Summer’s almost here, school will soon be out and it’s time for barbecues and the beach, right? If you’re like most in the retail business, Cyber Monday is the furthest thing from your mind. But guess what? Most retailers put off holiday-preparedness until the fall – and by then, it’s almost too late. If you start thinking about it now and spend the summer months getting your site ready, you won’t find yourself in a bind come September/October.

Why? The months leading up to the holiday season are a very busy time for your website, and your vendors.  And by starting early, you have time to test different variations to see what drives the most impact.

For example, do you have a site redesign or platform change in the works? If so, be sure to alert your dedicated CSM so we can work with you to ensure there’s no disruption to your search.

And speaking of search, there are many enhancements you might consider adding, as each will typically drive more conversions. For example, adding Rich Auto Complete, Quickview, and AJAX search can all be great enhancements for the holidays. Also, incorporating things like ratings and reviews, non-product content (blog posts, video, tutorials) and social media content from your Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest pages are all great ways to increase engagement.

Are you planning to launch a mobile or tablet commerce site? Let us help you ensure the search on these platforms is optimized.  Do you, or a member of your team, need training on the merchandising console?

Whatever your needs, your dedicated Customer Success Manager is available to help you plan and execute your 2012 holiday initiatives. We can also provide you with complete training on the Merchandising tools and reports, as well as provide suggestions for how to merchandise on your site using the SLI Tools. And we can help you do A/B testing to see what features make the most sense for your customers.

Don’t put it off – get started with holiday planning today! To get started, contact your CSM directly, or email customersuccess@sli-systems.com, and a member of our team will follow up with you.

We are very excited about this year’s Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE 2012), which will be the biggest ever. The exhibit hall has sold out and the number of expected attendees will exceed 9,000. IRCE has grown over the years to become the biggest show for retailers not only in the US, but from around the world. Indeed, we are expecting contingencies from Australia, Brazil, Europe and many more.

The theme is “Connecting with the 21^st Century Customer.” For eRetailers this means connecting with your site visitors, who are connected to others through social media, and accessing your retail site not only on their computers, but mobile devices and tablets. Increasingly, non-product content such as videos, blogs posts, tweets and Facebook ‘likes’ have become important to them. For SLI Systems, this show presents a great opportunity to connect with OUR customers, partners, and other retailers looking for the best and latest technologies to foster customer engagement and loyalty.

SLI Systems will have a huge presence at the show. Our goal is to arm you with useful information and best practices in search, navigation and merchandising to give your business a boost and help you discover innovative solutions that will increase your site’s user experience, stickiness, and conversions. To that end, we created the SLI Theater – located at our booth, where several of our clients will share their experiences working with SLI and show how using our site search and merchandising solutions has fueled more sales and conversions online. Presenters include:

• Ian MacDonald – US Mattress/PartySuppliesDelivered.com/Furniture Crate
• Ben Quigley – Healthy Directions
• Laura Santos – Envelopes.com
• Chris Reighley – totes-ISOTONER
• Richard Sexton – Carolina Rustica
• Franck Ardourel – 24-Hour Fitness
• Don Carnes – Revival Animal Health
• Joshua Wood – Ozbo
• John Santora (SLI CSM) – on behalf of Abe’s of Maine
• Jeff Hefland – Monster Cable

Our CEO Shaun Ryan and other SLI executives will also be presenting at our booth, sharing tips for how to maximize the impact of your search and navigation. We will also offer free site critiques, and demos of some of the best search implementations in the business.

IRCE will be hosting interesting workshops around cutting-edge technologies in search, mobile and other areas. A few interesting talks you may be interested in include:

• Technology Workshop – Tuesday, June 5
  • 8:30-8:45am – Bernadine Wu of our partner FitForCommerce will open the workshop with a discussion of what all e-retailers need to know about tomorrow’s technology
  • 1:15-2:15pm – Ben Quigley, Vice President, Internet Channels of SLI customer Healthy Directions will participate in a panel on “Product + Content + Asset Management: Tools that improve efficiency and the bottom line”
  • Day 1 – Wednesday, June 6
    • 11:15-11:45am (Retail Chains Track) – Forrester Research analyst Brian Walker will lead a discussion on “Leveraging a commerce platform in the era of the anywhere, anytime, any device consumer”
    • Day 2 – Thursday, June 7
      • 1:45-2:30pm (Social Commerce Track) – “Making your product reviews do more” will be given by Nadim Hossain, Vice President, Marketing, PowerReviews
      • 3:45-4:15pm (Design & Merchandising Track) – “Refining site search to meet your company’s needs” will be presented by Chris Reighley, Director of E-commerce for SLI customer totes-ISOTONER

Visit http://irce.internetretailer.com/2012/agenda/#/overview to see the full conference agenda and detailed descriptions of all the workshops and presentations.

IRCE 2012 promises to be one of the best ever. If you’re planning to attend, be sure to look for the SLI booth, number 501. We’re right at the entrance, you won’t be able to miss it! Stop by to see what more we can do to help you forge stronger connections with your customers.