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It's never too early for online marketers to ramp up for Christmas – especially in a world with more broadband, cheaper shipping and sellers looking for higher search placement.
Kathy Eickenberg, who runs PurpleBearsShopnEarn.com, knows exactly what she is going to do this holiday season to ramp up her Christmas sales. One is start early; another is she has started a newsletter. She's hopeful her Christmas ideas will help her move the teddy bears, arts and crafts, toys, children's clothes and other collectibles and party supplies she carries on her site.
"I do try to read up on things and pay attention to various sources to find out what are considered the 'hot' products for the holidays and will definitely spend more time on the electronics, jewelry and toys sites since I assume they're natural shopper favorites," she says. She adds that she probably stands in the shadow of the "really successful" affiliates, but she's proud and determined to learn as she goes. "I'm not really sure what to expect this year," she says. "Sales have been improving, so we'll see. Virtually all of my toy sales are around the holidays. It will be interesting to see how many toy sales will remain with Amazon or be done through Toys R Us, since they're now separate."
She also knows that any affiliate – with one site or one hundred – who sells gifts, clothes, electronics, books, toys and other retail goods is tested in the fourth quarter of the year when holiday sales could mean as much as 90 percent of an affiliate's income for that year. Mostly, affiliates like Eickenberg are catching on to the techniques they need to rank higher in searches and keep the visitor interested – whether through content, coupons or presentation. What they want is to start as early as they can – for some, July is when they gear up – and to have the merchant weigh in, too.
There is do doubt holiday sales are big business – especially online. In 2005, holiday shoppers in the U.S. spent $30.1 billion online (that's excluding travel) during the period of roughly mid-November to Dec. 25, according to a study by Goldman Sachs & Co., Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive. That spending is actually up 30 percent over the previous year. A separate report by comScore Networks put the Nov. 1 through Dec. 25 spending number at $19.6 billion (excluding travel, auctions and large business gifts) – a lower amount but still 25 percent more than its previous year's total.
The Goldman Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive , Nielsen//NetRatings, study stated shoppers spent the most money on clothes, at $5.3 billion, followed by computer hardware and other peripherals at $4.8 billion. The ubiquitous iPod and consumer electronics in general made for a very fastgrowing category at 109 percent year-overyear, according to the study. This, they say, was due to demand for the iPod but also the lower prices in 2005 on laptops, printers and plasma televisions. The study also said shoppers bought $3 billion in books and $2.3 billion in toys and video games. And purchases didn't necessarily stop the day after Christmas. Nielsen//NetRatings says while the number of unique visitors to websites in the week leading up to Dec. 25 totaled 60.2 million, the week after Dec. 25 to Jan. 1, 2006 totaled 61.2 million, as recipients proceeded to promptly spend their holiday gift cards.
AFFILIATES EMBRACE THE SEASON
Joel Bevil also knows the holiday season is an important period, but unlike Eickenberg, isn't quite sure how to approach it. His BeachCombersCove.biz, DreamJewelry.biz, RoadTripVacations.net, and VarsitySportsStore.com will be experiencing their first Christmas this year. He says he plans to look into how to best market his sites in the next few months but that right now he's actually just finished some back-to-school sales that did rather well for him. He says he primarily goes to ABestWeb.com forums on the Internet two or three times per week to seek out advice and to gather helpful hints.
Marilyn Olsen with American- Luxury.com has recently started a blog to help her sales. She also runs World- Luxury.com and French-Luxury.com, where she sells higher-end apparel, furniture, baby clothes and accessories, interior decorating ideas, gardening essentials and dog and cat gifts. "The fourth quarter is more a difference of magnitude rather than a change in what I offer to my clients," she says. "Very special, handmade items, both decorating and gifts, sell as soon as they become available, which is usually in October." For her the holiday season means working long hours to update the Web pages, which she does individually. "Since I carry everything at an individual item level, both image and text, this represents extra hours to add SKUs, and because of the faster sellthrough, I spend much more time checking for broken links or out-of-stock conditions," she says.
Olsen says the blog adds a personal touch, which her buyers appreciate. She says the blog acts as a kind of newsletter to alert clients to "developing trends and to provide information about specialized luxury products to help them make informed buying decisions that meet their lifestyle needs." She'd rather do it that way than to send email, which she says is too obtrusive. She does allow clients to set up an RSS feed to get only the information they want.
Marilynn Ferguson of GoodBulbs.com knows seasonal cycles. (Can you think of anything more seasonal than flower bulbs?) "I'm going to be promoting GoodBulbs with some brick-and-mortar advertising," she says, "and some online ads, working to get the branding up ... things like that. During the bulb-selling season, I'm going to fire up several ad campaigns. I'm quite excited about advertising on the merchant side, because I can go for branding and such and can afford to take a longer view when it comes to the ROI. Plus, a merchant site is a natural destination site." She says that although she's all for gearing up about two months before a high-selling season, "on the affiliate side, September is early enough for me," she says. "Any earlier, and the 'newly updated' SE rank bonus dies before the season starts." She adds that even with marketing pushes that some retailers start offering before Halloween, she doesn't believe the selling season in actual sales numbers has changed in "20 years."
What she calls the "actual" buying season for Christmas products should be anticipated by "SEOing" those items a couple of months in advance so that they get ranked at the right time. Continued on Page 2...
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Marilyn Olsen with American- Luxury.com has recently started a blog to help her sales. She also runs World- Luxury.com and French-Luxury.com, where she sells higher-end apparel, furniture, baby clothes and accessories, interior decorating ideas, gardening essentials and dog and cat gifts. "The fourth quarter is more a difference of magnitude rather than a change in what I offer to my clients," she says. "Very special, handmade items, both decorating and gifts, sell as soon as they become available, which is usually in October." For her the holiday season means working long hours to update the Web pages, which she does individually. "Since I carry everything at an individual item level, both image and text, this represents extra hours to add SKUs, and because of the faster sellthrough, I spend much more time checking for broken links or out-of-stock conditions," she says.
