watch60When I noticed that the Cyber Monday countdown timer had hit 60 days today, I mentioned it on Twitter.

But then it occurred to me that my point might not have been clear (it’s tricky to encompass more than one layer of meaning in 140 characters or less).

My point is that retailers still have time to introduce new technology to their online stores–technology that will increase conversion rates and average order value over current performance–even though Cyber Monday is just 60 days away. However, to do that successfully you need to make sure that the technology you choose has certain characteristics. Here’s what to look for:

  1. Easy to deploy. Avoid applications that require page redesign or adding new elements to your page layouts or back-end system.
  2. Platform agnostic. You don’t want to be making changes to your ecommerce platform at this point. Ask application vendors: “Does it play well with others?”
  3. Lightweight. You want to avoid bogging down your servers with a bunch of new database provisioning as you head into the holiday season. You want the data collection, storage, and processing to be handled by reliable third-party servers (think Akamai).
  4. Measurable ROI. How will you know if it works? Look for dashboard-style reporting of real time results from any application that makes ROI promises, as well as the ability to create custom reports on demand.

The coming holiday season looks to be a critical and highly competitive one for many retailers, so try to grab every last advantage you can get. If you are careful you can still execute new initiatives in time to maximize your performance.

(There are more articles about Monetate integration here.)