Now is the Time to Enable Gift Friendly Features in Your Online Store
The holidays are approaching quickly and it’s time to get your online store ready for an easy gift-shopping experience. With the right features enabled, you can make your store super gift friendly:
Gift Card Text
If someone is buying a gift in your store, it is very important that you give them the option of including a personalized note to the recipient (To activate in Nexternal, visit Settings/Edit Site Options/Free Gift Message). Some merchants will opt to handwrite notes for the customers while others may simply append the gift card message to the packing slip. Either scenario works fine.
Multiple Ship To’s
The “multiple ship to” option allows a customer to purchase several gifts, all shipping to separate addresses, in a single order, rather than having to place separate orders for each gift. That saves your customer time and hassle, which of course makes it more efficient and enjoyable to shop on your site than elsewhere. Often times this feature is used with corporate buyers or even lawyers that want to send a box of chocolates to 15 of their favorite clients. (To activate in Nexternal, visit Settings/Edit Site Options/Multiple Ship To. If your customers aren’t likely to order and ship to multiple place, we recommend leaving this feature off).
Display Estimated Delivery Dates
Gift buyers want assurance that their products will arrive before the big day. Consider displaying cut-off dates for different shipping options up front in your online store and during the checkout process (To display estimated delivery dates next to each shipping option in during the checkout process, visit Settings/Edit Site Options/Expected Shipping Time)
Gift Wrapping
If you are a high volume merchant, gift wrapping may not be a realistic possibility. However, if you have the staff to handle it, many customers are willing to pay extra for it. (The best way to handle paid gift wrapping in Nexternal is to setup up checkbox write-in-attribute for each product that can be wrapped. If you want to offer gift wrapping for free, simply visit Settings/Edit Site Options/Free Gift Message).
The holiday season is here, so make it easy for your customers to purchase early, and purchase multiple items from you to tick off their holiday shopping list!
Coming from a medical and non-profit management background, Taryn has extensive experience in customer service and marketing. She is a Senior Account Manager for Nexternal and loves working with her clients to develop social media and marketing strategies to improve their online presence. In her spare time, she also runs a successful eCommerce jewelry and essential oils business.
