Cyber Monday: The Last-Minute Checklist

By Jagath Narayan

2. Arrange some tempting special offers. Amazon.com will do it, Staples will do it, Wal-Mart will do it, your competitors will do it. Basically, you might be losing sales if you don't offer something very special during Cyber Monday. It's all up to your imagination: discounts, free shipping, buy-one-get-one-free offers — anything you can spare really. If there's one date in the year when special offers truly work, it's Cyber Monday.

3. Let everyone know what you're preparing. I wrote about the importance of having a marketing plan for the holidays in July this year, so I believe you've already planned all your Cyber Monday communications. In case you haven't, there's still plenty of time to prepare some newsletters and social media messages. Even the most loyal of your customers might forget you if your competitors do a better job in marketing their Cyber Monday efforts. Let the world know that you're still here (and better than ever). Just don't get carried away; spamming might result in a completely opposite effect.

4. Make sure you can handle the traffic. If you're running your own website, you have to ensure it's ready to welcome all the extra visitors coming to shop. If you use a reliable hosting provider, there should be no problems here, but don't forget to make yourself (and your team) available as well. More visitors usually come with more inquiries about your products, shipping terms and unsuccessful transactions. You have to answer all of them in the quickest timeframe possible. If you don't, you'll lose sales … plenty of them.

5. Ensure you're accessible by phones and tablets. PFS Web projects that traffic from smartphones and tablets might amount to as much as a quarter of all Cyber Monday traffic for most e-commerce websites. In addition to that, around 20 percent of sales might come from users accessing your website with mobile devices. It's as true now as in any other time of the year, but the prospective loss of sales is much higher on Cyber Monday, so test and test again to make sure it's possible to comfortably buy from you using all types of mobile devices.