Source: Google Retail Trends

With 4 months to go before Christmas, almost half of online shoppers have already started shopping.

According to Google Retail Trends, at this time last year, 44% had already started their holiday shopping, 36% had already made holiday purchases online.

How are your holiday sales this month?

Whether you personally agree with “early Christmas syndrome” or not , if you sell something online you have to accept the fact that people are shopping earlier and earlier each year.

Part of this is out of necessity. With less credit to cover holiday purchases, consumers are forced to shop earlier and spread out their expenditures.

It also makes sense from a time and stress management standpoint. Who wants to be under massive pressure in the 6 weeks leading up to Christmas, hard pressed to find that perfect gift that’s out of stock, pay extra for expedited shipping or end up paying more for a gift they really didn’t want?

Probably not even the 14% of holiday shoppers who wait until December 20th to start their holiday shopping!

The bottom line? If you want to be in the game this holiday season, you need to start now to prepare your store for holiday sales.

5 Ways to Prepare Now and Increase Your Holiday Sales

Showcase new merchandise. What’s new and exciting in your inventory? Put it front and center! If you wait until November, you’re losing two months of income opportunity.

Make holiday gift recommendations. Every website should have a “Top List” of recommended gifts. “Top 10 Gifts for Dad”, “50 Gifts Under $50″ Pull this right from your inventory!

Holiday content. Write articles and create videos that are holiday themed and watch visitors to your store or website increase like crazy!

Offer pre-holiday promotions. Not only will your customers be excited about getting a good deal, they’ll feel smart and savvy for shopping early. That good feeling with be associated with your store.

Step up your marketing. You can have the best inventory in the world, but you won’t make many sales if no one knows your online store exists? How are you marketing? What is your plan? How will you get in front of your target customers this holiday season?  If the answer to that is “I don’t know.” grab a your laptop and head to the beach to put that holiday marketing plan in place now!

Profits come to business owners who are prepared. You still have time to make a big difference in the amount of money you make this holiday season!

-Lisa Suttora

Ready to make some money this holiday season? Then grab a glass of lemonade and sit down to read this post. Because what you’re about to read will be key to your holiday income success.

Starting on July 5th, with the kick-off of the back-to-school shopping season, the countdown begins to 2010 holiday sales. There are  almost 9 weeks from July 1st to September 1st, when 38% of online shoppers will begin their holiday shopping.

If you wait until Fall to starting thinking about and preparing for the holidays, you’ll find yourself in catch up mode from September to December, and as a result leave a lot of holiday money on the table.

Preparing begins with the actions you take in July.

Every year at this time, I begin helping people prepare for holiday sales.

Unfortunately not enough people take action early on. And there’s nothing worse than rounding the holiday bend in November and watching sadly as your holiday sales slip by.

Don’t let this happen to you! The time is now…

To get you started, I’ve listed some of the holiday prep steps you’ll take this year:

• Creating a holiday inventory list
• Choosing your affiliate products & signing up for the programs
• Creating a holiday marketing plan
• Ordering last-minute inventory
• Organizing your physical products
• Snapping up packaging supplies on the cheap
• Creating holiday advertising graphics
• Planning your website and blog “seasonal decor”
• Creating holiday gift sets
• Setting up your holiday blog/ sales pages if you are an affiliate marketer
• Setting up your email marketing campaign
• Bringing in seasonal help

Now if the thought of putting together a plan for the holiday selling season feels overwhelming to you and you’re wondering how you’re going to find time to add yet another thing to your already overloaded schedule, there’s relief in site.

With 15 holiday selling seasons under my belt (whew!)  – 7 offline & 8 online!  I have the planning and action steps for holiday income success down to a science. Stay tuned, for the upcoming announcement about this year’s Holiday Selling Guide.

If you want to be the first in line to plan your holiday sales, enter your name and email address below for early bird notification:

-Lisa

If you sell physical products, affiliate products or information products, you’re on the brink of the next big online selling season – back-to-school.

Even though many people are just getting into the swing of summer fun, those who have children attending school or who are attending school themselves are already starting their back to school shopping.

To see how back-to-school sales trend, you’ll need to use one of my top research tools Google Insights. You can see by the chart below that searches for the keywords “back to school” are already trending upward:

Teachers prepping the classroom are looking for ideas for their classroom bulletin boards and starting to buy classroom supplies.

And keep in mind that in many parts of the U.S., school starts in late August. So if you sell any merchandise related to back to school purchases, it’s time to get it listed now!

If you’re an affiliate marketer, your back-to-school affiliate sites should be up and running.

If your blog covers parenting topics, school related topics, fashion, technology, accessories etc. you should be reviewing and promoting  back-to-school affiliate products.

The back-to-school shopping season runs from July through the end of October.

July is the pre-season. August and September are in-season. October is post-season. (Post-season back-to-school shopping takes place after the kids have arrived at school, taken a look at what everyone else has/or is wearing and then head back online to round out their “must have’s”.)

That’s 4 months of heavy back-to-school related selling opportunities.

So while you may still be enjoying the summer, your business should be featuring merchandise or affiliate products that are in-demand by back-to-school shoppers.

Here are just a few of the hot products online shoppers will be looking for over the next few months:

• Laptops
• Netbooks
• Laptop cases
• Brightly patterned backpacks
• Rolling backpacks
• Sports bags
• Motorcycle boots
• Ankle bootsGirls school uniforms
• Boy’ school uniforms
• Locker gear (mirrors, shelves, decor)
• Running shoes
• Gym clothes
• Teacher supplies
• Art supplies
• Eco-friendly lunch boxes
• Eco-friendly hot mugs and thermoses
• Cosmetics
• Costume jewelry
• Watches
• Anything with a peace sign on it (clothes, jewelry, accessories)

And some hot brands…

• DV by Dolce Vita
• Dolce Vita
• GUESS
• House of Harlow
• Jessica Simpson
• Michael Antonio
• Miz Mooz
• Modern Vintage
• Nine West
• Rosegold
• Steve Madden

All this back-to-school traffic headed will also impact you if you sell non back-to-school related products as well. Once people are back inside and at the computer shopping for back-to-school supplies, they’ll also catch up on shopping for themselves.

How will you capitalize on the back-to-school shopping season?

Tell me below.

-Lisa

Last month, when speaking at the 2010 Ecommerce Summit someone asked me  “If there was one piece of advice you would give to up and coming online sellers, what would it be?”

My answer to this question is always the same and it applies no matter what you sell or where you sell it.

Your best opportunity for creating a successful business on the Internet is to…

Find a niche and FOCUS.

• If you’re a jack of all trades, master of none,  it’s time to find a niche!
• If you’re spreading yourself thinly between three different eBay stores and 12 different types of products and none of them are up and running profitably, it’s time to find a niche.
• If you’re selling information products on health and fitness, starting an eBay store that sells used computer parts and trying to monetize a green-cleaner website all at the same time, it’s time to find a niche and focus!

Over the years, in working with thousands of online sellers in11 different countries, selling in more than 2300 different niche markets, sub-niches and micro-niches -  one common thread runs through the most successful businesses…

Each one is succeeding in a niche market.

You see, once you’ve identified a profitable niche to serve, you can monetize that niche many different ways.   But without that niche identified you’ll find yourself chasing market after market, opportunity after opportunity, never making any traction or money.

Many would-be business owners find themselves dabbling in multiple niche markets, putting in 10% of their time and attention on each.  But 10% effort in 10 different niche markets does not add up to a 100% income.

You need to first be 100% focused on serving a niche and maximize the monetization of that niche to enjoy  a 100% income.

Because of the importance of this topic, I’m putting together a series here on my blog, showcasing some successful niche businesses and explaining why they work.  Additionally I’ll be explaining  how you can implement this in your business.

So let’s start first, by talking about 7 business reasons why you should find a niche and focus! (Note: There are many more reasons than this, but let’s start with 7.)

7 Reasons to Find a Niche and FOCUS

1. You can’t be everything to everybody. At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the number of business owners I see trying.  This especially afflicts new Internet business owners, who see the internet business buffet and want to sample everything. The problem is that this sampling goes on long past “happy hour” and into the “main meal” – the point at which you should be building a business that is hearty, focused and nourishing to your bank account.

2. The money comes from knowing your market. What does your market want? What are their problems? What are they buying? How do they like to be marketed to? Where do they hang out? It takes time to really get to know your market. If you don’t know your market, you won’t know what to sell to them and how to sell it. If you sell baby products, how to make money with Google Adsense eBooks, and affiliate products for pomeranians, you won’t have enough time to find out about ANY of those markets.  So you’ll throw a bunch of stuff up on the Internet and hope someone buys. And then they don’t.  Contrast this to selling baby products, eBooks about parenting and affiliate products in the baby niche and now you’re cookin’!

By the way, I call this my Niche Monetizer Method™, but that’s a subject for a later post.

3. It takes money to monetize a niche. If you sell physical products, in order to find the products buyers want, get the best inventory and stock your store, you need to attend trade shows, read industry publications, purchase information on your niche. This alone could cost you several  thousand dollars a year. You may attend the Sporting Goods Trade Show a couple times a year, subscribe to a couple sporting goods industry publications and consumer publications. You may make a few other buying trips during the year to source inventory.

4. Google loves themed, quality sites. This means a niche site with content, audio, video and products all geared toward achieving the same objective.  Want to sell products in the juggling niche? Your site must not only have products, but also content to go with it.  If you have a site that is not niche focused, creating a quality, themed site is impossible to do.

5. Become a destination site online. As a small to medium-sized business, you need to be a go-to destination in your site  in your niche. A well optimized site, featuring the products and services that people want is the path to becoming a destination site online.  If I’m a customer looking for a unique prom dress, I want to browse a site that specializes in prom dresses, with a depth of selection and a knowledgeable customer service staff.  If I’m shopping an eBay store for a prom dress, I don’t want to be looking at running shoes and circular saws being displayed next to the pink frilly prom desk I’m looking at.

6. Branding for the big bucks. Focusing on a niche enables you to build a brand. Your logo, the look and feel of your store and website, your blog, all play an important role in building your brand online. In my upcoming blog series, I’ll show you some examples of online sellers who have built a strong brand  – brands which is now getting people to sit up and take notice!

7. The number of hours you have in each day are limited, with a niche focus you leverage those hours. The Law of Attraction says “What you focus on expands.”  Lisa’s Law of Action says “What you take action expands.”  And the way to leverage your actions is to get more than one benefit from that action.  For example, let’s say that you’re selling info products in the sizzling hot niche, in-city vegetable gardening.  You write the eBook (or have it written), create some article marketing articles, identify your niche keywords and put together your Keyword Bank™ – you can now leverage all these actions into more advertising and marketing.  The article marketing articles are now re-purposed as blog posts or tweets, your keywords are used to optimized your sales page, and the associated products you are selling on eBay. And your eBook becomes a stand-alone product or a bonus for the physical products you sell or your new home study course.

In the span of two days, you’ve leveraged the actions you’ve taken in one niche.

And of course, once you get the system down for monetizing one niche, then it’s lather, rinse, repeat for the next one!

Ask Yourself Today.  “What is my niche?”

How about you? “What niche do you currently sell in?”  or “What niche will you focus on?” The answer to that question is key to your next steps.

Throughout this blog series, I’ll be showcasing businesses who are monetizing in several different niche markets.

Coming up first in our series…

1. From the Variety Store Model to Rapid Niche Success we’ll look at an entrepreneur from Australia who started selling in the variety store model on eBay, but whose business really took off when he started focusing on a niche.

- Lisa