Online christmas shoppingAs an online retailer, you’re already ahead of the game for holiday sales. Last year, the Chase Holiday Pulse tracked early holiday sales from October 29th through November 15th and found that e-commerce sales volume was up 12.3 percent over the previous year, while brick-and-mortar sales were only up 1.0 percent. Consumers are obviously interested in doing at least some of their holiday shopping online, which is good news for your business. Make sure you take advantage of the holiday season by utilizing current digital trends.

Reduce Your Prices

While sales volume is increasing online, shoppers are also looking for better prices. The Chase Holiday Pulse discovered that the average online purchase amount went down 10.1 percent during the 2012 holiday season, compared to the year before, the second decline in a row. If you give online promotions, you might get more customers.

Choose Your Timing Wisely

There are fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year for shoppers to buy gifts. The Adobe Digital Index suggests this could cause a $1.5 billion loss in potential online retail sales. The Index notes that to be successful this year, encourage customers not to wait for Black Friday and beyond, but to offer good deals before and let customers know the deals won’t get better later. Large brick-and-mortar retailers are already doing this, offering in-store shopping on Thanksgiving and extensively promoting their online sales. For example, in the USA T-Mobile is already offering the Samsung Galaxy S4 for $99 upfront online and Amazon is having “Countdown to Black Friday” Deals in every category.

As an online retailer, you should continue to take advantage of Cyber Monday, which Adobe expects to grow by 15 percent from last year to be “the highest single online shopping day ever.” Online sales should also be high on Thanksgiving and on Black Friday. On Thanksgiving, which is expected to have 21 percent growth for online sales, you can attract people who want to shop but don’t want to leave home on the holiday.

Snatch Brick-and-Mortar Business

Showrooming” is practiced by 43 percent of American adults, according to The Harris Poll from 2012. These customers will look at and compare products in a store, but actually purchase it online, not necessarily from the same brick-and-mortor store’s website. If you can offer something comparable or better than the physical store, such as a better price, free shipping, holiday mobile apps or specialty bundles the store doesn’t offer, you might be able to snatch some of those showrooming sales.

Don’t Miss Out on Mobile Sales

The Adobe Digital Index expects a new record of more than 20 percent of online sales coming from customers using mobile devices. If you’re not optimized, you’re more likely to see about 14 percent of your online sales from mobile. If you can create a specialized mobile app to connect with your consumer, you can succeed in this area.