Ready For the Holidays - Pt. 5

Getting the Word Out

We’ve covered a lot up to this point and there is always more to know. I’ve made several banners preparing for the upcoming holiday season and a few to represent the upcoming fall season. During the past week I’ve given thought to how to get the word out, ‘It’s that time of year.’

Last year I instituted a lay-a-way plan in my shop for items over a certain dollar amount. Now is the time to announce you’re ready to do custom made items to assure delivery for the holiday. Get out your mailing list and notify your customers you’re ready to accommodate them for the holiday. Let them know if you’ve added a new line. You can do this by sending out a brochure, postcards or use your blog. If you don’t have a blog, start one.

This doesn’t have to be a costly event. You can make each of these items by using your Microsoft Publisher program. I use Microsoft PowerPoint to make my banners, you can also use Paint, but I find it difficult to work with.

Insert your logo or your holiday banner, pictures of your featured items with descriptions, no prices (you want to bring them to your site).

Offer coupons to repeat customers, free shipping on select items for a limited time. Put links to your store in all your social networking profiles. Offer gift wrapping if you don’t already.

Post new items on your blog, people love to see what you’ve done or what you’re working on.

With all this in mind, remember there holidays throughout the year and you can even invent some of your own.

I hope this helps your holiday season a little brighter,a little easier and prosperous for you.

Have fun putting your shop together and keep me posted, I would love to see what you've done.

Above is one of my new holiday banners, made using PowerPoint and clipart from Microsoft.com, it's free.

144 Days to Christmas

For those of us that make and ship items for sale, we have less time to prepare. I would give us about 134 days to Christmas.

Considering the time it takes to ship and the time it takes to make we need to get busy and start thinking ahead for this year and next. Some of the big box stores in other countries have already started their holiday season, toys, gifts and decorations are already at hand.

I realize that some of us are dealing with triple digit heat, but the holidays are right around the corner. Years ago, my mom and I use to start shopping in January, that’s right, January. Of course that was when lay-a-ways were in abundance and stores knew how to turn a buck.

I appreciate a good lay-a-way. Sure it ties up inventory but that inventory will and can sell with a reasonable lay-a-way policy.
What is a reasonable lay-a-way policy, don’t expect a $300 item to be purchased within a 30 day period, if that was the case it wouldn’t have been laid away in the first place.

So far in the first three blogs of ‘Ready for the Holidays’, we covered:

1. Update your product catalog and inventory.

I’ve gone through my products and I see a need for additions and improvements,so
I'm working on it.

2. Make it easy for your customers to shop for gifts.

I’ve made a list of items I feel would be great for gifts and also added categories to the list.

3. Give your site that ‘Holiday’ flair.

I’ve had the same banner for the past three years and I feel a real need for a change, so I’ve been working on a new.

So, what have you been up to? Have you started readying your shop for the holiday? How’s it going?

Next week we’ll talk about some more issues we can pursue in order to ready ourselves for the upcoming holiday season.

Ready For the Holidays - Pt. 3

Now is the time to start thinking about your holiday enhancements as the holidays draw near. You can update your home page or completely revamp the site to announce the upcoming holiday.

You want to supply your customer with what they’re looking for and make the process easy and fun. You want your customer to remember a positive, fun holiday experience. You want to keep the coming back season after season.

Refreshing your site from time to time keeps it fresh. Celebrate holiday themes, be familiar to your customers but also be surprising, keep them coming back to see what you’re up to next.

If your e-commerce software does not allow for multiple site designs, change your banners to meet your holiday needs. Make your changes for the beginning and the end of each season.

This can be a daunting task, but it keeps your customer’s coming back for a look see and a sale. My neighbors celebrate every festive occasion in a calendar year and month. I love it, so let’s work this into our e-commerce sites.

Ready For the Holidays? Pt.2

Ready For the Holidays?

With the gift-giver in mind, is your website ready? Is it easy to maneuver? If I came to your site would I find a jumble of merchandise or find your merchandise broken into down categories? If your site shows a mixture of items on a page, categories are a good idea. Navigation is important, so walk through your website to find any potential changes you can make.

Visitors that are looking for gifts will be shopping by categories, etc. gifts for mother, father, and brother and so on. So you would want your navigation to suggest pages like “Gifts for her” or “Gifts for Dad”. Keeping the budget shopper in mind, it wouldn’t hurt to have a gift price range if your sight set-up allows (e.g., “less than $50”, “$50 - $100).

Even though it’s July, almost August it’s time to get cracking on your Holiday ideas, merchandise and website setups. Grab that note pad and start brainstorming.

Ready For the Holidays?

Are You Ready For the Holiday?



It’s the middle of July and it’s time to start thinking about the holidays. I’ve personally noticed that the decorations for the fall celebrations are beginning to come out with school supplies. What’s the rush? Its simple some of us like to shop early, get a head start, not feel the rush so we can enjoy more. With the state of our economy starting early allows us to stagger our purchases and see a silver lining before the dreaded rush that some people enjoy sets in.

Now is the time to start looking at inventory on hand and thinking of future inventory for the month of August starting and running as close to the holiday as possible. What do you have available for the holidays. What do you have on hand that would make great gifts or what do you need to add. What do you have to fulfill a need or what do you need to add to it. School starts in August in most places and so does the holiday shopping season for a lot of people.

If you have any inventoried items you were waiting for the right time to place in your shop either online or not, now are the time to get them out and stocked, ready for the holiday. Beef up that inventory; give your shoppers a selection of the best you have to choose from. Determine which items you have that are your most popular, best-selling items. Make them available. Add new products to your store.

Good product information is important; update your descriptions if you haven’t done so in a while. Use past customer feedback for items already sold, this is a useful tool. People love to read reviews. Highlight these compliments to help enhance your sells.