With Christmas just around the corner, your mind is probably turning to shopping, cooking, and how much money the festive season is likely to cost you this year. So before you get too depressed and crack open the eggnog with extra brandy to dull the pain, here are a few simple tips to help you boost your sales over the holiday season – and help pay for all those gifts you have to buy.
Hang the Tinsel
It won’t feel like Christmas unless you hang the tinsel, put a tree up, and encourage your employees to dress up in cute elf costumes. Shoppers love to get into the festive spirit and are more likely to part with their cash if they are enjoying the seasonal vibe, so kill your scrooge persona, check out outdoor nativity scenes, and get into the Christmas groove. And if you have an online business, be sure to decorate your website with suitably festive banners and graphics.
Interestingly, research has indicated that certain colors boost sales more than others: red is apparently the best color to use in this regard, and since it is a nice, festive color, make sure you use lots of it!
SALE!
Nothing says Christmas more than a SALE! Savvy businesses always have pre-Christmas sales to help boost their profits, so jump on the bandwagon and start planning your mega sale now. And to make your products even more attractive, be sure to give your loyal customers the opportunity to purchase goods using an exclusive discount code. They will feel special and probably spend more money as a result.
Create a Christmas Deals Section
Christmas shopping is hard enough without having to waste time looking for last-minute gifts. To make life easier for your harassed customers, create a special Christmas section in your store and sort goods out into easy-to-navigate categories. The same applies to online stores: create a banner on your homepage that links to a Christmas deals section. The easier you make it, the less likely it is that customers will bounce away and go shop in your competitor’s store.
Offer Free Gift Wrapping
A simple service, but effective nevertheless. Gift wrapping is a mind-numbing task at the best of times, so offering it as a free festive service on selected goods is likely to make your goods more attractive to customers. It also works well with online retail businesses: your customers can buy goods and have them shipped directly to the lucky recipient, which is bound to be a crowd pleaser.
Let Customers Create a Wish List
Amazon does wish lists – so learn from the behemoth of internet retailing and allow your online customers to do the same. The great thing about a wish list is that customers can add their favorite items to it and then forward the list on to friends and family, so you should see more foot traffic through your store.
Free Festive Giveaways
Whatever type of business you are in, you can’t beat a festive giveaway over the Christmas period. People love something for nothing, and if you offer them a freebie at Christmas time, they will almost certainly feel all warm and fluffy inside when they think of your company. Free gifts don’t have to be expensive – try offering customers some candy, mince pies or a glass of eggnog. Or in the case of an online business, a money-off voucher to use over the Christmas period.
Christmas Competitions
A good way to drum up trade over the Christmas period is to run festive competitions and publicize them on social media. You can use your imagination here, but make sure your competitions have a festive theme such as “count the candy canes” or “guess the weight of the Christmas pudding”. The prize needs to be something worth having of course, or people won’t be all that interested, but if you come up with a decent competition idea and attract enough interest on Facebook and other social channels, you should see an increase in business.
Christmas is a busy period for all businesses, so don’t sit back and rest on your laurels once you have followed these tips. Instead, keep a close eye on your competitors to make sure they are not undercutting you on price too much.