Christmas is around the corner – but you don’t need us to tell you that. If you are a retail outlet, then Christmas is the most important time of the year – you don’t need us to tell you that either! Sales and potential revenue can be at their greatest. People regularly comment on how early Christmas advertising and campaigns seem to be getting underway every year. If you are a retail outlet, then you can certainly appreciate why. In this article we look at some of the ways you can prepare for Christmas if you are a retail outlet to ensure you receive maximum success for this festive shopping season.
1) Be timely.
If you are reading this article now then it is probably a little too late, but it can be better late than never. As mentioned above Christmas campaigns start very early in their planning stages because they need to mapped, tweaked, and tried / tested to some extent also. A good tip can be to look back at the previous year/s and see how these performed. This can give you a good idea of what was successful and not so successful. You can then utilise this to make the current year the best yet.
2) Decorate your outlet.
There is nothing more attractive for people than to walk into a shop that is decorated with a festive theme. This sounds like basic knowledge, but you would be surprised on the amount of retail outlets that miss this opportunity or don’t fully utilise it to its maximum potential. You want to create a warm and welcoming environment remember. Think also about window displays and how these can be turned into festive yet perfect advertising pieces. Attract people inwards into your store.
3) Think about demand.
Getting your stock just right is very important. You don’t want to ‘over buy’ but equally you don’t want to underestimate demand and have loads of out of stock signs littering your retail outlet. This can send an unconscious message of poor planning and care. We know that Christmas is one of the most profitable times of year, and so you need to ensure you get your stock figures in a way that allows you to fully get as close to this as possible.
4) Do you need more staff?
Everyone is used to seeing posters advertising seasonal temps around this time of year. Extra staff are very important to making your Christmas campaign be successful because there is no worse image for a shop that seeing it understaffed and people either waiting in queues or not being able to find the help when they want it. It might be tempting to save money and not think about hiring more staff, but actually you can get far more back by doing this. A well-staffed outlet sends out a message that your business is thriving and keeping up with competition – exactly the message you want to be portraying at this time of year.
Why not think more closely about some of these points and make a real difference to your retail outlet this Christmas. Don’t leave it too long however!
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