Hey there, the holiday rush is almost here, again!
What does this mean for you as a retailer?
Simply put, it means money and it also could mean making your whole year finally profitable.
So, what’s the secret recipe to super-charge your holiday sales?
Of course, there are a lot of things you can do to stand out from your competitors, but if you’re not prepared for this at all, then, very soon, you might find yourself going from dreaming about standing out from your competition to struggling to stay in the competition at all!
So, let’s get straight about this. The first thing you need is a PLAN.
The most important thing to know is that your store doesn’t (or shouldn’t) look the same during the holiday season as it looks during other times of the year.
You know, this is the time of the year when people suddenly become totally crazy about shopping. Thus, this is a perfect time for you to bring out some craziness to your store’s shelves, too.
So, let’s get your hands dirty, straight off!
- Use my Holiday Planner
I’ve gone through this as a retailer so many times. This calendar I made for myself is the best way to get organized and it will help you to bring out some more relevant ideas.
When you download the calendar, all you need is a pencil. I know it might sound like the old fashioned way to do things but, trust me, using pencil somehow magically helps you to bring out your most creative side!
- Get the list of your best selling products from last year
Go straight to your POS system or whatever you use to track your sold items and get the list of last year’s 10 best-selling products.
The second thing you need to do is to pay your attention to the new products which are trending in your niche this year. Again, make a list of 10 best-selling new products for this year.
And there you go, now you have enough of material to start with creating your list of featured products for the holiday season.
- Prepare a different theme for each week
Themes are cool way to draw some extra attention to your products (and you should not be doing this ONLY during the holiday season!)
Wondering about how to develop a theme?
Well, you could start with something as simple as a colour way, a price point or – why not think of the recipient, like gifts for teachers.
Really, these things, even if they might look like no-brainer stuff anyone can do, actually work most of the times!
- Let your customers know about your theme
Once you have set up your theme, you need to get all the possible attention from your customers to it. This means that you also need to run this theme, besides on your store, on all of your channels (social media, website, print advertising) where you interact with your customers. This way you’ll draw the attention to your products and you will appear more trustworthy in the eyes of your customers.
- Do some calculations
OK, by now, you probably already have a solid vision how your store is going to look during this holiday season and what products you are going to sell.
In order to be fully prepared, next thing you need to do is to try to estimate how much stock you’ll need for each product you will be selling.
The last thing you want to happen is to get out of the stock in the middle of the season!
If you don’t think about this part early on, you might find yourself ordering new supplies in the middle of the rush and getting your order shipped at the end of the season!
- Make it easy for your customers to buy things
Although you should be thinking about this during the whole year, the holiday season is a perfect time to more wisely plan your upselling.
If you are selling some candles why not merchandise them with some cool candle holders, too?
The point is to lay out your products (or list them out on your website) in a way your customers will probably want to use (and buy!) them together as a combination and the holiday season is just the perfect time for you to start thinking more about this.
- Plan your promotion early on
The holiday season and the benefits you can get from it as a retailer are worthy enough to think of a detailed strategy of the promotion you are going to do for your store.
You’re probably going to be super busy during the rush so, get your promotion work prepared and ready to put on autopilot right before the rush begins.
Plan and schedule your social media updates, prepare everything you need to get the attention to your themes from the social media profiles.
And, the most important thing -> your newsletters. If you’ve been refraining from sending out too many newsletters to your subscribers, the holiday season is a perfect excuse to “spam out” your subscribers with a few newsletters more.
However, don’t forget to put some additional effort and creativity while composing these newsletters and be more strategical with choosing the products that you are going to list out.
- Use the opportunity to grow your customer base!
Remember, this is the part of the year when everyone gets crazy about shopping, so isn’t that the perfect time to grow your customers base?
What you might want to do is to plan some type of articles, or blog posts which will draw a customer’s attention and make your visitors subscribe even if they are not buying anything.
Sounds like a lot of work to do?
Yeah, it is. But it certainly can also pay off very well!
If you haven’t already started, use my Holiday Planner and start your planning right on time before the all rush begins!
If you need some help on how to implement all of this, book in for a FREE Retail Growth Strategy Session and we can chat about what you need to do to capitalize on the holiday season.
Good luck and may your cash register ring!
Sal
