Is your business ready for the holiday season and online sales?

E-commerce existed long before 2020, but the pandemic dramatically accelerated that shift. For months, shopping online stopped being simply a convenient alternative and became, in many cases, a necessity. People who had never shopped online started doing so, while businesses that had never sold online had to learn quickly.

Restaurants introduced digital ordering, stores began offering delivery or curbside pickup, and small businesses started selling directly through Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and other platforms. Many of those behaviors are here to stay. Today, online shopping is no longer an experience reserved for major retailers; it is part of everyday life.

One of the biggest transformations in e-commerce is that the barrier to entry has dropped significantly. Years ago, building an online store could require a complex programming project and a substantial investment. Today, someone can start selling using platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or even much simpler tools like Facebook Marketplace.

You can come up with an idea, source or make a product, take photographs of it, list it, promote it, and start receiving orders. That is extraordinary: technology has democratized digital commerce. But it has also created much more competition, because if selling online is easier for you, it is also easier for thousands of other businesses.

The question is no longer just whether you can sell online. The question is:

Why should people buy from you?

For years, Black Friday was primarily a date. Today, it is almost a season within the season: promotions start earlier, followed by Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week, December shopping, last-minute gifts, gift cards, and post-Christmas deals. Then come exchanges, returns, and purchases made with money or gift cards received during the holidays.

That is why getting ready for Christmas does not mean creating a graphic that says 20% OFF on the Wednesday before Black Friday. Preparation starts much earlier.

Although many seasonal trends are global, selling online in Puerto Rico has a local context worth understanding. Puerto Rican consumers blend digital and local shopping in a very particular way: they discover products on Instagram or Facebook, ask questions through WhatsApp, compare options on Google, pay with ATH Móvil, and often prefer picking up in-store rather than waiting for a shipment.

There is also a frustration that almost every local consumer knows: reaching checkout at a US store and discovering that they "do not ship to Puerto Rico," or that they treat the island as an international destination. For businesses here, that frustration is an opportunity: a Puerto Rican online store can offer faster local shipping, in-person pickup, ATH Móvil payments, and customer service in Spanish and English, in the buyer's own time zone.

The calendar is different, too. In Puerto Rico, the season does not end on December 25: Christmas is followed by the Octavitas celebrations and Three Kings Day on January 6, which for many families means another round of gifts, gift cards, and shopping. That extends the local sales season several weeks beyond other markets.

The shop-local movement also continues to grow: more and more consumers actively seek out products made in Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican businesses for their holiday gifts. An online store that clearly communicates that it is a local business, where it is located, how it delivers, and how customers can pay starts with a trust advantage over any outside retailer.

For Puerto Rican consumers, buying from a local business that sells well online offers the best of both worlds: the convenience of e-commerce with the confidence of shopping locally.

It sounds obvious, but before investing a dollar in advertising, make a purchase from your own store. Do it on your phone and go through the process from beginning to end: search for a product, open the page, select a variant, add it to your cart, apply a discount, and calculate shipping. Enter your information, select a payment method, complete the purchase, and confirm that you receive the appropriate notification.

Now ask yourself a few questions:

• Was it easy?
• Was it fast?
• Was there any point when you were unsure what to do?
• Did you have to fill out too many fields?
• Did the discount codes work?
• Was shipping clear?
• Did the confirmation arrive correctly?
• Was the experience just as good on mobile?

During the holiday season, every extra step can create friction, and that friction can lead to an abandoned cart.

Much of the digital experience starts on a phone. Someone can discover your product on Instagram, watch a Reel, see an ad, find you on Google, open your website, and make a purchase, all without touching a computer. That is why a store that works perfectly on desktop but feels awkward on mobile has a problem.

Review:

• Button sizes
• Navigation
• Menus
• Photos
• Variants
• Cart
• Checkout
• Forms
• Payment methods
• Speed
• Pop-ups
• Promo codes

Do not design the mobile experience as a scaled-down version of desktop. Design around how people actually shop.

One important change in modern e-commerce is the number of payment options available. Credit and debit cards remain essential, but depending on the platform, location, business, and eligibility, alternatives now include:

• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• PayPal
• Shop Pay
• Klarna
• Affirm
• Buy Now, Pay Later
• ATH Móvil Business in Puerto Rico

Not every method applies to every business, and each platform has different requirements, costs, and terms. But the principle is simple:

The fewer obstacles customers encounter when paying, the better the experience.

The way you prefer to collect payments is not necessarily the way your customers prefer to pay.

This is where options known as Buy Now, Pay Later, or BNPL, come in. For certain products, allowing a buyer to split the cost can make a purchase more affordable. This can be especially relevant at Christmas, when someone may be buying several gifts within a short period.

Tools like Klarna and Affirm allow eligible businesses to offer installment payment or financing options under their respective terms. This does not mean every business needs BNPL, but it does mean that your payment strategy deserves consideration as part of the shopping experience.

Checkout is marketing, too.

Gift cards have become an especially useful tool during the holiday season, and many e-commerce platforms now let you sell them directly through your website. That creates an important opportunity for businesses that may not sell traditional physical products.

• A store.
• A restaurant.
• A spa.
• A salon.
• An experience.
• A professional service.
• A class.
• A studio.
• A product brand.

A gift card can become a digital sale even when the buyer does not yet know exactly what to give. It also helps solve one of the classic Christmas dilemmas:

“I don't know what to get them.”

From a business perspective, a gift card can:

• Generate revenue during the season
• Bring in new customers
• Make last-minute gifting easier
• Reduce dependence on physical inventory
• Generate future visits or purchases
• Enable special promotions
• Sell even when the business is closed

When the platform supports it, the process can be entirely digital. The customer makes a purchase, receives the card or code, and shares it with someone else. The recipient then uses it online or in-store, depending on the business's setup.

At Christmas, a gift card is a product, too.

The holiday season is also a time to think strategically about deals, discounts, and digital coupons.

Modern e-commerce platforms let you create promotions that are much more flexible than simply changing a product's price manually.

You can create:

• Discount codes
• Automatic discounts
• Percentage discounts
• Fixed-amount discounts
• Free shipping
• Buy One, Get One
• Bundles
• Gifts with purchase
• Quantity discounts
• Category promotions
• Exclusive deals for specific customers
• Early access
• Coupons for email subscribers
• Online-only promotions
• Deals with expiration dates and times

This lets you create different promotions for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, or even specific customers.

For example:

• 20% off storewide.
• Free shipping on orders of $75 or more.
• Buy two and get a third free.
• $15 off purchases over $100.
• Early access for registered customers.
• A free gift with purchases of a certain amount.

You can also create campaign-specific coupons: one code used only on Instagram, another sent by email, one for existing customers, and another for influencers or collaborations. This not only encourages purchases; it can also help you understand which promotion or channel is driving results.

Here is something we should not forget: selling more does not always mean earning more. An aggressive discount can increase orders, but it can also significantly reduce margins.

Before launching a promotion, we should consider:

• Product cost
• Margin
• Shipping
• Payment processing fees
• Platform costs
• Advertising spend
• Discounts
• Operating costs

Sometimes, a free shipping threshold can deliver better results than lowering the price of every product. A bundle can increase average order value, a gift with purchase can better protect margins, and an additional gift card can encourage a future purchase.

The best promotion is not necessarily the one with the biggest discount percentage. It is the one that motivates consumers while still making sense for the business.

This detail seems small until hundreds of people arrive at your website and the Black Friday code does not work.

Before launching a campaign:

• Test every code.
• Confirm the dates.
• Check the time zones.
• Verify excluded products.
• Check minimum purchase requirements.
• Confirm whether discounts can be combined.
• Review what happens with products already on sale.
• Test the code on mobile.
• And make an actual test purchase.

A promotion that does not work at checkout is not a promotion. It is a customer service problem waiting to happen.

Here is one of the most important differences between simply selling a product and running a true e-commerce operation: a website lets you measure. With properly implemented analytics and conversion tracking, we can understand much of the consumer journey.

For example:

• How many people visited the store
• Where they came from
• Which campaign brought them in
• Which products they viewed
• Which categories they visited
• Which product they added to their cart
• How many started checkout
• How many completed a purchase
• Which products generate the most sales
• What the average order value is
• Which promotions work best
• Which campaigns generate revenue
• How many customers return

Tools like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, and e-commerce platforms themselves can help us connect advertising, behavior, and sales. That completely changes the conversation, because we no longer have to rely solely on:

“I think the campaign worked.”

We can start analyzing:

What actually generated sales?

Someone visited your store, found a product, added it to their cart, and perhaps even started checkout, but did not buy. That is an abandoned cart, and it does not necessarily mean the sale is lost forever. Analyzing these carts can help us identify important problems.

For example:

• Do people leave when they see the shipping cost?
• Does checkout have too many steps?
• Is a payment method missing?
• Is there a technical error?
• Is the promo code not working?
• Does the consumer simply need more time to decide?

Depending on the platform and the appropriate permissions, we can use automation to try to recover some of those purchases. For example:

• Abandoned cart emails
• Reminders
• Remarketing
• Advertising audiences
• Specific incentives
• Follow-ups on viewed products
• Checkout automations

Someone may abandon their cart today and complete the purchase tomorrow after receiving a reminder. During Black Friday and Christmas, when consumers are comparing multiple products and stores at once, this can be especially important.

An abandoned cart is also information.

It helps us understand where we are losing opportunities.

During the holiday season, many purchase decisions happen in minutes. Customers are comparing prices, products, delivery dates, and payment methods, and a single unanswered question can be enough to send them to another store. That is where live chat and chatbots become a sales tool, not just a customer service tool.

Website chat lets you answer questions in real time that might otherwise lead to abandonment:

• Is this product available?
• When will it arrive if I order today?
• Do you ship to my area?
• Can I pay with ATH Móvil?
• Do you have gift cards?
• What is the deadline to order before Christmas?

When the team is unavailable, a chatbot can keep the conversation going: answer frequently asked questions, guide visitors toward the right category or product, collect their contact information, and set up a follow-up. Today's platforms allow you to automate answers about business hours, shipping policies, returns, and availability, and escalate the conversation to a person when the issue requires it.

The key is to configure it with the same care as the rest of the store: clear answers, current seasonal information, and an obvious path to speak with a human when needed. A poorly configured chatbot creates the same frustration as a phone that no one answers.

During peak season, every question answered on time is a sale that did not go to the competition.

The reality of holiday e-commerce is that most visitors do not buy on their first visit. They see the product, compare it, make a mental note, discuss it with someone, and perhaps return. Retargeting, or remarketing, exists precisely for that behavior: it keeps your brand present while undecided shoppers make up their minds.

With properly configured pixels and audiences, we can reconnect with people who have already shown interest:

• People who visited the store
• People who viewed a specific product
• People who added to their cart but did not buy
• People who started checkout
• Previous customers to introduce to new arrivals or gift cards

This enables campaigns that are much more relevant than a generic ad: showing someone the product they were viewing, reminding them that an offer expires soon, communicating a shipping deadline, or presenting an alternative in the same category. During Black Friday and Christmas, when consumers are seeing ads from dozens of brands at once, that relevance makes an enormous difference.

Retargeting also helps make better use of advertising spend, because we are not relying solely on finding new customers; we are also reaching people who already know the brand and are closer to buying. Tools like Google Ads and Meta platforms allow us to build these audiences and measure their impact on actual sales.

An undecided shopper is not a lost sale. It is a conversation that is not over yet.

Retargeting works with people who visited your store, but what about those who left their contact information? Someone who signed up to receive a guide, downloaded a catalog, completed a form, subscribed to your list, or started a chat conversation is a lead. And those leads are probably the people most likely to buy from you this season.

That is where lead nurturing comes in: the process of maintaining a useful, relevant conversation with those people, with the right timing and content, until they are ready to buy. It is not about sending aggressive advertising or bombarding them with offers; it is about building trust systematically, with the right message at the right moment.

The difference from retargeting is subtle but important: retargeting reminds people who have already seen you; nurturing gives them reasons to stay interested. Retargeting works with advertising audiences; nurturing works on the relationship, typically through email, WhatsApp, SMS, and content, complemented by retargeting campaigns.

A well-nurtured lead does not need convincing in December. They enter December already convinced.

Suppose a business starts now, with the season approaching. Here is a simple sequence showing how lead nurturing can prepare a prospect to shop at Christmas:

• September: Capture: someone downloads a seasonal guide, signs up for offers, or leaves their email in exchange for a coupon. That first contact turns an anonymous visitor into a real lead.
• October: Value: instead of selling immediately, you send useful content: gift ideas, tips, new arrivals, and blog content. The goal is for the brand to stay present and be seen as trustworthy, not just another store.
• Early November: Anticipation: you announce that something big is coming: "this season, we will have offers for our subscribers." Building anticipation before Black Friday increases the likelihood that someone will wait for your offer instead of buying from the competition.
• Black Friday: Early access: the leads you nurtured receive the offer before anyone else, or an exclusive version of the promotion. This is the moment when months of conversation turn into sales.
• December: Urgency with context: shipping deadline reminders, gift cards for those who still cannot decide, and suggestions based on what someone has already viewed or purchased. Urgency works better with people who already know you.
• After Christmas: Continuity: thank-you messages, gift card follow-ups, January offers, and content that prepares the relationship for the next year.

This same approach can be implemented through a combination of automated email, WhatsApp, SMS, chatbots, and retargeting campaigns. Best of all: once configured, the sequence works on its own. Each new lead starts their own journey without someone having to send every message manually.

The season is not won in December. It is won through what you planted in the preceding months.

This measurement capability also lets us connect advertising with real results.

Someone might:

• See an ad on Instagram.
• Visit your website.
• View three products.
• Add one to their cart.
• Leave.
• Later see a remarketing ad.
• Return.
• And finally buy.

Without the right infrastructure, those events can seem completely disconnected. With properly configured analytics, pixels, and conversion tracking, we can start to better understand that journey. This lets us optimize campaigns toward goals that matter much more than likes or clicks.

We can optimize for sales.

We can also analyze metrics such as:

• Conversion Rate
• Cost per Acquisition
• Return on Ad Spend
• Average Order Value
• Revenue by campaign
• Best-selling products
• Abandoned carts
• Conversions by device
• Conversions by source

Data turns e-commerce into a tool for continuous learning. Each season can help us prepare better for the next.

Few experiences are more frustrating than buying a product only to receive an email afterward:

“Sorry, it is out of stock.”

During periods of high demand, proper inventory management becomes critical.

If you sell:

• In a physical store.
• On your website.
• On marketplaces.
• At events.
• By phone.
• Through social media.

Ideally, all those channels should work with inventory information that is as synchronized as possible. This is where good integration between your website, e-commerce platform, POS, and inventory can make an enormous difference. The goal is to reduce manual processes and minimize the possibility of selling something that is no longer available.

For businesses that sell both in person and online, one of the most important opportunities is connecting both ecosystems. The Point of Sale can handle physical sales and the e-commerce platform can handle digital orders, but ideally both should share information when the technology allows it.

• Inventory.
• Products.
• Prices.
• Orders.
• Customers.
• Reports.

Depending on the available platforms, these connections can be made through existing integrations, plugins, or APIs. At Alterno, we have worked on this type of integration, including connections between websites and point-of-sale systems. The more sales channels you add, the more important it becomes for the technology behind them to communicate.

At Christmas, selling is only half the job; now you have to deliver. The customer probably has a deadline, and the gift needs to arrive before the 24th. That completely changes the importance of communicating:

• Shipping costs
• Estimated delivery dates
• Delivery areas
• Free shipping
• Minimum purchase requirements
• In-store pickup
• Curbside pickup
• Order deadlines
• Exchange and return policies

Do not hide this information until the last step of checkout, especially at Christmas. Uncertainty also leads to abandonment.

If your business is in Puerto Rico, local logistics can be a competitive advantage: shipping within the island is usually faster and less expensive than shipping from elsewhere, and options like in-store pickup or local delivery eliminate shipping uncertainty altogether. Communicate it early and clearly: for many local shoppers, "arrives before Christmas" is the argument that closes the sale.

A good e-commerce strategy does not end on December 25.

After that come:

• Gift cards that start getting used
• Exchanges
• Returns
• New customers
• Remarketing audiences
• Databases
• Reviews
• Repeat purchases
• Future promotions

And in Puerto Rico, January is not just about exchanges and returns: the Octavitas celebrations and Three Kings Day extend the gift-giving season through January 6, which means another opportunity for sales, gift card redemptions, and last-minute purchases.

Someone who made their first purchase on Black Friday can become a repeat customer throughout the year. That is one of the biggest opportunities: not thinking only:

How much can we sell this Christmas?

But also:

How many new customer relationships can we start building this Christmas?

At Alterno, we see e-commerce as part of a broader ecosystem.

Strategy + website + development + content + media + technology + data.

We can handle everything from creating and developing the store to integrations with payment methods, external platforms, POS systems, analytics, tracking, and digital campaigns. Because selling online is not just about putting products on a page; it is about building an experience that connects:

Product + customer + technology + marketing + data.

Black Friday and Christmas can create an enormous opportunity, but that opportunity works best when the technology is ready before the traffic arrives. So perhaps the most important question for this season is:

Is your business ready to sell online when your customers are ready to buy?