When it comes to making the most of the various seasons in retail, one of the most important facets is ensuring your store screams seasonal sales. Customers need to know ahead of time that your store is the place to come to for seasonal sales. The key to success is all about preparation and thinking ahead of time about how you can get your store ready. If you don’t prepare your store, you can almost kiss goodbye to a large number of sales you could easily have had if you were just a little more prepared. If you have a retail store and have been looking for the best way to prepare your store for seasonal sales, then use this simple guide for your next sale.
Find the Right Products
Seasonal sales aren’t all about the design, a large part of competing in the market is about the products you have to sell during the sale. The best way to ensure your store is ready for seasonal sales is to use a giftware wholesaler in Australia. Giftware wholesalers in Australia are armed with all of the best products, especially for seasonal sales. Think Christmas giftware, Easter trinkets and other specialised products. These are the types of seasonal gifts that are going to drive more customers to your store and signal that your store is the place for seasonal sales. Do your research and find the local giftware wholesalers around your store that deliver ahead of time. Purchasing wholesale means you can save some cost on the individual product cost, and if you’re savvy with the right wholesaler you may save a little on logistics as well.
Have the Right Look
The merchandising and look of your retail store are incredibly important to ensuring customers know what sales you have on. To ensure your store is prepared, make sure you have allowed enough lead time into your sale for customers to be aware it is coming and to plan their shopping. Putting up signage the day sale starts won’t help you with your sales. Allow a few weeks lead time so that customers passing by can take note of the upcoming sale, send out emails to your subscriber lists and ensure the store has enough signage about the seasonal sale.
The key to being prepared is giving the people around your store enough notice, that way when the sale starts you are ready to go. Don’t hold back either, really deck your store out and think of a seasonal sale as a chance to sell the idea as well as products.
Roster Appropriately
Rostering needs to happen ahead of time so staff know when they are working, and when it comes to a seasonal sale it’s even more important to be ahead of the game. Preparing your store for a seasonal sale requires detailed planning for staff rosters as well. The last thing you want is not enough staff on the floor, customers waiting too long for help and walking away before buying anything. Make sure you roster enough staff so that registers are always managed, allowing customers to make quick purchases and not create long lines. You also need to roster enough staff for the floor so customers can quickly get help.
Be careful though, it’s a fine line between the right number of staff and too many on the floor making the store look a little desperate. One tip is to look back at previous years’ sales and work out how many staff would be ideal to manage those kinds of volumes. Coupled with the other tips above, add one or two more as you’ll be better prepared this time so can expect more volume of customers coming through.
Offer Online Sales
If you have an e-commerce presence, a great way to prepare for seasonal sales is to offer early bird sales online through your website. This can be a great strategy to help boost sales and give customers a sense of advantage over one another, and validate their appreciation for your brand and decision to be part of your email database. Offering the chance to purchase even just a week earlier can have a big impact on sales. Put in the fine print that the stock is dispatched once the sale starts and you won’t even need stock prior to the sale, however, you’ll already have sales in the system. If you have not done an online sale like this before, cap it to a timeframe and set inventory.
Retail stores can be a tough proposition, especially when seasonal sales are usually done by almost every store on the street. Thankfully there are a few key strategies you can employ to ensure your store is prepared for the upcoming seasonal sales. You can try having themed giftware, offer online sales or make sure your store looks the part with the right merchandising. These are all relatively simple ways that you can better prepare your retail store for seasonal sales.
