What You Can Learn from Amazon to Increase Holiday Sales

By Chris Crum - Wed, 10/28/2009 - 1:11pm.

Don' Lose Out to the Competition

There is a reason Amazon is widely known as one of the biggest retailers online (if not the biggest). The company knows what it's doing.

Amazon has appeared in headlines recently for a number of reasons, and a fair amount of them are related to different things the company has been doing to increase its sales as the holiday season approaches. While as a small business, you don't likely have the clout that Amazon does, they do employ strategies that you can learn from in order to potentially increase your own sales.

1. Mobile Payments

Earlier this month Amazon launched its own mobile payments service. I don't expect you to launch your own, but it may be in the best interest of your online store to at least offer some kind of mobile payment option. People are using their phones more and more these days to shop online. You should be accommodating that.

2. Same Day Delivery

Also this month, Amazon revealed a new shipping option for some of its products to some markets called "Local Express Deliver." What this is, is essentially same-day delivery. A customer orders the product and they get it to them on the same day. This will be an attractive feature for procrastinators.

This will not always be feasible, but for local businesses, it may be more so. Whether or not you can offer same-day, you should offer as many options as possible. And if you can do same-day, I don't see why you couldn't charge more for it. Amazon certainly does.

3. Focused Landing Page

Amazon has put out a "Holiday Toy List". This is a list of the top toys and games that the company expects to sell during the holiday season. They have a dedicated page for these items that they are promoting. This makes it easy for customers to find the things they are likely to be looking for.


Why couldn't you do the same thing? Look at the products you offer that people are most likely to be interested in for the holiday season, and draw their attention to them with a focused landing page. Then promote that page accordingly.

4. Ultra-Competitive Pricing

Amazon and Walmart have been engaged in a price war over bargain books. Walmart started by offering pre-orders of highly anticipated books at a very low price, and Amazon immediately started offering the same deal. Walmart then lowered its price, then Amazon did the same.


Don't forget to do some research to find what your competitors are charging for products that are the same or similar to what you are selling. You may not be able to take it to the level of Walmart and Amazon, but you should at least be aware of what competitors are charging. If it's less, there's a good chance the business will go to them.