In the spirit of the retail season, with only weeks 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. Offering big discounts (30% or more) on some one well-known item each day to bring Christmas shoppers in can work for you 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
More on Increasing Christmas Sales:
- Increase Christmas Sales by Gifting Your Customers
- 8 Rules for Good Customer Service
- 10 Ways to Increase eBay Holiday Sales
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