Invest in technology before the holiday rush

Your website.

Make sure your website loads fast and makes product information easily accessible. Test to see that users can quickly find information about your company or specific products. Make sure your site is fully mobile-optimised; if not, users searching Google on their smartphones and tablets may not find your business. Take time well before the holidays – late summer/early autumn to go through your entire site and leave yourself room for testing and upgrades.

Your checkout.

Making sure your online customers check out quickly and easily is critical for ensuring a completed sale. Ask yourself these questions:

• How good is your checkout process?
• Are the instructions clear?
• Can the customer see their progress?
• Are you minimising data entry with auto-fill tools?
• Is your customer being bounced to another website?
• Are you showing how trustworthy your site is throughout the process?

These are just some of the things you may need to be implementing well before the holiday rush.

Your payment options.

It’s not just about accepting credit and debit cards – you want to make sure you’re offering customers as many payment options as possible. The last thing you want is a customer walking out of your shop this festive season because you couldn’t accept payment from them. Think about offering more flexibility to your customers. PayPal Credit¹ and Pay in 3² allow you to empower your customers with more flexibility to make purchases.

Your point-of-sale system.

Increase the speed and ease of your in-store experience by enabling your staff with point-of-sale hardware. And look for a card reader and tablet that can run on a cloud-based application. When employees aren’t tied to a register, they’re better able to assist shoppers, look up information, and ring up sales on the go. With the PayPal by Zettle card reader you can be sure your team is equipped to take in-person payments in a flash, and never miss a sale this holiday.

Your self-service options.

Enable your customers to pick, buy, and go quickly. Offer products your customers can buy without involving one of your employees. It can improve your in-store experience and help increase your employee productivity.

Your integrations.

Advanced POS systems can usually be integrated with your ecommerce store so that as you sell something in-store it's reflected in available inventory online too. This saves you time from constant site updates, and it helps you avoid a disappointed customer.

Every business is unique, so take time to test the systems you use most. By optimising and improving the technology that your business relies on before the holiday rush, you may be better positioned to capitalise on the busiest shopping days of the year.