If you don’t know this, today is meant to be the busiest day for online shopping/retailers. According to this article by the BBC, the first Monday in December is considered the peak and one-day sales are expected to top £350m, with the busiest hour between 1300 and 1400 GMT.
That’s not all – the great news for any Tradespacer that’s selling online, is that online sales have seen a surge since 2008. Sales were up 17% last month compared to the same month the year before according to the British Retail Consortium. Last year, an estimated 29 million people used the internet to buy Christmas presents!
This is good news for small businesses simply because for one, it means that being online is becoming more and more crucial to selling and you’re in the right place at the right time. With consumers tiring of the Christmas crowds and lack of choice on the high street – there’s a real need for ease of buying and variety on what’s on offer.
Now, if you’re a Tradespacer this is all old hat because as you know, we have the most special and unique small businesses on BT Tradespace and hopefully, like us (the BT Tradespace team) you’re buying most of your Christmas gifts from your fellow Tradespacers.
But as a retailer who’s selling online, there’s a lot you can do to make the most of Cyber Monday. So here are my top tips to you, if you want to make the most of today and the following weeks.
- Search is the route to shoppers finding you. The keyword tool is specifically built to help you be found in search. So do your research and put in relevant keywords for your business [go to dashboard and click on ‘profile settings’]. Don’t forget to add Christmas keywords or relevant key phrases for each of your products, pictures, videos etc. Be descriptive of your content and think about using plurals (e.g. plumbers instead of plumber) as most people think in plurals. Or you can also hire professionals to help you get noticed.
- Make more videos. Last week, we announced our special offer on Flip video camcorders. We think small businesses can market themselves more effectively through video but they need to take to it more. That’s why it’s so easy to upload your videos and create galleries on the new BT Tradespace and that’s why we’re giving away a Flip video camcorder to Tradespacers who are using and loving our new site.
- Improve your pictures. Amy is doing a special post on how to get yourself on the BT Tradespace homepage in the next few days so watch this space. But, if there’s one thing to say about pictures it’s this…. The pictures on the BT Tradespace are yours. They are served from your Tradespaces, so if you want to give your customers a good impression and entice shoppers, then make them good. If pictures aren’t your thing, we can help or there plenty of photographers in our community already. Use each other to make your business better.
- Sell safely. Safety is huge on BT Tradespace now… so if you haven’t enabled PayPal and downloaded your safety security, now’s the time to do it. As a serial shopper myself (not that I’m proud of it); the first thing that I pay attention to is parting with my details online… so as a business selling online, do as your shoppers want. Make your Tradespace safe to buy from.
Finally, today may be shopaholic’s day – but we want to know what you think of buying online. Take part in our poll below and let us know. Till then, happy buying and selling!
Online shopping - love it or hate it?
- Love it! No high street buying for me (90%, 97 Votes)
- Hate it! Prefer the real thing (7%, 8 Votes)
- Not yet tried it (3%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 108