Publish your delivery cutoff dates prominently, check stock accuracy, prepare the messages for when things go wrong, and decide who is answering enquiries over the holiday period.

Cutoff dates first

The single most useful thing on this list, and the one most sites publish too late.

Customers buying in December are buying against a deadline, and the question they are actually asking is whether it will arrive in time.

A site that answers that plainly, on the product page and in the header, converts better than one that leaves people guessing, and it prevents most of the complaints that arrive later.

Work out the last order date for each shipping method, using your courier's published dates and your own processing time, and publish them now rather than in the second week of December.

Build in a margin, because a cutoff you miss is worse than one a day earlier that you meet.

Be honest about the margin

Where businesses get this wrong in a way that costs them.

The temptation is to publish the latest possible date, on the reasoning that a later cutoff captures more orders.

It does, and it also produces the orders most likely to arrive late, from the customers least tolerant of it, at the moment when a late parcel does the most damage.

A cutoff two days earlier than the theoretical maximum costs a small number of orders and prevents a disproportionate number of problems.

Your own processing time is the part to be honest about. If you pack on Tuesdays and Fridays, the cutoff is the last pack day, not the courier's date.

The November checklist

The fifth is worth doing early. Many retailers extend returns for gifts bought in December, and saying so is a reason to buy from you rather than somewhere with a standard window.

Stock accuracy matters more this month

Because the cost of getting it wrong is higher than at any other time.

Selling something you do not have, in November, produces a refund and a mild irritation. In December it produces somebody without a present and a permanent view of your business.

Count the things that matter rather than trusting the system, particularly anything with low stock, anything sold across several channels, and anything you cannot reorder quickly.

Where a line is genuinely tight, either reduce the displayed availability or take it off sale before it sells out rather than after.

An item marked as unavailable is a small disappointment. An order confirmed and then cancelled is a much larger one.

A worked example

A small retailer published cutoff dates on the twelfth of December in previous years, and spent the last fortnight handling anxious enquiries about delivery.

One year they published in mid-November instead: a line in the header, a note on every product page, and a short page giving the dates for each method.

Enquiries about delivery timing fell by most of their volume, which freed the person answering them.

Orders in the fortnight before the cutoff rose, which they attributed to people being able to see they still had time.

They also set the cutoff two days earlier than the courier's stated date, and had almost no late deliveries for the first time.

The owner described publishing early as the cheapest change they had ever made to the site.

Write the bad-news messages now

The preparation nobody does and everybody needs.

Some orders will be late, some will go missing, and some items will be out of stock after being ordered.

Write those three messages in November, while calm, rather than at nine in the evening on the twenty-first while upset.

Each should say what happened, what you are doing, what the customer's options are, and by when they will know more.

Having them ready means they are sent promptly, and prompt bad news is handled far better by customers than delayed bad news, which is the whole difference in how these end.

Decide who is answering

The operational question that determines how December actually goes.

Enquiry volume rises, patience falls, and the period includes days when nobody is working.

Decide now who answers, on which days, and what the response time will be, and publish that on the site so customers are not guessing.

Set an automatic acknowledgement for the closed days saying when somebody will reply, which converts silence into a stated wait.

An unanswered enquiry on the twenty-third about a missing parcel is the single worst customer experience your site can produce, and it is a rota problem rather than a website one.

Leave the site alone from December

A discipline worth adopting deliberately.

Do any development, theme changes, or plugin updates in November, and then freeze.

A checkout broken by an update on the fifteenth of December costs more than the improvement was worth, and the person who could fix it is frequently unavailable at that point.

If something must change, change it in the morning of a working day, test the whole purchase path afterwards, and have a way to reverse it.

Test the full path yourself now, on a phone, including a real payment, since that is the check that finds what the individual page checks miss.

The counter-case

Not every business has a December.

Plenty of trades and business-to-business suppliers are quieter in December rather than busier, and preparing for a rush that will not come is wasted effort.

For those, the useful December preparation is the opposite: publishing the closure dates, chasing outstanding invoices before the year ends, and using the quiet fortnight for the site work that never gets done.

There is also a limit to how much a small operation can absorb. If the honest position is that you cannot handle a large December, saying so through longer stated lead times is better than accepting orders you will fail.

Match what you promise to what you can actually do, which is the theme of everything above.

This month

  1. Publish cutoff dates now, with a margin.
  2. Count the stock that matters.
  3. Update delivery estimates for the period.
  4. State the returns window, extended if you offer it.
  5. Write the three bad-news messages.
  6. Set the rota and publish the response time.
  7. Freeze the site and test the whole path on a phone.

Step one does more than the other six combined, and it takes an afternoon.

What an estimate commits you to is covered in what your delivery estimate is promising.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most useful December preparation?

Publishing delivery cutoff dates prominently, in November rather than mid-December. Customers are buying against a deadline and that is the question they are actually asking.

Should I publish the latest possible cutoff?

No. A later cutoff captures more orders and produces the ones most likely to arrive late, at the moment a late parcel does the most damage. Build in two days of margin.

Why does stock accuracy matter more now?

Because selling something you do not have produces a refund in November and somebody without a present in December, along with a permanent view of your business.

What should I prepare in advance?

The messages for a late order, a missing parcel, and an out-of-stock item. Written calmly in November, they get sent promptly, and prompt bad news is handled far better.

Should I make site changes in December?

No. Do development and updates in November then freeze. A checkout broken on the fifteenth costs more than any improvement, and the person who could fix it may be away.

What if December is quiet for my business?

Then prepare the opposite: publish your closure dates, chase outstanding invoices before year end, and use the quiet fortnight for the site work that never gets done.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Cutoff dates not published yet?

Work them out this week, add two days of margin, and put them in the header. It is the cheapest change available this month.

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