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Prepare Your Online Store for Peak Holiday Traffic

By: Moneris Team
December 12, 2025 clock Calculating time...
Prepare Your Online Store for Peak Holiday Traffic Hero


The holiday season often brings more activity to online stores. Shoppers browse, compare and move through checkout more often. Preparing for that shopping surge starts with understanding how your store already performs today. A clear view of your current traffic, page speed and checkout flow makes holiday planning easier. It helps you decide what to improve and where to focus your time. The steps in this guide walk you through practical ways to support a consistent experience as your store gets busier over the holidays—and beyond.

Understand your online store’s baseline traffic

A good starting point is understanding how your store behaves on a typical day. Look at your analytics over the last several months, and note when traffic naturally rises or slows.

You can review this data in your existing reporting dashboard or through ecommerce site analytics tools like the ones found in Moneris Online. This helps you see the patterns that already exist, not just the spikes that show up during big campaigns.

Next, compare those rhythms to last year’s holiday activity. Look at which days brought the most visitors, how long people stayed and whether certain promotions attracted more attention than others. These comparisons give you a clearer sense of what “busy” actually looks like for your business.

Once you have this baseline, you can plan more accurately. You’ll know which pages may need small updates, when to expect higher engagement and whether your checkout typically handles increased activity with ease.

Having this foundation makes the later steps—like forecasting, performance improvements and payment readiness—much simpler.

Forecast holiday traffic surges with real data

Forecasting is easier when you start with a clear view of your store’s past activity. By looking at what has happened during previous seasons, you can estimate the level of interest to expect and decide where your store may need extra attention.

This also helps you plan conversations with technical partners using concrete information rather than guesswork.

Review past peak periods for insight

Understanding previous peak days gives you a realistic sense of how your store responds during busy periods. Compare the biggest days from last year and review visits, time on site and how quickly activity rose and settled. This helps you see the natural rhythm of high-traffic moments and how shoppers typically move through your store.

From there, look at conversion rates and popular paths to purchase during those same dates. Take note of any patterns that suggest certain pages, campaigns or product groups attracted more interest. These insights create a baseline that makes your upcoming forecasts more grounded and easier to act on.

Map campaigns to expected traffic levels

Your holiday campaigns play a major role in shaping traffic, so bring them into the forecasting process. List the promotions you plan to run, including email pushes, social content and paid advertising, and note the reach or uplift each one could create. This gives you a practical view of when your store may see more activity.

Next, map these campaigns onto a calendar and apply reasonable growth estimates to your baseline traffic. You don’t need complex modelling; even a simple spreadsheet gives you clarity. Once you see where peaks might land, you can prepare teams, review capacity and plan support around your busiest days.

Include mobile and regional behaviour trends

Many shoppers now browse and buy on mobile devices, so include this behaviour in your forecast. In fact, preparing your online store for the holidays starts with optimizing for mobile users.

Review your current device mix to understand how many customers use phones and how their browsing patterns differ from desktop users. This helps you plan tests and improvements that match how people actually shop.

Regional differences matter too, especially if you sell across Canada or internationally. Time zones, local holidays and shipping deadlines can shift when traffic appears. Reviewing performance by region gives you a more complete picture and helps you schedule campaigns and resources more effectively.

Turn forecasts into clear capacity plans

Once you have a traffic forecast in place, you can start translating it into the technical details your team needs. This includes estimating the number of requests, concurrent sessions and the general activity you expect during your busiest periods. Sharing these numbers early helps everyone understand what to prepare for as interest grows.

From there, review how your core systems support higher volumes, including hosting, your ecommerce platform and a reliable payment gateway. This makes it easier to confirm safe limits, plan small adjustments and identify areas that may benefit from extra attention. These simple checks help your store deliver a consistent experience as your campaigns roll out.

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Improve website performance for holiday demand

Website performance plays a big role in how shoppers experience your online store during busy periods. Faster, more consistent pages make it easier for people to browse, compare and complete an order. Here’s how to ensure your online store offers consistent performance as traffic increases.

  1. Capacity planning and load testing: Start by working with your hosting provider or internal team to confirm how much traffic your current setup is designed to handle. Use realistic test scripts that mimic holiday browsing, product searches, cart building and checkout so you can see how the full path behaves when activity rises.
  2. Front-end performance clean up: Review your key templates with tools that show how long images, style sheets and scripts take to load on common devices. Remove outdated scripts, defer non-essential tags and tidy up unused code so shoppers can see and interact with your content more quickly.
  3. Optimized media and third-party tools: Replace heavy images with compressed or modern formats to make pages load faster. Audit third-party tools such as chat, personalization and tracking, and keep only those that provide clear value during your busiest periods.
  4. Content delivery and caching configuration: Confirm that your content delivery network or caching layer serves popular pages and assets from locations close to your shoppers. Set appropriate cache rules for static assets like images, style files and scripts so they are delivered quickly without relying on your core servers every time.
  5. Database and search tuning: Check that product search, category pages and recommendations use efficient queries and proper indexing. Clean up old sessions and logs where appropriate so your systems can focus on current shoppers and respond more consistently.

Backup experiences for key features: Plan simple fallbacks for higher-risk elements such as recommendation carousels or live chat, so a temporary issue there does not interrupt the main shopping journey. Prepare holding states or alternative layouts that keep essential browsing and checkout paths available if certain features need to be paused.

Optimize checkout for holiday shoppers

Checkout plays a major role in how easily customers can complete an order during the holidays. Small improvements—like faster forms, clear shipping details and familiar payment options—can make the process feel more intuitive for shoppers.

Here are some practical ways to help customers check out seamlessly.

Allow guest checkout

Give first-time or promotion-driven visitors a simple path to purchase without forcing them to create an account. Offer guest checkout up front and make account creation optional—either after purchase or via a follow-up email. This removes a common friction point and helps more holiday shoppers complete a purchase without hesitation.

Ensure returning customers can quickly access their saved info while still being able to skip login if needed. Allow autofill for stored email addresses and let users check out without resetting passwords, especially on mobile, where friction rises.

Simplify form fields and steps

Review your checkout form and remove any fields that aren’t essential for payment, shipping or legal compliance. Each field should earn its place as unnecessary fields create frustration, especially on mobile screens.

Where data must be collected, make inputs easy: support postal code lookups, auto-format credit card entries and use auto-complete where possible. Keep the flow logical and minimal: a clean, short form keeps holiday shoppers moving.

Display clear shipping costs and timelines

Show delivery windows and fees early in the process so shoppers know exactly what to expect. Use specific phrasing, such as “Arrives by December 12”, rather than generalized shipping terms.

If your store has regional cutoffs or additional fees, present them before checkout begins. Transparent information helps shoppers make confident decisions without needing to restart their search.

Offer trusted payment methods and secure checkout

Give shoppers the payment options they already know and use, including credit cards and digital wallets. You can add flexibility by offering easy-to-use digital wallet options as well.

Reinforce trust with clear security cues such as padlock icons, verification messages and familiar checkout labels. Pair this with regular reviews of approval rates and decline patterns to keep payment flows reliable throughout the season.

Optimize checkout for mobile shoppers

Mobile traffic rises sharply during the holidays, so your checkout needs to perform well on smaller screens. Keep buttons large, spacing generous and key actions visible without scrolling. Test the full flow across different devices to see how it behaves for real shoppers.

Support mobile-friendly features that make checkout faster. Use wallet payments so shoppers can approve a purchase in a few taps, allow camera-based card entry and avoid pop-ups that interrupt the flow. A mobile checkout that feels natural and efficient helps more customers finish their order.

Strengthen payment processing for holiday demand

Reliable online payment processing is crucial during busy holiday periods. Higher activity means more authorizations, adjustments and refunds getting processed—so it helps to confirm that your payment setup can support the increase.

It’s a good idea to share your seasonal plans with your payment provider in advance. That way, they can review capacity, routing practices and any changes you expect to make during major promotions.

Security also deserves attention as activity grows. Review your fraud settings, authentication flows and manual review processes to maintain strong protection without slowing down legitimate customers.

When your team understands the typical patterns of your store, they can more easily identify unusual activity and keep checkout running consistently for every shopper.

Prepare support and fulfillment for higher holiday activity

A great holiday shopping experience depends on more than website performance. Support teams, warehouse partners and shipping carriers all influence how smoothly customers receive updates and orders. The ideas below help you get those processes ready before your busiest days arrive.

Forecast support and order volumes

Review last year’s contacts and order activity alongside this year’s promotion schedule to estimate when demand will rise. This helps you plan staffing for email, chat and phone queues before they reach their busiest points.

With a clear view of expected peaks, teams can stay responsive without scrambling.

Create updated macros and guidance for agents

Prepare short, consistent responses for the questions you expect most, such as shipping cutoffs, returns and payment follow-up. Give agents an updated internal knowledge resource so answers stay aligned across channels.

This keeps conversations efficient and reduces the need for escalations.

Strengthen fulfillment workflows

Work with warehouse teams or third-party logistics partners to confirm cutoffs for picking, packing and shipping. Clarify how urgent orders, back-orders and high-value customers will be prioritized when activity rises.

These agreements help keep turnaround times steady throughout the season.

Coordinate with your shipping partners

Share your holiday forecasts and key promotion dates with carriers so they can plan routes and resources. Confirm delivery guarantees, regional deadlines and procedures for handling delays.

This helps set realistic expectations and keeps customers informed with accurate timelines.

Simplify returns and exchanges

Create a clear, simple returns experience that is easy for customers to follow and efficient for staff to process. Include return instructions inside parcels and publish an accessible returns section on your website.

When the process is straightforward, stock flows back into inventory faster and customers feel supported.

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Monitor real-time metrics during holiday events

Real-time monitoring helps you understand what shoppers are experiencing while promotions are live. A clear view of key metrics allows your team to act quickly and keep checkout running the way customers expect. Here are some practical things to watch out for during your busiest periods.

  1. Prioritize revenue-focused metrics: Track checkout starts, successful payments, cart abandonment and error rates to see how shoppers behave during checkout. Review these numbers by device and region to spot issues that may only affect certain groups.
  2. Set clear thresholds before the season: Decide what levels of payment declines or error responses should trigger action so teams know exactly when to step in. Share these thresholds with all relevant groups to keep expectations aligned.
  3. Use alerts that prompt quick responses: Configure alerts for changes in key metrics instead of relying on manual checks. Direct these alerts to channels your team already uses so the right people can respond immediately.
  4. Follow simple response playbooks: Create step-by-step guides for investigating payment issues, performance slowdowns or errors. Practice these playbooks ahead of the season so teams can move quickly and efficiently when alerts appear.
  5. Coordinate across business functions: Bring together technical, marketing, fulfillment and support teams during major events so decisions are clear and timely. Keep updates short and focused so everyone understands next steps.

Capture insights after each peak: Hold brief reviews to identify what worked well and where improvements could help next time. Update your thresholds and playbooks with these insights to strengthen your preparation each season.

Capture more holiday sales with secure, reliable payments from Moneris

The holiday season comes with many moving parts, and your payment system plays the most crucial role in keeping things steady. Moneris helps Canadian businesses handle increased online store activity with reliable online payments, secure processing and clear reporting that works for both technical and finance teams.

Our tools integrate seamlessly with popular ecommerce platforms, so you can stay focused on serving customers while payments run in the background.

Strong support matters too. Moneris provides Canadian-based, bilingual specialists who understand local regulations and how shoppers expect online checkout to work. Our team can help you review fraud settings, monitor approval patterns and walk through key insights before your busiest days.

With this level of preparation, you get consistent checkout performance and a partner who understands what Canadian merchants need during the holidays.

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FAQs

Key takeaway

  1. Use real traffic baselines to plan holiday demand with greater accuracy.
  2. Improve website speed and stability to deliver a faster, more reliable shopping experience.
  3. Optimize checkout to make purchasing faster and more intuitive for holiday shoppers.
  4. Strengthen payment processing to support more successful transactions during peak periods.
  5. Monitor key metrics during live events to maintain consistent performance throughout the season.

Author Profile

Moneris Team

Author Profile

Moneris is a leading provider of payment processing solutions in Canada. Our blog is your go-to resource for insights into the ever-evolving world of payments. We cover everything from the latest industry trends and technologies to practical advice for businesses of all sizes. Our blog's mission is to spotlight small businesses and provide resources that help them succeed in today's economy. Blog articles are written by members of Moneris' in-house marketing team with support from internal product and industry experts.

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