Here comes Santa Claus'here comes Santa Clause' Yep, it's almost that time again. As we head into September, every e-commerce site should be formulating a plan for the holiday season. Even the sites selling the, 'I hate the holidays' t-shirts.

Prepare or Be Doomed

You may be thinking, 'It is only September. I've got four months to get ready for the holidays in December.' Well, you're wrong. Let's consider a scenario.

First, the mad dash for purchasing holiday gifts starts early to mid-November depending on the popularity of the products on your site. The online holiday season is not in mid-December! If you agree with this position, your preparation time is already down to two months.

You're probably thinking, 'Two months? Shorter than I thought, but I still have plenty of time.' Sure you do.

If you think two months is plenty of time, ask yourself the following questions.

1. Is your product line currently updated?

2. Do you have sufficient inventory?

3. What's your holiday sales slogan?

4. Will you be offering any specials or discounts?

5. If so, on what products?

6. Is your site updated with all products?

7. If you've moved up in the search engine rankings, is your site ready to receive more traffic or will it bog down?

8. Have you compiled a list of email addresses for people that bought from you last year?

9. Do you have your email material ready to send to them?

10. Did you make the changes to the site you wrote down from the last holiday shopping season? You know. The ones you swore would be done so the site would really hum next season? I'll wait while you go dig through the notes crammed in your desk.

Obviously, there are many other questions that can be asked. The point of this article is you should be asking them NOW! You may find two months isn't looking like nearly enough time.

Remember, prepare for the holidays and you will clean up. Procrastinate and you may be out of business