Planning a Seasonal Sale Without the Last-Minute Scramble

Seasonal sales, such as Christmas clearance events, end of season sales or summer promotions are always very popular with customers. They can also be very useful for small businesses to help clear out old stock, to attract new customers and to introduce new products.

A seasonal sale is more than just putting up a sign in your shop window and reducing prices on some products. There is so much more to it than that. For a start, you need to work out the prices, set up the products for sale, advertise the sale, make sure your website is up to date, organize the sale area, and a whole host of other things.

I have always found the worst part of any project is discovering something you have forgotten to do the day before. It is usually something very simple, like forgetting to order the signs for the sale or forgetting to update the sale prices in the system.

Planning ahead for a sale can make the process so much easier, especially for small business owners who are already busy running their business on a day-to-day basis.

Decide What You Want the Sale to Accomplish

First of all, decide what you want the sale to accomplish. You may have some seasonal stock you want to get rid of to make way for new products. Alternatively, you may be bringing in a new line of products and want to promote them. Or you may simply want to bring in some extra customers during the slower months of the year.

The goal that you set for the sale will determine which products are included in the sale and how much you are prepared to reduce the price by. A sale to clear out last season’s decorations, for example, would probably be discounted more than a sale of products that are already regular stock in order to attract more customers to the store.

Remember to consider your profit and loss before deciding on any discounts. A sale that is very popular with customers can be very bad for business if you are losing money on each item sold.

Give Yourself More Time Than You Think You’ll Need

In the past I have set out a timeline for a project, only to find that everything takes longer than I had anticipated. There are always the unforeseen delays, such as having to re-order something that was supposed to have arrived already, or having to deal with a delivery that has been delayed. And then there are the problems with things like printers and other equipment that decide to stop working at the most inopportune moments.

Start planning several weeks in advance of the sale. This simple list can be a simple checklist, a calendar of events or a simple notebook. It doesn’t matter what you use, as long as it is written down.

Keep your project management simple. A notebook, a calendar or a simple checklist will suffice. Write everything down in a notebook or on a calendar so that you don’t forget anything. The worst thing is to remember twenty things but forget the twenty-first thing.

Check Your Inventory Before Advertising

Before you start advertising for a sale, make sure you have enough of the products on offer to sell to customers. Go through your stock and make sure you have enough of each of the items that you are going to put on sale. Make sure that they are in good condition and that they are priced correctly.

Think about how you will display your products for the sale. Will customers have to rummage through a heap of products to find what is on sale? For online businesses, check the product descriptions, photographs, availability and shipping information for each of the products on sale.

How will you handle items that sell out quickly? Are you going to offer customers the option of receiving a rain check, or will you allow them to backorder the item? Alternatively, will you mark the item as unavailable? Make decisions on these issues before you start selling so that customers are not left confused.

Get the Word Out Early

As well as having a great sale, you need to let people know about it! Think about where your customers are likely to find out about your business. This could be on social media, via your email newsletters, on your website, in local newspapers and magazines, or on signs outside of your shop.

You don’t have to use every advertising method available to you. In fact, trying to use too many methods can be counter-productive as you will end up spending more time managing the advertising than you will setting up the sale.

For businesses that want to reach customers actively looking for certain products or services, search advertising can be a very effective way to promote a seasonal sale. Paid search campaigns can be set up to target relevant search terms and display ads to customers searching online for the products or services that you offer. However, it is important to set a budget for advertising and to monitor the results of the campaign to ensure that you are not spending more on advertising than you are making from the sale.

The advertisements should clearly state when the sale starts and when it ends and what offers are available. There is nothing worse than arriving at a store for a bargain only to find that the discount on offer has finished yesterday.

Don’t Forget About Signs and Displays

Signs and displays are very important for physical stores holding a sale. Customers need to be able to identify which products are on sale, how much they will save and any other terms and conditions that apply to the sale of particular products.

Keep the signs simple and easy to read. A sign stating ‘30% off selected stock’ is far better than a sign listing 30 products and stating the price of each with many small words in between. For larger events, custom banners can be great for promoting an upcoming sale. These can be displayed in-store or even out-of-store at market stalls and events.

Order printed materials in plenty of time for approval of design, production and delivery. Check the dates and spelling on everything that you are sending to the printer. There is nothing worse than paying for a beautiful banner to promote your sale only to find that you have put the wrong dates on it.

Make Sure Your Staff Knows What’s Happening

Make sure that your staff are aware of the details of the sale before the customers start to arrive. Go through the details of the discounts, dates of the sale, return policy and any other special offers that are being promoted for the sale. Also, make sure that they are aware of any products that are excluded from the sale.

This is also a good time to go through how to handle the extra volume of customers that you will be expecting during the sale. You may need extra staff to man the till, to restock shelves or to answer customer queries.

For a small business this can be as simple as getting family members or part-time staff to help out during the busy hours of the sale. Clear communication can prevent confusion when the store gets busy.

Test Everything Before the Sale Begins

A day or so before the sale is due to start, you should check that everything is in place for the sale to go smoothly. For online businesses, test discount codes, check out process and shipping costs. Ensure that the sale price is showing correctly on the website and that customers can complete their purchase as normal.

For physical stores, check that the register is calculating the discounted price correctly and that the signs on display match the offers available. The last thing you want to be worrying about on the day of the sale is whether you have enough of the packaging, receipt paper, shopping bags etc. that you will need. These things are not exciting but can cause a lot of headaches if you forget to check them before the sale starts.

Have a Plan for After the Sale

When the sale is over, it’s time to pack up and move on to the next project. But before you do that, it’s a good idea to spend some time reviewing how the sale went. Which products sold best? Were customers responding to your advertising? Did some of the discounts work better than others? Look at the sales for the sale and then look at the expenses for the sale, including advertising, printing, staff costs and any other costs for the sale.

You may find that a smaller, more focused sale with fewer products is more effective than a larger sale with more products. Record what worked well and what you could have done better in order to plan for future seasonal sales several months in advance.

Make the Next Sale a Little Easier

Seasonal sales can be very hard work but with a bit of planning they don’t have to involve staying up half the night before printing out price tags for the sale. Start planning early, keep your plans simple and make sure you allow yourself enough time to deal with any unexpected problems that may arise.

You don’t need the biggest discounts, the fanciest decorations or the most expensive advertising for a sale to be successful. All you need is a sale that makes sense for your business and gives your customers a reason to buy from you.

On the day of the sale you want to be helping customers, not running around looking for the price tags that you forgot to print out the day before.