Gift Basket Business Blog

On-Line Spending Hits Record High

November 29th, 2007 at 05:21pm Lorie Obernauer

If you don’t already have an on-line store to sell your gift baskets this holiday season, think seriously about building your store to be ready for Holidays, 2008. “Cyber Monday, the Monday immediately following Black Friday and the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season, saw $733 million in online spending, representing a 21 percent increase vs. last year and an 84 percent jump from the average daily online spending totals during the preceding four weeks.” Full Story

Last Spring, I posted an entry on this blog about creating an on-line store. Included are resources to help you get started. Set some time aside every week to learn how you might proceed.

Browse the web and look at other gift basket stores to help you identify “the look” you want. Take some time to navigate through your favorite stores and think about what makes shopping on that site easy or difficult. Talk to others who have on-line stores and ask for their recommendations and suggestions about what you might include in your store.

Building a beautiful on-line store does not automatically guarantee that you’ll sell your products through the web site. You will also need to learn how customers will find you on the web (search engine optimization). You’ll find many books in your local bookstore to help you understand this concept.

Unless you’re a computer wizard, I’d suggest talking to several web site designers to find out how they might help you. Get a written quote from each designer that lists exactly what they will do and what features the web site will include. Compare these quotes carefully and show them to someone else who already has a web site to find out if the work to be done and charges are competitive.

It’s a big job to build a web site. But don’t despair! Get some books, talk to others, and formulate a plan. Then just do one step at time! If you learn what you can and take advantage of resources available to you, you can create a successful on-line store.

Entry Filed under: Business Tips, Industry News