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7 Summarised tips to prepare your business for the holiday season

Here's a few simple tips to cover the basics of preparing for the boost in sales over the holidays.

Think of it as optimising your business processes and sales channels

  1. Increase ready stock - Research previous sales trends for your products. If you have 2 years to look back on sales history then you have a huge advantage. With this data you can calculate the percentage increase from the average month against the Christmas months, being November/December. If you leave yourself short then it's lost income and lost future customers; If you have left over stock, put them on sale in January and get more customers.

  2. Send out a newsletter promoting a range of big Christmas selling items. At this time of year it's important to prompt your existing customer base to remember you and come to your store first.

  3. Offer FREE SHIPPING. Provide a threshold for order values such as 'over $150 gets free shipping" This will motivate customers to add more to their carts. Here's a helpful article on setting this up http://support.ashop.com.au/KB/a290/use-free-shipping-to-increase-your-sales-and-loyal-customers.aspx?KBSearchID=0

  4. Offer a range of gift certificates and place them on your home page or a widget to appear on every page.

  5. Offer discount coupons. On your header or home page, display a discount coupon for the Christmas period. Make the discount value count though, offering 5% will not entice potential customers.

  6. Turn on Livechat. If your customers have a question, they want an answer right now. If they have access to chat instantly, it will go a long way to closing the sale.

  7. Follow up on all sales. Roughly a week after an item is shipped. Drop your customers an email to follow up with a survey or a simple thank you for doing business with you. You'll be surprised at the number of loyal customers this will generate.


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