Here are the busy times again. Many businesses must have already started preparing for the hectic days ahead to increase their shares in the increasing shopping volume during the holiday shopping period. Hurry up! There is a lot of promotion and marketing to do.

For an ecommerce startup, the most mysterious piece of the puzzle is probably online payment processing. Even though we don’t exactly know what goes on behind the scene, we are familiar with credit card machines that are used all the time in retail stores. This is a little easier to grasp than an online payment transaction where there is no credit card swiping machine and where the seller and buyer don’t really see each other.

Earlier I had a post that mentioned about how e-commerce was doing. I suggested that online retail was going to grow even more and I encouraged you to start selling online. This post has new information about how things are going now. You will also find about an opportunity that can give some exposure to your online business and may be help you carry it to the next level.

Think of any store you visited in the last month and consider how that store owner would feel if more than 75% of customers took a shopping cart, pushed it around the store, placing some goods in it and then, when they approach the till to pay for their purchases they suddenly decide that in fact, they are only pushing some goods around and are not going to pay for them. They leave the cart in the aisle and walk out of the store.

There is a lot to consider when setting up an e-commerce business or taking an existing business online, but these are some of the initial areas to consider once you have a basic idea of what you are selling.

Do you remember the article “‘Tis the Season to be Ready” posted before the 2009 holiday season? I had suggested that we were going to experience strong online sales during the 2009 holiday season. I am so happy to find out that I was not wrong.

With the 2009 holiday season upon us, many businesses have already started their customer engagement activities in order to get the best out of the most lucrative period of the year. This year everything looks good for holiday sales. The question is whether you and your business is ready. To help you with your preparations and promotional activities for the holiday shopping season, I put together a list of items that you should consider for your to do list.