Summer has officially come to an end, the kids are back in school, and Black Friday is right around the corner. If you’re like me, you’re sitting here asking yourself, “where has the year gone?”
As we inch closer to the holidays, here are some important dates to keep in mind as you begin preparing for the holiday season:
- Thursday, November 28, 2019 – Thanksgiving
- Friday, November 29, 2019 – Black Friday
- Saturday, November 30, 2019 – Small Business Saturday
- Monday, December 2, 2019 – Cyber Monday
- Monday, December 9, 2019 – Green Monday
- Tuesday, December 27, 2019 – Free Shipping Day
- December 22 – 30, 2019 – Hanukkah
- Tuesday, December 24, 2019 – Christmas Eve
- Wednesday, December 25, 2019 – Christmas Day
- Tuesday, December 31, 2019 – New Year’s Eve
- Wednesday, January 1, 2020 – New Year’s Day
A few weeks ago, I wrote down some of my top holiday planning tips. If you haven’t had the opportunity to read that blog post, take a minute to do so here.
Even the Wizards Prep for the Holidays
Here at Your Store Wizards, the team has been busy with our own holiday prep work. Our chief wizard, Don Cole, and his development team have been hard at work upgrading our network infrastructure and the hardware that powers our apps.
Like you, we’re anticipating a record-breaking year for eCommerce, especially when it comes to those who will be shopping on mobile devices. By giving the servers that power our most popular applications such as Search Magic and AMP Wizard a boost, we’re more than prepared to take on the additional traffic your stores will be generating.
Speaking of Search Magic and AMP Wizard, the team has been hard at work getting those two products ready for their debut on BigCommerce and Shopify later this year. If your store is running on either of those platforms and would like to be considered as a beta tester as we get closer to launch, email me at scott@yourstorewizards.com.
If you’re a Yahoo! Store owner and would like to learn more, or purchase these two must-have apps for your store, click here to learn more about them.
Meet Me In….
Recently, we surveyed our clients on whether or not they would be interested in either formal or informal meet-ups to network with fellow eCommerce store owners, chat with some of our own staff, and share ideas and tips. The response was overwhelmingly positive with many interested in either a full- or multi-day event.
Your interest prompted us to put this as one of our “to-dos” for 2020. In a few days, Don will be hosting one such event in the Los Angeles area, and I’ll be sure to ask him to share a recap of the event in a future blog post.
While nothing is formalized just yet, we’re considering putting together one-day meet-ups in southern California and Florida next year. We’re also toying with the idea of a virtual meet-up that will allow anyone to attend regardless of location.
These types of events would be a first for Your Store Wizards and we’re looking forward to offering them in the new year. Keep an eye out here in my monthly updates for more information!
An Epic Journey from Magento to BigCommerce
One of our biggest accomplishments last month involved the completion of a major project. Long-time eTailer, LA Police Gear, came to us looking to have their store migrated from Magento to BigCommerce.
As you could imagine, migrating a store with thousands of products from one platform to another, in addition to carrying over customer data and order history, is no easy task. But as a BigCommerce Preferred Partner, we were up to the challenge!
Before the work even began, hours were spent just in the planning stages where our team mapped out the project each step of the way from moving data and creating a new store design, to building custom features and working through any data migration issues. Once a plan was in place, the team went to work making sure milestones were met and deadlines were kept.
In addition to migrating data from Magento to BigCommerce, we developed a custom theme for an entirely new site design. There were many custom solutions implemented on both the customer-facing storefront, to improve user experience and conversions, as well as things we built to automate some of the behind-the-scenes processes for the client.
One of the standout features of the new store is a custom “Holster Finder,” an advanced filtering application we built to help customers find the perfect holster. Take a moment to view this feature, by clicking here.
“We’re so proud to have been part of LA Police Gear’s transition to Big Commerce. We’ve worked with them over the years and this project again gave us the opportunity to show what could be done. I’m proud of what our team has done to help them in their next step in their eCommerce journey. They are not only a great client but someone I’m proud to have in our Your Store Wizards family.”
Don Cole, Owner – Your Store Wizards
Our company’s core focus consists of two elements, the first is “to make our eCommerce clients successful,” and the second is, “to solve complex eCommerce problems.” This project is a perfect example of how we aim to deliver on that in every job we take on.
“Having worked with Your Store Wizards for many years, we were excited to once again partner with them on our switch to the BigCommerce Enterprise platform. Even with our lofty expectations from previous projects, Your Store Wizards still impressed us with their expertise and knowledge, speed, and excellent overall service. The development, launch, and post-launch processes all were executed as well as you can possibly hope for. We will continue to use Your Store Wizards for any website services we need, and highly recommend them!”
Ryan Batenhorst, LA Police Gear
As I wrap up this month’s update, I’d also like to express my sincere thanks to LA Police Gear for trusting us to take on this project. All of us are looking forward to working together post-launch to help grow the business even more on the new platform.
Additionally, congratulations and thanks to our team. I know there were plenty of late nights, early mornings, weekends, and lots of coffee. After all, one of our company’s core values is, “work tirelessly to completion.”
That’s just what you did, and I couldn’t be prouder.
Scott Sanfilippo
GM, Your Store Wizards
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.