Businesses across just about every industry are prepping for a surge in sales ahead of the festive season. While this can only be a good thing in terms of your bottom line, it can be incredibly overwhelming, especially if your team is on the smaller side.
However, with careful planning, you can ensure that you make it through the season with your sanity intact. With that in mind, here are some top tips that you can use to prepare your business for the Christmas rush!
- Make use of the data you have available to you. Whether you are selling products through your website or shopify apps, you can use tools such as Ascend AI to access insightful data about your sales performance. This will allow you to make changes that enhance your performance during peak periods, such as by introducing new marketing campaigns.
- Build up your inventory. If you are expecting an influx of orders ahead of the Christmas season, the last thing you want to do is cancel orders due to running out of stock. In fact, “80% of customers say that shortages cause them to stop buying from a brand entirely.” This means that you need to build up your inventory ahead of the festive season to accommodate the increase in demand. One way in which you can achieve this goal is through investing in better warehousing and inventory management systems.
- Manage customer expectations accordingly. While you need to ensure that you are as productive as possible during this time, the chances are that you may not be able to process or send out orders as quickly as you can during the quieter times of the year. This should be clearly conveyed to customers when placing an order so they know exactly when their order will arrive. You should also set a date at which all orders must be placed in order to arrive before Christmas.
- Consider launching a loyalty scheme. Though you already have quite a lot on your plate during the festive period, now is actually the ideal time to launch a loyalty scheme. After all, it could mean that one-off customers decide to purchase a product from your brand in the future based on the benefits that are included in the scheme. For example, you could offer them access to an exclusive discount should they place an order in the coming months.
- Motivate your team. A lack of motivation can always lead to trouble during your business operations. For example, it is one of the key causes of low employee productivity rates. As such, this means that you need to find ways to keep your team motivated and engaged, even when the pressure is on and tensions are running high. There are many ways in which you can set about doing this, such as by incentivizing reaching certain targets or simply letting them know when they’ve done something well. A little bit of appreciation can go a long way!
