6 Tips to Prepare Your E-Commerce Site for the Biggest Holiday Traffic Surge Ever

by Louis Kingston

So it begins.

No, we are not talking about the school year, the football season, or a dizzying array of television shows about zombies, detectives, and of course: zombie detectives (seriously, it’s a thing).

Rather, we are talking about the beginning of what for most ecommerce businesses is the make-or-break race to the end of the year called “gift buying season.” Except this year, things are going to be different.

To understand why, let’s zoom in on what, for most ecommerce businesses, is the most critical period of the gift buying season — Cyber Week — which starts on Thanksgiving, and runs through to Cyber Monday. According to research by BigCommerce.com, during Cyber Week 2019 same-store sales across all verticals increased by a whopping 21% compared to Cyber Week 2018, and the average order value jumped by 10%.

And now, we come to 2020, a year in which billions of people are either obligated or advised to stay at home. These folks aren’t going to even consider hopping into their car to navigate the mall jungle. Instead, they’re going to pause Fortnite, minimize Reddit, crack their knuckles, replace the battery in their mouse, and BUY all kinds of stuff online: from toaster ovens to 60” 4K TVs to luxury sneakers to mounted singing bass fish (remember those?).

Simply put: 2020 is not just going to break e-commerce sales records, but it is going to obliterate them. In fact, in terms of how many people buy stuff online and how much they buy, there may never be another year quite like it in terms of year-over-year surges in volume and value.

For e-commerce businesses, this makes the 2020 gift buying season absolutely critical — which in turn means that crashed or slow websites are NOT OK. In fact, the mere idea of their possible existence is horrifying and just plain unacceptable, like a floating island of fire ants (which, unfortunately, is also a thing).

To prevent a catastrophe worse than anything the Griswold Family might experience, here are six essential things do to:

1. Anticipate how much traffic is likely to arrive — keeping in mind that it’s probably going to be much higher than in past years during Cyber Week and throughout the remainder of 2020 — and proactively ensure that the host can handle the load. For more insight and advice, read our article on how to prevent traffic spikes from crashing your website.

2. Assess site speed, and if necessary dial up the velocity (and then dial it up some more). If you have any doubts about this, read our article on the 3 reasons why website speed is more important than ever.

3. Eliminate the 4 common causes of cart abandonment: unexpected costs, forcing customers to create an account, a long and winding checkout process, and bugs.

4. Optimize the mobile shopping and purchasing experience. During Cyber Week in 2019, mobile orders were responsible for 49% of all online sales.

5. Analyze and address security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, shoppers aren’t the only people who love e-commerce sites — hackers do too, and they demonstrate their affection by deploying malware and launching DDoS attacks.

6. Use a reputable and proven site uptime and availability monitoring solution like AlertBot, which will instantly notify authorized individuals (e.g. webmasters, sysadmins, etc.) if something goes wrong.

The Bottom Line

There aren’t many things that can be said with certainty about 2020. However, two things make the list: we will hear the phrase “new normal” at least a thousand more times before the year is up, and the gift buying season for e-commerce businesses is going to be colossal.

Whether that is colossal good (think Avengers) or colossal bad (think the Death Star) will largely be determined by the six essential factors described above. Which epic story do you want your e-commerce business to tell in the months ahead?

Try AlertBot today and see why it’s trusted and recommended by some of the world’s biggest enterprises. There’s no billing information to provide, nothing to download, and you’ll be completely set up in minutes — click here.

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.

4 Common Causes of Cart Abandonment — and How to Solve Them

by Louis Kingston

It’s a sad story that has become so common, that it just kind of blends into the background — like that awful elevator jazz that some coffee shops play (Thelonious Monk would NOT approve), or economy class in-flight meals (there’s less sodium on a salt lick, and you don’t get rammed in the ankle by a cabin trolley). Alas, we’re talking about the cart abandonment epidemic.

And epidemic is indeed the right word, because this problem is not local or limited. Forrester Research pegs the number of customers who bid adios to their cart at 87%, with 70% of them choosing to do so just before checkout. Overall, $18 billion worth of products each year are left to languish in digital trolleys.

Here are four common and costly cart-based reasons why customers flee the sales funnel, rather than triumphantly complete the buyer’s journey:

1. Unexpected costs.

Customers don’t merely dislike unexpected costs like shipping, or nebulous “handling” fees (what, are people buying plutonium or something?). They absolutely hate them. There might even be a clinical psychological aversion to this called “unexpectedcostphobia.”

The solution: be transparent about all automatic or potential costs by advertising a clear and realistic estimate, providing a delivery calculator on the home page (not buried at the end of the checkout process), and if possible, offering free shipping for a minimum purchase.

2. Obliging customers to create an account.

A decade or two ago, customers didn’t mind creating an account to purchase something online, simply because they didn’t know there was any other way. It was part of the deal, like the turning of the earth or standing in line for longer than you should at the post office. It’s going to happen.

But now, customers have enjoyed a taste of the guest checkout experience — and many of them love it; especially if they’re suffering from security fatigue and wince at the idea of remembering more login credentials. Naturally, e-commerce sites that fail to cater to this preference set themselves up for plenty of cart abandonment.

The solution: if creating an account is mandatory, make the process as simple and fast as possible (and then make it even simpler and faster). In addition, give customers an incentive to create an account such as a discount offer, special gift, or anything else that has value and isn’t going to lead to a bankruptcy filing.

3. Long and winding checkout process.

In 1970, The Beatles sang about the “Long and Winding Road” and scored yet another U.S. Billboard #1 hit. However, e-commerce sites that have a long and winding checkout process aren’t going to be certified platinum. They’re going to be certified terrified, because cart abandonment rates will be far higher than their competition.

The solution: ruthlessly streamline down the checkout process to the bare minimum, and use as few fields as possible. Yes, getting as much glorious customer data is important — but it’s not as important as getting customers on the roster in the first place.

4. Bugs, bugs and more bugs.

Even entomologists don’t like website bugs and other completely preventable technical errors that make online shopping irritating instead of enjoyable. Even one of these bugs is enough to trigger cart (and brand) abandonment — let alone a bunch of them.

The solution: use a reputable third-party platform to constantly monitor all important web pages and multi-step processes — such as login, signup, checkout and so on — to proactively detect and destroy bugs, or anything else that makes customers miserable like slow page loading. Learn more about this here.

The Bottom Line
Completely eliminating cart abandonment isn’t possible, because there will always be customers who pause or stop the purchase process. But solving all of the problems described above significantly increases the chances that both carts and customers will get to the finish line, and be inspired to come back for more. And isn’t that the whole point?

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.