With record Black Friday online sales ($816 Million) and the online biggest shopping day of the year Cyber Monday ($125 Billion in sales) behind us, you might think the best of the holiday selling season is behind us…

But nothing could be further from the truth!

There are still three solid weeks in this holiday prime time season, and there’s still plenty of time to stoke the fires of your online sales!

In fact there are FOUR big “Online Holiday Paydays” in December!

Don’t think that these Holiday Paydays are simply random dates picked by some Madison Avenue marketing execs.

These online paydays reflect historical consumer buying patterns and should be ignored!

In fact, Forrester Research recently reported that online shoppers continue to increase their use of the web for holiday shopping on these key dates.

So when are these Online Holiday Paydays?  Take a look…

Now that you know what dates to drive to, let’s talk about what to do to capitalize on these dates. …Because buyers will be shopping… you want them to shop with you!

Readying Your Store to Cash In on the Top 4 December Online Holiday Paydays

Product Marketing & Visibility. If I could have have one wish for every independent online merchant this holiday season, it would be the gift of product marketing and visibility during the holidays. Nothing is more important than getting out there and promoting your store.

• Emailing your customer list to let them know about up coming promotions
• Using Twitter & Facebook to offer exclusive coupon codes and social media only deals
• Including a coupon for a special discount in every package you sell, to be redeemed on/near one of the Online Holiday Paydays
• Using your blog to promote your holiday products and send traffic directly to your store
• If you sell on eBay, regularly updating your eBay Stores Promotion boxes with new merchandise
• Creating a video review of a few of your top holiday products for posting on YouTube.

Millions of people search YouTube and the web this time of year for gift ideas and product reviews. A good product review video hosted on YouTube can also land a first page ranking on Google for the long tail keywords of the product you are reviewing!

As you can see, there are many different ways you can get the word out about your online store! You don’t have to do them all. Pick one and get started today!

Promotions. Schedule new promotions to start and end on these top online holiday paydays. Shoppers will either land at your store ready to make a decision (in which case a promotion ending on that date can spur them to buy today!) or they are at the start of the buying process, and a brand new promotion will keep your store front and center in their mind.

Price Awareness. Online product prices can be very volatile the last three weeks of the holiday selling season. Make sure that your products are priced and position appropriately to generate sales and maximize profit margins.

Shipping Options. If you’re not offering express shipping options at this point in the game, do so knowing that it will hurt your late in the season holiday sales. The #1 thing buyers want to know once the clock strikes December is that they’ll receive their purchase in time. Especially if it’s a hot item that’s running out of stock in stores. If you’re not offering express shipping options, you’ll likely lose the sale to someone who is.

Provide Real-Time Customer Service. This can be a tough one for solopreneurs who are busy shipping, marketing and more! But providing real-time customer service during the holidays can also make the difference between getting the sale or losing it. Customers who don’t get their product questions answered right away will go in search of a store who will.

As soon as their product ships, notify your customer and provide a tracking number. An added customer benefit is to follow up with an “Your Item Has Been Delivered Email”. With shoppers making multiple purchases online, you want to make sure that they know the item has been delivered to them. Shipping services like FedEx can actually be configured to notify the customer directly via email with shipping notifications, delivery exceptions and confirmed delivery.

Amazon FBA. It’s still not too late to outsource your fulfillment, express shipping and customer service to Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). Whether your sell on Amazon or use Amazon Multi-Channel fulfillment, outsourcing the time-consuming process of order fulfillment so you can focus on product marketing and visibility is one of the best ways to generate bigger Online Holiday Paydays!