense gift cards have been among the top-selling items across the family of BookSense.com sites every year, and this holiday season is expected to be no different. If a bookstore sells/redeems Book Sense gift cards via its BookSense.com site, Vlahos suggested promoting gift card availability in the website's "Store Greeting" and/or in the bookstore e-newsletter.