Stay Ready You Won't Have to Get Ready
The Holiday season is going to be here faster than you know it and it remains one of the important periods for a lot of businesses. It is especially important for small businesses to take advantage of every sales opportunity to gain stability and to find themselves in stronger financial standings. Often this sales rush can result in greater demand and expectations on your business, and it is imperative that you get prepared. Right now, is the perfect time to lock in your Holiday plans and prepare yourself for a successful season. To help you be able to do your best, here are some tips and suggestions to help you prepare to deal with increased Holiday demand.
Prepare Your Products and Processes
Forecasting is a skill that you need to develop and it will help you not just during the Holiday season but in your business overall. Think about what you have previously sold and make sure that you have enough stock currently to reach the same sales. If you don’t think that you do, you need to place an order to ensure you won’t run out too early. Make sure that you are keeping track of your current inventory as well. You need to make sure you aren’t re-ordering things that you may have enough of because you’re unsure. Take the time to inventory what you currently have. It can also be a good idea to set yourself a goal, or a series of goals to aim for so that you aren’t aiming blindly.
Consider what sales you have made during this year and if discounts and deals have worked for you. Make a plan for what you may need to do to liquidate excess inventory after the season, especially if what you’re offering is different and specific for this Holiday season.
Shipping can be critical and make or break your Holiday sales period. Make sure that you have shipping materials ready to go. An investment in packing material and boxes will go a long way to making sure you can ship quickly and get packages delivered in time.
Train any people who may be helping you ahead of time. If you normally get very busy, or have plans in place where you might need extra hands, bring them in to get familiar with your procedures beforehand. This can be seasonal help, but more likely, close friends and family members. This can be a good way for younger family members to get experience in entrepreneurship. It can also help you to develop as a boss and leader.
Get Your Marketing Materials Ready
There are a lot of people who make decisions at the last minute about what to put on deal, sell or offer. Putting the ideas in place now can help you both market your offerings better and more importantly, ensure that you can turn a profit. It’s no good making an offer that doesn’t make you any money, or even worse, loses it.
Order any graphics, photos and materials now. You want to have all of your materials ready to go ahead of time. Waiting means that there can be more mistakes and less time to catch and correct them. You also won’t feel rushed to put out anything that you have because you run out of time. You can adjust and adapt.
You have to think about if you are going to have offers for each of the ‘sales holidays’. Will you do Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Will it be the same offer with new graphics? It’s all about what you choose to do, so don’t feel pressured to try to hit every moment, just the ones that you plan.
Be early, and not late. With so much advertising and content available, you need to try and be at the front of the line and make an impact. If you can, be early and often and that may mean adding to your budget, enhancing your targeting, or even hiring an agency to take some of the work off of your plate.
Website Maintenance
Now is the time to make sure everything on your website works. Contact information should be up to date, links should work and product offerings should be accurate. Make sure your domain and services are paid up through the critical period. If you’re using certain web services to make your life easier, make sure they are set up correctly to get the most value at the most critical time.
There are dozens of applications that you can add to your website to help you capture sales. If you have thought about, or are already subscribed to them, make sure you are up to date on how they work. If you don’t subscribe to one, now might be the perfect time to do so. You don’t need to keep it all year, but using it strategically can be significant in gathering new sales.
Make sure your checkout process is as simple as possible. You need to make sure your payment processing and security certificates are up to date. If you have coupon codes or automated discount processes planned, test them because you probably won’t be able to get customers back if they leave.
Check your web design and make sure it is responsive, meaning it works well for both computers and mobile devices like cell phones. There are other techniques and tactics you may be employing like landing pages for specials. You have to make sure that these are done correctly and have the right images, offers, and text so that they can be effective.
Customer Service
Make sure your customer service system is set up and ready. You need to have a way to deal with potential customers and answer questions. Creating an FAQ page on your website might be helpful to try and preempt any questions. Make sure you have a customer service contact available and easily found. If you can afford to, try outsourcing general questions with a service or a chatbot. At the very least, set aside your own regular hours to follow up with customers via e-mail or messaging so that you aren’t distracted trying to answer questions all day, and you have the right time to consider your answers.
Making your shipping and return policies abundantly clear will be paramount for the season. We aren’t going to dictate what your policies should be, just make sure they are clear for customers and that your customer service understands what the policies are.
Taking the time to prepare for one of the biggest shopping periods doesn’t guarantee that you will be successful and have all the sales that you expect. However, it will make things easier no matter what the situation. Having processes in place will allow you to make the most out of all of your opportunities whenever they come. Analyzing your operation can also help you strengthen your business by streamlining your offerings and working on maximizing your operating profit. It also makes things less stressful on you as an entrepreneur when you know that you don’t have to figure out these things at the last minute. You can focus on the most important time sensitive tasks as they arise and be efficient with your time.
