To help online retailers prepare for and prosper during the 2010 holiday shopping season, the GSI Center for Online Retail Excellence (CORE) will share strategic insight and pragmatic tips via a live webinar, “10 Keys to Winning this Holiday Season,” and a comprehensive Holiday Planning Guide.


The hour-long webinar will be held on Aug. 31 and on Sept. 15 at 2:00 p.m. EDT.

The holiday season can account for 25-40 percent of retailers’ annual revenues, making it a critical period for engaging shoppers and driving sales – which is particularly challenging in an uncertain economy. Webinar host Jeff McCall, senior vice president of Strategy Services for GSI Commerce Inc., will discuss the state of online retailing for the upcoming holiday season, offering tactical tips and a best practices checklist that will help retailers move easily from concepts to planning. Retailers interested in attending the webinar may register at the CORE website.


“There simply is no silver bullet to succeeding at holiday nor any need to reinvent the wheel each holiday season,” said McCall. “Instead, retailers need to have a comprehensive foundation they can build on and then fine tune their online strategy to address changing customer, economic, and competitive forces. Having this type of solid foundation – coupled with ample advance planning – can make the difference between prospering and faltering.”


CORE provides online organizations with insights, ideas and tools that help fuel thought, inspire action, and drive growth. CORE is a unit of GSI, a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing solutions that offers a full range of e-commerce services to leading retailers and consumer brands. CORE draws from the collective experience of GSI’s more than 11 years supporting and driving growth for its clients. The depth and breadth of GSI’s work with top-name retailers affords it unparalleled insight that allows it to deliver and implement sales-driving strategies for clients across a wide array of market segments.


The in-depth 2010 Holiday Planning Guide, free to webinar registrants, contains context for the upcoming season, a best practices checklist that spans several areas including marketing and merchandising, and a workbook. Insight it provides includes tips for connecting with past purchasers and breaking through the marketing clutter.


The GSI Center for Online Retail Excellence (CORE) provides online organizations with insights, ideas and tools that help fuel thought, inspire action, and drive growth. CORE leverages more than a decade of experience working with dozens of leading retailers and brands and combines that experience with original thought leadership, proprietary research, and partnerships with leading academic institutions to address and explore issues critical to online success. The goal of the Center is to translate strategic insights into pragmatic, actionable guidance which clients can utilize to further the success and effectiveness of their online channel.