Holiday Readiness Guide
Prepared by the e-tailing group - July, 2010

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Introduction

 
It’s Summer, but for retailers with a critical web presence —the holiday season is upon us! Economic conditions are improving and customers are gaining confidence with consumer spending trending up. Ecommerce will likely be the beneficiary of improved spending as forecasts suggest a 10% growth1 in web sales while US retail sales areonly poised to see 3–4% gains.  Consumers continue to shift their spending to the web for its convenience, price savings, and efficiencies so ensuring you have all the elements in place to meet growing consumer demand will best position your company for holiday selling.

This white paper is all about Internet Gifting Essentials as it iscritical that merchants ready their sites from both a performanceand selling perspective. Based on the e-tailing group’s Annual Mystery Shopping Survey, highlighted Internet gifting essentialswere present in three-out-of-four of the 100 websites (EG100) we surveyed last holiday season. Those include gift cards and giftcenters (both almost universal) and a gift message, a prerequisite that enables gift givers to personalize their selections. The holiday shipping deadline has also become a staple as keeping consumers abreast of accurate delivery details to avertaggravation is a growing concern among merchants.