10+ Retail Holiday Boot Camp Takeaways
Our Small Business After Hours series is proving to be a hit! Nearly 30 people representing a wide variety of retail shops throughout Fort Collins attended our September 22nd event.
Alyson MacMullan of Peak Retail Group gave us some great takeaways for retailers to remember as they enter their holiday planning period.
• Sometimes you may see correlations on paper that aren’t obvious in a digital format. • Small Business Saturday is November 28th this year!
• Do you want more sales in dollars or in transactions? Do you have targets for how much inventory you want to move? Are you aiming for less January markdowns? • If you don’t have data from last year to drive your goals, make sure you begin collecting it this year! What works? What doesn’t?
• Highlight high margin inventory in your displays. • Hint: It doesn’t have to be red and green, in fact, your store’s brand colors work very well!
• Offer extras like a free stocking stuffer, free gift wrapping and bounce back offers with every purchase. • Do everything you can to keep shopping stress-free and easy for your customers.
• Signs are your silent salespeople. Make them informative and interesting so customers can answer their own simple questions. • Arm your salespeople with mobile payment options so they can help customers avoid lines at the register.
• Post every day! Use a planning/scheduling service like SnapRetail, Hootsuite or SproutSocial to help you plan out several days in one easy shot. • People love contests and flash sales, utilize these techniques! • An image is worth 1,000 posts. Show your staff decorating the store!
• Find an e-mail template and stick with it for the season. It will make your life easier and your customers will recognize your communications. • ONE offer per e-mail only, and keep it clean and concise. People are already stressed during the holidays, your communication should make it easy for them.
• Drive traffic into your store by offering serious discounts (50-75% off) on a high margin, highly stocked item each day. • These are top secret deals! Resist the urge to reveal the promos early. Pre-schedule deal communication to save yourself a headache.
• NEVER run out of your top sellers, that’s a missed opportunity! • Don’t accept late deliveries from your vendors. Communicate clearly and directly when you need your merchandise by and if they can’t meet your deadlines, don’t accept deliveries.
1. Lay all your key dates from November through January (yes, January) on a physical calendar
2. Determine your goals for the holiday season
3. Pick a color pallet for your store displays and stick to it!
4. Consider all elements for the in-store experience: Sights, sounds, smells
5. Proper staffing is a challenge for retailers during the holidays
6. Social media is your friend!
7. E-mail is your friend too, but be cautious
8. 12 Days of Christmas Promotions are very effective!
9. Your merchandise assortment shouldn’t vary dramatically during the holidays; the majority of your stock should be tried and true items
10. Restock key items for January and mix up the look of your store
Sound like a lot of information? We assure you, this was only the tip of the iceberg!
Thank you Alyson for all of the excellent information you provided!
If you’re a retailer and need help digesting and applying this information, we encourage you to schedule with a Larimer SBDC consultant now to help with planning out your holiday strategy!
Even though the business is a cleaning service, Kami’s goal for Ragamuffin Organizing & Cleaning is to bless her clients and become part of their family. “Twelve hours a month can be invaluable to a mother,” she says. Her employees become part of her client’s extended family by building a deep relationship of trust, as evidenced by the business’ success, which relies solely on word of mouth advertising. After they clean a house, Ragamuffin staff leave muffins for the family to enjoy. “We hope to bring sunshine into our clients’ lives!”
