Chris "Silver" Smith offers up a great article - "Forget Black Friday! Are You Ready For Holiday Season's Cyber Mondays?" regarding the onslaught of consumer madness when retailers do their best to extract as much creditworthiness from one's wallet.
"Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving, is the biggest shopping day of the year for U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers. But, for each Monday after Black Friday, consumer searches spike up on the internet and online retail websites enjoy their highest traffic and associated sales of the year. Search engine use is directly impacting businesses during this period, and companies which haven't optimized their internet presence stand to lose out on some of the sales they could be getting if consumers could find them. This is true for online businesses as well as for brick-and-mortar stores.
For those online retailers that exercised due diligence on search engine marketing AND optimization efforts, the efforts should reap a handsome return on investment.
Chris adds:
“Brick-and-mortar stores need to be optimal for local search—your website should have easy-to-find street address, online map, and phone numbers for each of your locations. You should also be easily found in local search engines and online yellow pages directories. Online retailers ("e-tailers") should be findable when consumers use search engines to perform keyword searches for products and types of items that they wish to buy.â€
There are ten great online optimization tips for local store sites and etailers to utilize year round, including leveraging the power of a charity by donating a portion of an advertised product!
Personally, gift cards and free shipping is a huge motivator for me to shop online versus testing my patience for humanity with crushing lines and jockeying for parking spaces.
Retailers that offer comparison shopping, internal search with relevant results, fast and free shipping, excellent packaging, competitive pricing and an easy to use web site earns my repeat business year round.
The differentor that defines a great customer experience will always be excellent customer service with a generous return policy. Apple, Target, and Amazon quickly come to mind.
Any favorites?