Changing Trends in the Holiday Season

In a landscape where holiday shopping used to be predominately in-store, e-commerce is now winning. Black Friday shoppers are on the decline, opting instead to take up the many online offers from the comfort of their homes instead of camping out early in the morning. Because of this, if you aren’t using an omni-channel method to selling you may be falling behind. Appealing to those who prefer to do their holiday shopping online is important, or else you may alienate this audience. E-commerce traffic increased yearly by 15%, so it is a visibly growing channel.

This isn’t just limited to computer use, mobile devices are leading the way for people to shop online. People are making more and more online purchases through their mobile device instead of waiting until they can access a computer. It is more immediate and convenient, and doesn’t lack any of the features they would get online. With the way mobile technology is advancing, computers are becoming secondary. So not only should you make sure you have an e-commerce website, it will also need to be optimized for mobile, and made to be able to make secure payments through a mobile device too.

Because theft is more prevalent during the holiday season, payment security and the ability to use a secure terminal is huge for customers. This means you’ll have to pay careful attention to the safety of the terminals you use. Make sure you have the most up to date technology with updated software. Protecting against a data breach is made easier when you ensure the equipment you are working with is up to security standards. Enabling things like EMV, point to point encryption, tokenization are all ways that your terminal can fight potential fraud.