Online Christmas Sales continue to start earlier and earlier. Is it best to launch my Sale on Christmas Day or should I do it before?

From a commercial perspective, launching your online Sale on Christmas Day or even earlier makes sense and can give your business great momentum. However, if you are not properly organised you can end up hurting your business.

Richard Blanchard, online retailing director of etail consultancy Transaction Partnership, says: “As well as factors such as having someone working on Christmas Day to launch the Sale with banners and setting the price file live on the site, there are bigger issues, such as how you meet delivery promises.”

To avoid such problems, he says retailers need to focus on two questions: ‘What is your competitive retail strategy?’ and ‘What is your service promise?’. He adds: “Online shoppers want retailers to be realistic about what they offer. If it takes 24 hours to respond to an email enquiry, they want to be told, and they don’t want false promises.”

Previously shoppers researched prices online, then visited stores to try before they bought. Now shoppers research the best price and then buy online. However, there is no point encouraging them to do that if you don’t have an efficient delivery system and they are then forced to brave the high street Sales hordes to collect their purchase.

Online wishlists, cross-product comparisons, videos, shopper reviews, ‘my account’ facilities, improved speed of page response and checkout simplicity will all boost etail sales.

Blanchard adds: “It doesn’t matter how much value for money sites offer their online customers, if they neglect customer service, consumers will still go elsewhere.”