With the Thanksgiving holiday in sight, and Christmas just over a month away, your holiday sales should be in full swing.
But for those who are late to the game, or need an extra boost to amp up the numbers, these 7 late-to-the-game strategies will stoke the fire in your holiday sales…
Speak Holiday.Go right now and look at your web pages, you eBay listings, your online store. How many places do you see holiday imagery, holiday messaging, holiday gift suggestions? If the answer is none or few then your products are not showing up for the party everyone else wants to be a part of.
You have to give your customers visual clues that you’re dialed-in to the holidays. Your store must be part of the fun and festivities. Even the smallest online sellers can add a few holiday graphics and use messaging on their their website to speak the language of holiday sales.
Run Different Holiday Promotions Each Week. If you want to capture the attention of holiday buyers this year, you must run new promotions on a weekly basis. While this year’s shoppers aren’t suffering from frugal fatigue, consumers are looking for a sale.
Unlike last year, they’re not hoping to find everything marked down to 50% off, but they are looking for somewhat of a “feel-good holiday special” so they walk away from the purchase feeling like they got something extra.
Sell Communication & Service. Prominent service messaging must be a part of your holiday game plan. Whether it’s strategically placed graphics on your site or you hop in front of a video camera, one of the key things shoppers should see when they come to your site is a message from you with a commitment to:
- Same day shipping
- Providing tracking numbers
- Customer service (how will they contact you if they have a question)
- Optional gift wrapping services
Free Shipping. If you’re late to the holiday selling game, one of the fastest ways to amp up your sales is by offering Free Shipping. Again this year, Free Shipping is the #1 thing that holiday shoppers are looking for.
Bundle it Spectacular. If your holiday sales haven’t yet made a blip on the radar, it’s time to pull out the big guns and get really creative with your product offerings. A necklace and matching bracelet sold separately becomes a spectacular gift set. Pair a warm fuzzy bathrobe with matching slippers and create a special Christmas morning promotion around it.
Offer Holiday Gift Suggestions. Holiday shoppers aren’t looking for the “same ‘ole, same ‘ole” when it comes to purchasing holiday gifts. They LOVE creative ideas and unique gifts. Just because the media doesn’t recognize your product line as a “holiday item” doesn’t mean you can’t!
Don’t wait for anyone to give you permission to present your products as a holiday gift. Be bold and step out and make gift suggestions!
Get in Front of the Video Camera. If there is one thing that etailers can do this year to get found in search without the use of costly PPC campaigns and lengthy traffic driving strategies, it’s to get in front of the video camera. There is not a person reading this blog post who sales can’t benefit by doing a video review of a product you sell.
Whether it increases conversion on your site or eBay listing or helps you make it to page one on Google, video product reviews are all the rage this year. And don’t think you have to have a Hollywood stage production video to make it useful. REAL sells. Take a look at this video review of a popular Nikon camera lens. A little humor, being real, to the point and educational. 11,000+ people have viewed it so far. (BTW, I came across it in Google search while shopping for, you guessed it! Nikon cameras.)
Even if you’re sales aren’t yet where you’d like them to be this holiday season, you’ve got 30+ more days to keep focused on selling more. Never give up! Keep doing the right things up until the very last holiday minute and you’ll start to see the results of your efforts!
How about you? What are your plans for increasing your sales over the next 30 days?
-Lisa
DEAR LISA, THANKS FOR THE INFO, ONLY PROBLEM IS HOW DO I LET MY CUSTOMERS KNOW I AM WILLING TO RUN A SALE. IS THERE A SPECIAL WAY TO DO THAT. YOU WILL HAVE TO EXCUSE MY IGNORANCE, AT 77 THIS WHOLE EBAY AND INTERNET THING IS AN ON GOING EXPERIENCE FOR ME I AM TRYING TO LEARN. I HAVE AN EBAY STORE CALLED PIKES PEEK SHOP. MAYBE YOU COULD GIVE ME A BIT OF HELPFUL INFO SO I CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS HOLIDAY SEASON .THANKYOU SO VERY MUCH .HELEN
Hi Helen,
Since you have an eBay Store, you can use eBay’s Email Marketing tool to send an email to your customers. Take a look in your Store Dashboard – you may already have people subscribed to your newsletter list!
You can also use eBay’s Markdown Manager to run a sale. eBay will automatically insert a graphic that shows your items are on sale!
Click the Help tab on the top of any eBay page and search for the tutorials on these topics and they will walk you through the process.
-Lisa
Great tips Lisa – I’m offering a coaching program for speakers during the holiday season and the first thing I did was to put a li’ Santa hat on the logo and name it Holiday Boot Camp although Boot camp and Holiday don’t really sound like they go together now that I think about it – at least I was TRYING!
Thanks for all the great information and insight you share. You rock!
Rick! Your Speaker Machine teleseminar was awesome the other night!
And you absolutely made it more festive with your holiday imagery!
Especially since your speakermachine.com bootcamp is happening during the holiday season.
What a great way for people who want to speak on the stage to hit the ground running in 2011.
-Lisa
Hi Lisa, Thanks for those great tips. It’s reassuring to know, we who are late in the game, have someone guiding us to a successful holiday season.
To finish off 2010 & try to capitalize on the season, I’m focusing on selling toys.
I’ll reevaluate the situation for 2011, since I’m enrolled in your P10 product sourcing course.
Facts
I sell a product that must compete with independant web sites for price and service. Ebay thinks the shoppers are their customers – big mistake. Customers are savy ecommerce shoppers and know who pays the FVF — many try to get sellers to sell direct to avoid ebay fees. Once they learn ebay is costing them 12.5% more they will shop elsewhere. I will also.
1. July — I will increase shipping cost by 12.5% on flat rate shipping charges to customers to cover the 11% FVF increase.
2. Will remove all listing with calculated shipping since ebay has no way to mark-up calculated amounts or provide for a minimun sale amount. (Many ecom sites only offer free shipping for $100.00 or more sale)
3. Will include in all shipments a statement showing the customer what actual shipping cost are and what ebay has added to their shipping cost.
4. Will encourage customers to shop at my new web site where they will not pay a premium for shipping but actual cost as I have always done.
5. I will watch as ebay looses buyers because if sellers (ebay’s real customers) don’t list shoppers have no reason to visit ebay.
6. Ebay will find the big sellers will slowly drop ebay as their marketing venue because the can’t pay 11% more and still compete with ecom sites.
By By Ebay
Hi Lisa,
I can’t even believe this is happening! How much more can sellers afford to lose before we are out of business??? I always start my auctions or fixed priced autions out very much below the MSRP, then I start out all on a low sale, usually 10%, right off the bat. Then the FVF’s are outrageous, and Paypal fees are also outrageous! And now they want sellers to line their pockets with more money eating away at our profits! Like many others, it is time to look around for some other sites that help their sellers. Ebay has always not cared much about the seller. All these crazy ideas ans rules are driving me crazy! It used to be fun to sell on Ebay, now it is just a job to try and figure out if we can make any profit in order to stay in business. Thanks for your info Lisa, and great seminars. It’s very much appreciated!