Friday December 18, 2009
In the spirit of the retail season, with only a week to go until Christmas, I offer these four Christmas sales tips to entice shoppers into your store (and out of the big boxes).
1) Offer one big bargain a day. I'm borrowing this idea from The Bay, which is offering big discounts (30% or more) on some one well-known item each day to bring Christmas shoppers in. It can work for you too if you have well-known brand merchandise or particular items that people are looking for.
2) Make it a discount, not a thing. In a flyer recently, a retailer offered a free pair of socks to anyone spending over $20 in their store over their three day pre-Christmas sale. But what if I feel I have enough socks or that socks just aren't very Christmasy? They've lost me.
3) Court them personally. Presumably you have a customer database and an email list. Use it to do some last-minute email marketing, offering customers special offers such as extra discounts just for them, buy one get one free deals not available to the general public etc. The message is "you're special" - a hard message to resist.
4) Make sure your discount is worthwhile. Shoppers are used to being spoiled this Christmas shopping season as retailers go out of their way to entice them to give them their business. So puny little 5, 10 or even 20 percent discounts aren't going to cut it unless you do something like a 20% off storewide sale. On individual items, the higher the discount the better. Shoppers will compare.
Do you have any get-them-into-the-store tips for small businesses wanting to increase Christmas sales? I'd love to hear them.
Image (c) Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
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Thursday December 17, 2009
The Kauffman Foundation has released a new study, "Making of a Successful Entrepreneur", which provides insight into company owners' beliefs about what influences the success or failure of a startup business.
The survey researched the beliefs of 549 company founders of successful businesses in high-growth industries, including aerospace, defense, computing, electronics and health care.
In summary, asked what were the most important factors in their success, the entrepreneurs cited prior work experience, learning from previous successes and failures, a strong management team and good fortune.
Asked what they thought were the most common barriers to entrepreneurial success, 98% of the entrepreneurs surveyed answered the lack of willingness or ability to take risks.
What's the connection between this 'most common barrier' and the 'most important factors of success'? I'm guessing that being willing to take risks leads to more learning opportunities.
Other barriers to entrepreneurial success cited by respondents were:
- the time and effort required (93 percent),
- difficulty raising capital (91 percent),
- business management skills (89 percent),
- knowledge about how to start a business (84 percent),
- industry and market knowledge (83 percent),
- and family/financial pressures to keep a traditional, steady job (73 percent).
The solutions to raising most of these barriers seems pretty straightforward; a person who doesn't have industry or market knowledge or know how to start a business can easily find out. A person without business management skills can take courses in business management and/or solicit the help of a mentor/coach.
But I admit, #1 stymies me. How do you teach a risk-averse person to take risks?
Or is risk-taking even as important an attribute of entrepreneurship as this study would suggest? What do you think? What Are the Most Important Characteristics of an Entrepreneur?
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Wednesday December 16, 2009
The competition for Christmas shopping dollars is fierce, so small retailers really have to go the extra mile to bring in Christmas sales. Here are five ideas for gifting your customers that will help increase Christmas sales and possibly increase customer loyalty, too.
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Photo courtesy Barbara.
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Tuesday December 15, 2009
It's easy enough to forget during this festive time of year, but fiscal year end is little more than two weeks away for many small businesses.
Making your income tax instalment payment today brings the basic tax question back to the forebrain; are you paying more income tax than you should?
If you think the answer is "yes" or just aren't sure, have a look at these six year end small business tax tips. There's still time to implement some or all of these before the New Year.
Looking for more tax information?
These collections of articles on the site may have just what you're looking for:
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