I worked at a retail store for 2-3 years while going to college, doing sales. Few important things I learned about retail business. What drives these retail stores like Walmart, Bestbuy, Staples and such is that 4^th quarter sales will make or break them and not just on company stock prices. Just recent news: most retail stores released weak sales guidance for this holiday time. However, I want to point out to you that people are still going to buy shit loads!

Here are some big dates you should know.

November 23^rd is Black Friday – No need for introduction here. I remember while I was in sales, this was THE busiest sale day entire year. I remember setting record for biggest sales number this day, I worked 15+ hours from 5am to 8pm, and I didn’t want to stop working. So much money to be made (I earned commission from sales).

November 26^th is Cyber Monday - Most traffic for Internet sales.

December 20^th is the last cut off date for shipped item to get to someone by Christmas.

December 20-25 is time for last minute shoppers.

December 26^th post holiday sales, everything markdown. Another big sale day but not big as Black Friday.

Now I’ve moved on and not on the sales floor but I’m doing affiliate marketing. I’ll be honest with you, last year I made majority of my income during 4th quarter and I’m going to repeat it or do even better this holiday. I had written in previous blog post that I prepare a month in advance. Yes, month in advance but in between I gather even more ideas and do small test campaigns…. then tweak here and there ready for full release for holiday time.

Just to give you an example, look at Google Trends.

People search for: Gift for Him and Gift for Her

Well this is obvious, during Christmas and Valentines day, people are searching gifts to buy for their partners (him/her).

Check out holiday search terms

This is really important time affiliate marketer like myself who is taking advantage of people buying online.

Already die hard shoppers are looking at leaked Black Friday ads from major retailers, these people are planning, finding out great deals then go buy it at brick and mortar store or shop online.

Tips I can give out to those people who want to make money this holiday:

1. Promote trusting brand - It is proven year over year that consumers will buy from previous merchants where they had good experiences with. These consumers will come back to shop with your e-commerce site or major retailers like: Amazon, Walmart, Bestbuy, etc… You can find tons of trusting merchants to promote at Commission Junction.

2. Create Trust - No-brainer here, have a website where people have trust inserting personal information: Name, Address, and Credit card #. It would be nice having some review/rating and testimonial area as well. Oh and lets not forget SSL security seal logos. Godaddy is cheapest $19.99/year then it can go up with Controlscan.com, Hackersafe.com and most recognized Verisign.com seal. It is proven by so many case studies that these security seals will increase your sales numbers. Well worth it in my opinion.

3. Cookies - Find out referral period for merchants and offers you are promoting. Commonly used term is Cookie. It is crucial you want to time it perfectly to get holiday sales, especially on important dates I mentioned above. LAST referral link(cookie) consumers click will pay commission to that last affiliate! Some companies offer 60 day cookie, 30 day cookie, and for Amazon.com is 24 hour cookie. So pay attention to referral period and release campaigns accordingly. It sucks to lose commission because some other affiliate placed cookie after yours by overwriting it.

4. Advertising - There are other ways to promote your affiliate link than pay per click methods (adwords, yahoo, msn). Just for this holiday season, you can promote via popups/popunders (cheap way to place cookies).

Have a nice weekend! I have to get back to work now, gotta make some money.

Filed under: Make Money Online