Secret Santa Shopping in School 2014

 On the second day of December,  the students  at St. Joseph  went on a shopping spree with the Secret Santa Shopping  that was  put together by one of the most active  Moms of the school.

I volunteered to help during the  set up and first day of shopping.  My daughter asked me not to come on the time slot where she has to shop.  She wants it to be a surprise although I already told her what I want if she is buying for me lol.

 Our son, on the other hand, wanted me there so I went  on the time slot where he has to shop and I helped him.

 We gave each of them $25 dollars each,  They mainly buy for family and  close friends.  The items for sale at the Santa Shop is pretty affordable so they were able to buy  a bunch of stuff.

 Part of the proceed of of this event goes to school so  it's a  good time for the kids to learn shopping while helping the school fund.

 I was able to take pictures of my kids after school as I've waited for them until the classes were over.

 I am glad that they are still into posing in front of the camera.  I know that there will come a time when they would be embarrassed to even  have a picture with me lol.

 Silly faces  this time moment and below is Rylie's BFF trying to photo-bomb our neighbor's pic lol.

Okay, ready, get set, jump!

Awesome one guys!  Anyway, I have a feeling that  Rye Bread bought me the tealight set and EJ bought me the photo coaster set.

Some items that were for sale includes the following.

I love those pompom flowers that the organizer made.  I had  fun working with other Moms during the Secret Santa Shopping.

How to Draw Last Minute Christmas Shoppers to Your Ecommerce Site

Christmas is in a few days, and shoppers will be rushing to buy those gifts they told themselves they would get last month, but put off until the last minute. For many commerce stores, this is the best time to attract and draw in even more visitors to their website.

Most of these visitors will not be just browsers and people thinking about what to buy. They already have an idea of what to buy or would like a few suggestions. One thing they definitely don’t have is time. So, let’s position your ecommerce store as an excellent place to do their last minute shopping, shall we?

Social Media Posting Frenzy

We are talking Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Youtube and other visual social networking sites online that you have an account in and significant fans, followers and user base. Inundate and consistently engage them with your offers.

Most times, people surf these websites for deals and special offers whilst doing their last minute shopping online.  Post and create special deals for your audience on these platforms. Send them to particular or special web pages set up for that campaign.

Convenience is Key

Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, aren’t they? Well, now more than ever, you need to bend over backwards to please them. You may have to offer gift-wrapping services, curbside delivery if they order online or through your app and a ton of other things. The point is to help make their purchasing easy and their pickups even easier.

Holiday Promos are a Must

There’s nothing better than holiday promotions to drive sales and increase your profits during this festive season. You might want to give some thought to running a promo featuring the twelve days of Christmas or a countdown to the New Year.

Each day could feature new products with decent price slashes, discounts, clearance sales on multiple bestselling products and so on. Get creative with this stuff. Then, announce them on your different social media platforms, email and push to apps before the promo and every day during the promo.

Want to take things up a notch? Try doing different special price offers in the morning afternoon and evening. There’s no limit to what you can do with this. Put out banners to indicate the special offers outside your store too. This can help drive some foot traffic to your store.

Special Emphasis on Best Sellers

If you have been taking note of your best sellers during the year, then you know what people love buying from your ecommerce store. Use this to your advantage. Boldly list them on your ecommerce store. More importantly, do this on your blog.

The search engines are frequently updating new articles on a daily basis. So the more you talk about these bestselling products on your blog; the higher your chances of getting your web site ranked for that on the search engines.

Take advantage of multiple location based websites like Angieslist, Foursquare, and Yelp. Upload new pictures of those products and the special offers to these sites to get even more people to check out your ecommerce store.

Include Shipping Deadlines

Sometimes, customers decide to buy products not because of the cheap or affordable rates, but because of the free shipping or highly subsidized shipping costs offered by the ecommerce store. Now, once your shipping offer is up, put a deadline on it.

Something as simple as “free shipping offer available on XYZ till Dec 23^rd” can be the thing that pushes customers over the edge to make a purchase. The deadline not only increases the urgency, but also creates a scarcity effect.

Lastly, put your ads everywhere you can find. Put them on the web, multiple high traffic websites, flyers, banners and posters. Do these, and you will be successful in drawing even more last minute Christmas shoppers to your ecommerce site. 

Oscar King is a tech blogger and freelance writer specializing in ecommerce, and knows how important it is to make use of the Christmas season to maximize revenues. For a shopping interface that won't be taking the holidays off, he highly recommends visiting http://www.fastspring.com. You can learn more about Oscar on Google+.

Gift for Teacher

The teacher  at our children's school doesn't get paid much.  I think their pay depends on the number of the nrolees each year but I am not quite sure how  it really goes.  It is always nice to give the teachers some  token of appreciation of their dedication in honing our children's talent and skills.  I love that they are very personal when it comes to teaching  our kids.  They   treat them like they are their own children which is always great for us parents.

 We bought this set of  nut bowls  for our son's teacher.  He gave it to his teacher for his Christmas present.

I love how unique and festive the  look and design of these bowls are.  I am glad that we chose the blue and not the red because the teacher told me that  her home is  decorated with blue so these bowls just fits right in.