WordPress Tips

Digital sales dominated the headlines for Black Friday shopping results. American shoppers dropped a record $5 billion in 24 hours, which is a whopping 16.9% increase in dollars spent over the internet versus Black Friday 2016, according to Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks 80% of internet spending on America’s 100 largest retail websites. It has never been so critical to your business to ensure that your eCommerce website can handle surging sales.

Online retail giant Amazon reported that Friday’s sales were happening at a record pace. Over 200,000 toys sold in the first five hours of the day. Remember, that’s from midnight to 5:00 a.m. Shoppers are staying awake through the wee hours of the morning to snag the best deals and beat the traffic at malls. Amazon still has yet to report total sales for the day.

In addition, malls and big-box retailers saw only a tiny dip in foot traffic and sales compared to 2016. This is good news for traditional retailers who have also put in significant effort into their websites to capture both online and in-store sales. Companies such as Macy’s, Gap, JCPenny, and Nordstrom are using their internet presence to drive business across all channels.

Experts still debate the shifting importance of traditional retail storefronts versus online shopping. This year may be the tipping point that determines the balance between the two venues. The shopper in the stores on Black Friday likely conducted extensive research online to determine the best in-store deals to seek out. Thus, your website should be both your best marketing tool and your best opportunity to capture incremental sales. And with online sales increasing close to 17%, that’s an increment you don’t want to miss due to glitches with your website.

NOYO Web Development has extensive experience with creating eCommerce websites that can handle growing traffic and sales. We recommend WordPress as the best ecommerce platform, and we are San Diego’s best WordPress developers. There are several content management systems (CMS) that handle eCommerce websites, but they are not created equal. NOYO Web Development, and many of the world’s top web designers, consider WordPress eCommerce as the best platform. Choosing the wrong CMS can make or break your online business especially during the critical holiday season when most retailers capture up to 30% of their annual sales.

WordPress has a unique blend of functionality, documentation, and support that can’t be surpassed. In this and our next post, we will review the four key reasons we recommend WordPress to our clients for creating an eCommerce website:

1. WordPress is powerful, scalable, and flexible.
2. Your WordPress eCommerce site and visitor data will be secure.
3. WordPress plugins adapt to your specific needs
4. WordPress has a vast wealth of resources for solving problems.

We will look at the first reason here, and follow up in our next post about the other three.

WordPress is Powerful, Scalable, and Flexible

For those not well versed in content management systems, WordPress is the most popular CMS available, powering over 25% of all websites worldwide, and it is fully open source. Although WordPress began as a blogging platform, it has quickly evolved into a full-featured CMS, and its scalability handles high-traffic websites across nearly every industry and segment around the globe.

In addition, WordPress has impressive core functionality that easily expands with a broad selection of themes and plugins, many of which are free – an added bonus. But, free doesn’t mean cheap with WordPress. These themes and plugins are sophisticated while being easy to install and use. Plus, there are many technical reasons for its popularity such as its reliable development cycle, the constant progression of its core functionalities, and its focus on the latest and emerging web standards.

If you are missing out on your share of online sales this holiday season, give NOYO Web Development a call for a free consultation, and let us show you how to optimize your website to maximize your sales.