Preparing for the Holiday Rush with the Best Payment Processing Services

With only 50 days left before Christmas and Hanukkah are upon us, retailers and e-tailers should be gearing up for the busiest shopping season of the year. Despite the ample opportunity for Canadian consumers to purchase their gifts early, many will procrastinate and end up fighting through crowded malls at the last minute. In December of 2015, CTV news reported that 69% of Canadians hadn’t finished their Christmas shopping by December 15^th, and 15% hadn’t even started! It turns out some Canadians actually enjoy the madness of last minute shopping and the festive holiday spirit that goes with it, while others prefer the convenience of purchasing through E-commerce at their leisure without braving the crowds. MONEXgroup is keen on helping merchants with useful tips that will assist them in preparing for the holiday rush in addition to offering the best payment processing services to support an influx of both in-store and online transactions, reliably and efficiently.

For the month of October, you should start planning what sales initiatives you want to implement for your store which could include your brick-of-mortar store and/or website. Consider how you want your store to look overall to attract people to come in and explore further. When a store catches people’s attention and is attractive to shoppers, they’re more likely to come in and buy!

Start prepping for the holiday season early in the month by producing festive marketing materials and frequently updating social media platforms so you are keeping your consumers in the loop. Once you have all your festive communications ready, don’t just limit it to print media but also post it on sites such as Instagram and Pinterest. Occasionally, it might be difficult for shop owners to keep track of their social media channels if they have a handful of them, so it’s wise to utilize portals like Hootsuite, Buffer or IFTTT to manage all accounts under one roof.

Moreover, start planning your on-sale items, think about what you want to feature as “door crashers”. Find overstock items that are no longer popular, or out of season to use as liquidation opportunities. Also start thinking about Black Friday! Traditionally considered as an American holiday highlighted by massive sales, Canadians are increasingly adopting the occasion and enjoy the perks of this shopping event. Compose your business plan, and think about how you want to promote your amazing deals!

Now is the time to encourage your shoppers to go all-out-with their holiday shopping. If you operate a store with shipping options, think about offering discounts for free shipping. Create package offers such as buy a certain amount and get an additional product for free. A smart way to communicate this is by sending occasional reminders to customers about free shipping or counting down to the days of Christmas is another good idea as well.

Since December is the busiest time of the year for retailers and e-retailers, business owners definitely need to manage their staff and efficiency well. Moreover, manage your staff and customers’ expectations, as sometimes staff expects to be able to book off vacation time during the busiest days when coverage is most critical. Most importantly, being able to manage your customers’ expectations regarding when they’ll receive their order is crucial to your shop’s reputation and holiday success (Holiday Calendar).

Who doesn’t love sales? When a store offers jaw-dropping deals, it wouldn’t be a question of whether or not customers would stop to come in to check it out, because store owners would be using psychology to entice the customers into the store by promoting their door-crashers.

Another productive option is offering limited-time only gift cards, where customers can receive a complimentary holiday gift card when they shop at the store if they purchase over a certain amount. The gift card can be used after the holiday season; therefore customers would still come back to the store to shop even after the holiday shopping frenzy is over.

The money is in the list! Leverage your database and send communications on contests, giveaways and pop-up offers. Utilize the list of emails that you’ve been harvesting for the past 11 months and include holiday promo codes, free shipping information and sales items (Tips for Store Owners to Maximize Sales).

Whether you operate a brick-and-mortar store or E-commerce business, you need fast and reliable payment processing services to allow for store traffic to run smoothly. Efficient payment processing services will increase customer satisfaction, transaction volume and overall shopping experience.

  Read below for the top 5 tips for shoppers when it comes to holiday shopping:

Now that Black Friday has gained popularity in Canada, many shoppers take advantage of this occasion because of the wide variety of great deals. For the past couple of years, stores have been advertising their holiday sales as early as November 1 ^st . But generally speaking, most stores put on their best sale items out around U.S. Thanksgiving.

A good strategy to stay in the loop about your favourite stores’ promotion is to sign up for their email list. Sometimes, retailers don’t post coupon codes or promotional codes on their social media; they would rather send these to email subscribers.

When you purchase gifts for others, there’s a probability that they might return the gift and exchange it for something else. If you’re shopping early, there’s a longer period of time between the day you purchased the gift to the day you give it to the person, so ensuring a generous return and exchange policy is important.

Shopping will involve certain risks, as the item of interest might go down in pricing post-purchase. Some retailers will offer price guarantees and honour a price adjustment to the reduced price if you bring your receipt as proof; however there is typically a time limit on this.

One of the challenges of holiday shopping is that you may forget about what you have already gotten and what gifts are still outstanding. The trick is to stay organized, make a list of the items you want to purchase and cross them out once you get them.

When you spend almost your entire paycheck on buying holiday gifts, it’s easy to forget about wrapping paper and decorations, so leave some room for that!

With the increase of traffic experienced during the holiday rush, employing the most efficient online payment processing services is crucial to retailers’ performance. How does MONEXgroup help with holiday sales? MONEXgroup supports in-store and online retailers by providing top-of-the-line payment processing services in order to meet the demands of heightened transactions. Our secure and reliable debit and credit card payment processing services are trusted day-after-day by merchants throughout Canada and customer service is just a phone call away, 24/7. MONEXgroup offers a wide variety of the latest and most secure payment processing services such as contactless in-store terminals, plus cutting-edge online and mobile payment solutions to accept credit, debit and gift cards.

In addition to traditional in-store countertop terminals, other leading payment processing services that we deploy include fully featured e-commerce payment processing solutions, where merchants can rely on our fully-integrated and secure e-commerce technology while processing online orders from anywhere in the world. Similarly, our Mobile Checkout makes accepting payments with your phone a reality simply by adding our swiper to your iOS/Android Smartphone or Tablet.

At MONEXgroup, we strive to provide customized and scalable payment processing services for large and small business’ unique credit card processing needs. We are committed to helping our merchants succeed. Our payment processing services stand out because of the first-class professionalism of our knowledgeable and friendly Sales Agents who are always happy to assist. MONEXgroup is trusted by thousands of retailers and E-Commerce businesses across Canada and when you partner with us, you can rely on us to provide you with the tools for the success of your retail and E-Commerce business!

When partnering with the number one payment processor in Canada; MONEXgroup will increase your efficiency and quality of service and lower the related costs and receive the latest Merchant Services Canada Interchange Rates. Request a Cost Comparison Analysis today.