This article was created by our partner Virid, the leading unified commerce solution for growing brands.
The holiday rush is right around the corner, and ecommerce teams are feeling the pressure. With retailers scrambling to keep up with the latest trends like AI search, agentic commerce, augmented reality, and more, we are cutting through the noise to what actually drives conversions.
The truth is, most online retailers are still struggling with their site’s technical foundation. Implementing the latest AI chatbot or AR try-ons on your site will only deliver minimal lift if your customers still face slow-loading product pages and a clunky checkout.
Before shifting your focus to each new trend, make sure you’ve mastered these fundamentals.
Optimize your site for speed and performance
Site speed and performance have a significant impact on your customer experience and, ultimately, your bottom line. Holiday shoppers are comparing prices across browser tabs and won’t wait for a slow product page to load. Every extra second gives them a reason to abandon your site for a competitor.
The good news is that the biggest performance wins usually come from the basics. Lazy load images and below-the-fold content, compress your files (especially images), remove unnecessary code and third-party scripts, choose reliable hosting that can scale with demand, and use a content delivery network (CDN) to serve content quickly.
Just as important is making sure your site can handle the traffic once it arrives. Monitor site uptime and conduct load testing well before peak traffic hits. Then prepare for code freeze (typically early November to early January) by putting a halt to any new changes on the site.
Create a value-driven UX that keeps customers coming back
The holidays bring a wave of first-time visitors to your site, and their experience will determine whether they return in January. A value-driven user experience doesn’t just convert a single holiday order; it turns seasonal shoppers into loyal customers. Monitor Google’s Core Web Vitals to ensure your site’s usability. Find friction points before your customers do by using site analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings to see where customers are clicking and where they’re dropping off in their journey.
The mobile experience matters now more than ever, as most of your customers are likely shopping on their phones. Make sure navigation, search, product pages, and checkout all work seamlessly across screen sizes.
Make checkout quick and easy
You’ve already done the hard work of getting a customer to your site and convincing them to add something to their cart. Don’t lose them at the finish line. Abandoned carts are a significant source of lost holiday revenue, and many come down to a checkout process with too much friction.
Reduce abandoned carts by streamlining each step of your checkout process. Offer guest checkout and invite customers to create an account after an order is placed. Provide alternate payment methods like digital wallets and buy now, pay later (BNPL) options to make it easier for shoppers to complete their purchase, especially on mobile. And clearly display shipping costs, delivery cutoffs, and return policies, so customers aren’t surprised at checkout. Make this information easy to find on product pages, an FAQ page, and throughout the checkout process.
Strengthen your visibility in search and AI engines
The way customers discover products is changing fast. More shoppers are turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to research gift ideas and compare options, and managing your presence across these platforms can feel daunting. The good news is that many SEO fundamentals still hold true, even with the rise of AI search.
Start by mastering technical SEO. That means clean site architecture, crawlable pages, fast load times, descriptive product titles and meta descriptions, and structured data that clearly communicates product details like price, availability, and reviews. These same signals help AI engines understand and recommend your products. From there, check how your brand is actually showing up in AI engines. Virid’s new AI Visibility Audit can help. Request your free audit to assess your brand’s visibility in AI search and identify opportunities to improve before the holiday rush.
Test incentives and promotions early
When you’re running multiple promotions and marketing campaigns at once, things are more likely to break. Test everything early and often.
Walk through each promotion the way a customer would, on both desktop and mobile, from the marketing email or ad all the way to the order confirmation. Then confirm that your marketing messages line up with what appears on your site. If an email promises free shipping over a certain order amount, customers should see that reflected at checkout. Keep promotion details clear and easy to find so the customer journey is as seamless as possible.
Set your ecommerce team up for success
Even the most optimized site needs a prepared team behind it. The holiday season moves fast, and when issues come up, there’s no time to figure out who owns what or how to respond.
Prep your team with a holiday checklist that’s repeatable each year. Document your pre-holiday tasks, code freeze dates, QA steps, key escalation contacts, and post-season review process. Each year, refine it based on what worked and what didn’t, so your team isn’t starting from scratch every fall.
Create communication templates for your customer service team. Prepare responses for common issues and questions like shipping delays, order status, promo code problems, and holiday return windows. These templates will help your team respond quickly and consistently when ticket volume spikes.
Focus on the fundamentals
New trends will keep coming, and there’s a time and a place to test them. But the retailers who succeed this holiday season will be the ones who get the basics right: a fast, reliable site, a seamless experience on every device, a frictionless checkout, and a team that’s ready for whatever the season brings.
A solid customer experience doesn’t just drive holiday conversions. It wins customers over and builds loyalty long after the season ends. Not sure where your site stands? Schedule a pre-holiday site assessment with Virid to make sure your site is fully optimized before the rush begins.
