How to prepare your e-commerce site for any major holidays

Last Updated on Mar 21, 2025 by Nurul Afsar

Once the hustle and bustle of the festive season is behind you, it doesn’t mean that it’s time to kick back and relax as a business owner. In fact, the first few months of a new year can be put to better use by strategically orchestrating some much-needed e-commerce web development upgrades. So, if you hope to have your website performing well before the next major holiday or you simply want to revamp your seasonal selling approach, how about focusing on the following actionable performance updates to make 2020 your most profitable year yet?

Curate your lists

Whether your email list could use some growth before the next major holiday or you simply want to sort your customers into lists according to their demographics, location or product-based interest, then you’ll need to spend some time curating your lists to ensure that your content is reaching the most prospecting inboxes. When you have segmented email lists it allows your subscribers to check off the list sections that interest them based on their purchasing behavior, which allows you to monetize on your email marketing strategy.

However, those looking to start from the ground up will need some e-commerce web development to create an email list. Once your website is optimized for opt-ins, visitors will be allowed to put their emails into a signup plugin that will enable you to start curating highly valuable and action content. 

Re-engage with your existing customers

It’s never a bad time to focus your attention on the bread and butter of your business… the loyal, long-time consumers. Yes, you want to spend time and money to get yourself a vast, expanding customer base, but it’s also important to look at the customers who are already and buying from you and examine ways that you can reward them for their continued business. Whether this involves creating campaigns that offer special deals for recurring shoppers or investment in a homepage re-design to compliment the values of your brand, it’s crucial to find ways to re-engage with your target audience.  

Tweak your shipping rates

You have just made it through the busiest shopping season and while you don’t need to immediately start planning for Christmas 2020, you should be using time this month to look through your end-of-year deliveries to see if you accurately pricing your shipping costs. Remember, when a product is purchased, that added shipping costs will need to be footed out-of-pocket if the calculation is incorrect, so take the time to appraise and compare your postage prices in regards to shipping and mailing in Canada, the U.S., and around the world to ensure that the exact cost is paid by your shopper. Keep in mind that there are shipping plugins that will handle the calculations for you, so all you have to do is place the weight, dimensions, and cost requirements! 

Have a look at your website’s mobile performance 

Mobile usability has increased steadily over the last few years, but many e-commerce websites have fallen behind in terms of innovative development. Since pretty much everyone uses their smartphone to peruse the internet daily, you should be ensuring that all of your site’s pages are optimized to better appeal to potential mobile shoppers. After all, possessing a fantastic user experience may help you to increase your sales and transition mobile browsers to buyers. 

Tackle any problems with cart abandonment 

While there are many e-commerce web developments to focus your efforts on, none are more valuable than shopping cart abandonment. Depending on how your website is set up to complete purchases, your particular site could have very high or low abandonment rates, but there are many reasons as to why potential customers choose to leave a site before finishing their purchases. Needless to say, whether consumers are just looking, comparing prices, would rather buy in-store or having technical issues, it’s your job as the business owner to make online purchases as simplistic as possible. So, how about re-evaluating your checkout process in 2020?  

If you know of some other e-commerce web development suggestions to offer business owners, please share your thoughts below.