Holiday Season Resource Center
HOLIDAY SEASON RESOURCE CENTER
For many businesses, the holiday season is also the make-or-break season. So MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT has gathered tips and news you can use to help you maximize your fourth-quarter sales and profits--and will continue to gather more info as the season progresses.
Neiman Marcus: Send a Loved One to Outer Space This Christmas
Your spouse wants a 2001 BMW Individual M6 Convertible for Christmas, though you'd rather send him or her into outer space. But if you don't get him or her the wheels, you could end up in the doghouse, albeit one that starts at $5,000. ...
Online Marketers, Shoppers Getting a Jump on Holiday 2006
Consumers are gearing up to start the holiday season earlier this year, according to the 2006 eHoliday Mood Survey conducted by trade association Shop.org and comparison shopping Website Shopzilla, ...
Jingle Bells, PR Sells
Starting in July and continuing through January is the “holiday season” in public relations and promotions. With many religions observing some major holiday in the winter months--and of course the whacky world of advertising hammering home that consumers have to buy, buy, buy-- businesses have to take advantage of the holiday PR machine. ...
Holiday Circulation Numbers On the Rise
'Tis the season for increasing catalog circulations, according to catalogers and list companies interviewed by MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT for its November 2006 issue....
Coping with the Seasonal Crunch
By now, many of you are beginning to get the first waves of holiday orders. Are you as well prepared as you think you are? It's not too late to make a...
Quick Tips to boost Online Holiday Sales
There's no time like the present for thinking about holiday presentsand your Web presence during the holidays. That was the underlying theme of a panel...
NRF Forecasting Slower Growth for Holiday 2006
The National Retail Federation (NRF) is expecting total holiday retail sales to grow 5.0% this year over last year, to $457.4 billion. That’s less than last year’s 6.1% rise in year-over-year holiday sales ...
Get the Most Out of Your House File for Holiday Season
Most companies cannot mail their entire database during the holiday season. The following are six tools and techniques to leverage this valuable resource to it fullest potential and identify as many responsive and profitable names as possible....
Live from eTail 2006: Christmas in August
Philadelphia—There’s no time like the present for thinking about holiday presents…and your Web presence during the holidays. ...
Report: Merchants Shifting Holiday Initiatives to E-Mail and SEM
Results of the Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report indicate a shift from price-based promotions to relationship marketing initiatives such as e-mail marketing and search engine marketing, which allow retailers to understand visitor intent and leverage behavior-based insights to target customers with relevant messages that strengthen relationships....
10 Techniques to Squeeze More Out of Holiday Buyers
Holiday buyers are a unique segment of your catalog’s house file. Here are some effective tactics to help treat holiday buyers differently....
Using Speech IVR As a Holiday Staffing Strategy, Part II
A recent Oracle survey entitled “Holiday Season 2006: What’s in Store?” noted that merchants “are putting IT solutions into place to address [holiday staffing] issues.” Speech automation—also known as speech-enabled interactive voice response, or SIVR—is well suited for addressing such issues because it enables you to streamline your contact center operations. A speech automation application gives customers a self-service option to access information or services they are requesting without the need for a live CSR. This solution can take the best attributes of their best contact center agents and replicate those in a consistent manner. ...
Using Speech IVR as a Holiday Staffing Strategy
This is the first in two-part series using speech IVR in the contact center during the holidays. Next week, we'll discuss how to use and implement speech...
How to Improve Response During Holiday 2006
As I write this, most catalogers are in the final stages of constructing their holiday marketing and circulation plans. Here are a few of the top issues and concerns I hear from marketers as they prepare for this most important season....
Performics' Holiday Search Snapshot
Performics, the search engine marketing division of DoubleClick, came out with another flight of its quarterly Performics 50 keyword performance index in mid-February, and this report, covering the last quarter of 2005, sheds some insight on what happens to search terms during the holiday sales season. ...
Are You Ready for Holiday 2006?
Promises, promises. All businesses make them, but the best actually deliver. Now is the time to conduct a post mortem of how well your multichannel business performed in holiday 2005 and to develop plans for improvement for holiday 2006. While it may seem early to start planning for the coming holiday season, now is the best time because your people will remember vividly the good and bad incidents, ...
Room for Improvement in Online Customer Satisfaction
Online sales during the holiday rose nearly 25%, according to estimates, but consumer satisfaction hasn’t increased in kind. In fact, during the last week of the holiday shopping season, satisfaction among online shoppers dipped 0.5% from the previous weeks ...
How to Analyze Your Holiday Response
Now that the holiday season is over, it’s time to begin your postmailing analysis. If holiday is your busiest season, it’s worth spending extra effort reviewing the successes and shortcomings of your biggest mailing. ...
Holiday 2005: So Far, So Okay
Back in November, predictions regarding holiday sales ranged from mildly optimistic (up 2%-4% over last year, according to the director of the Purdue Retail Institute and Center for Customer Driven Quality) to strongly so (up 6%, according to the National Retail Federation). So how did the season shake out? Again, it depends on whom you ask....
For Web Merchants, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Good Christmas
Merchants may now be in the home stretch of the race for Christmas sales, but online marketers are already feeling pretty cheery. ...
L.L. Bean, J. Crew Among Those Courting Last-Minute Shoppers
Last-minute holiday shoppers have a friend in L.L. Bean, J. Crew, and Lands’ End. Bean and J. Crew are accepting Christmas orders until noon Eastern time on Dec. 23,...
Beyond Cyber Monday: Super Tuesday
If history is any indication, online holiday shopping activity will peak tomorrow, Dec. 13 between noon and 1 p.m. EST, according to online security certification company HackerSafe....
Lands’ End Sidesteps Winter Word Mess
By all standards, the fourth-quarter is the busiest season for most b-to-c merchants, and whether they are wishing customers Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or Seasons Greetings, the message is the same. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights apparently feels differently, however, ...
Ho ho ho: more promos
Faced with flagging consumer confidence and high energy costs, skittish marketers aren't taking any chances. Even before the holiday shopping season was...
More Actionable Tips for Boosting Last-Minute Web Sales
There are still more than three shopping weeks till Christmas, which means there’s still plenty you can do to increase online sales. The folks at e-commerce technology provider MarketLive have a dozen suggestions:...
