Christmas Tips For Retailers

The December Question

Remember the November Question and the need to practice your ducking and weaving?   From the first of December change your question to “Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?”  It’s guaranteed to get a lively customer reaction! 

Of course, you are then ready to follow up with, “Sounds like you’ve got some people that are difficult to buy for?” and follow the process outlined in the 10 November posting).

The whole objective of this approach is to get more than your fair share of the business in the lead up to Christmas when you do have time to talk to your customers. You know that in the final week before Christmas you are likely to be swamped with more customers than you normally see in six months (or at least it often seems like it).  So, make the most of your opportunities by initiating Christmas conversations now.

What will Aussie customers do?

Consumers will be savvier and more price conscious with their 2008 Christmas gifts spending.  But they'll still shop, according to the Deloitte/Australian Retailers Association(ARA) 2008 Christmas retail survey.

•    More than half (56.8%) plan to start their Christmas shopping in December compared to 53.1% in 2007.
•    26.7% will leave their Christmas shopping to the last minute, making their first trip the week before Christmas.  This is higher than in 2007 (20.3%) perhaps aided by Christmas falling on a Thursday giving a whole weekend plus three days for the last-minuters.
•    Just over half (55.4%) said they were going to spend the same amount of money on Christmas gifts this year, compared with 61% in 2007.  This compares with 57% in the UK.
•    61% planned to complete their Christmas shopping the last week before Christmas.  This was similar to 2007.
•    20.7% said they would purchase between 10% and 40% of their Christmas presents during or after Boxing Day to benefit from the post Christmas sale period.
•    Just over half (55.4%) said they were going to spend less money on Christmas gifts in 2008, compared to 61% in 2007.
•    Only 12.3% said they were going to spend more money on Christmas gifts this year, whereas in 2007 it was 21.5%
Over half (57.9%) said that ‘research and compare products’ is the most important reasons they will use the internet to assist them with their Christmas shopping up from 49.4% in 2007.
•    Only 18% said they were not going to use the internet to help them with their Christmas shopping.

In-Store Promotional Idea

Here’s a simple promotional idea for you to try out courtesy of Sydney based retail consultant, Dennis Price www.retailsmart.com.au .

Concept: Buy two matching puzzles. The size of the puzzle depends on how many customers you have on your mailing list. (You do have a mailing list, right?). If you have a large list for an individual store you may have to have more than one prize. Build one puzzle and stick it on a wall, but take one piece out of the puzzle. Make sure it is large enough and visible enough with good signage explaining what it is all about.

Execution: Have a bowl of all the pieces of the second (matching) puzzle on the counter and customers who spend more than X get to draw a piece and match their piece to the missing gap of the completed puzzle. This way you are opening it up to all the customers who meet the criteria. (You could require them to join your mailing list too.)

Determine your prize: It can be anything from a gift voucher to hamper, but I like the idea (over Christmas especially) of pinning 100 scratchies to a mini Christmas tree. The potential value of the prize could easily be millions – which registers on everyone’s radar, and the cost is low and the customer is guaranteed to win something!

KPIs: Set your objectives for number of sign-ups (new customers), average sale, participation rate etc. Only if you achieve your objectives, will you repeat it. If not, dump it and try something else.

ElfYourself is Back

Last Christmas did you enjoy putting photos of yourself, family and workmates on dancing elves and emailing them out to family, friends, work associates and anyone else you could think of?

Apparently a lot of people did (It was certainly popular in my family).  www.ElfYourself.com was one of the surprise holiday breakout hits on the Web.  It was a promotional viral video site created by OfficeMax that let people upload their pictures and create dancing elves that they could then send as e-cards. ElfYourself turned out to be the fastest growing site last December attracting a total of 100 million visitors worldwide throughout the campaign.

When Greg Spiridellis, CEO of JibJab Media, saw ElfYourself, it resonated with him because JibJab is organised around a similar series of "Starring You” videos" that allow people to upload their photos so that they can star in the videos, and send them as digital cards. The JibJab videos also often involve dancing characters.

In February, he cold-called the chief marketing officer of OfficeMax and proposed a partnership: JibJab would create new dancing elves around its Starring You platform. There would be not one dance, but three: Disco Elves, Jazz Elves, and Country Elves. There would also be the opportunity to sell digital downloads of the videos and personalised images printed out on cards, mugs, and mousepads. OfficeMax agreed and this year JibJab is running the site, which has now been relaunched.  Click here and create your own elves.

Christmas Family Magic

Are you just selling stuff to bring in the Christmas $$$ or are you doing that little bit extra to create some Christmas family magic?

Lots of independent retail businesses are putting some heart-warming effort into making Christmas special for their customers and I’m sure this will bring them extra rewards.  Here’s an example from Tulleys Farm an award winning UK farm shop near Crawley south of London run by that great farm Marketeer, Stuart Beare - www.tulleyschristmas.co.uk .

Have a look and then compare it with the effort that you and your team are making.

How do you compare on a scale of one to ten?

Christmas Sales Tips

Here is a short video which retail management specialist Kevin Graff has posted on his website to help you and your team sell more this season.  It’s well worth a look and only takes 4 or 5 minutes.  Click here to view it.

Motivate Your Customers – Gift Ideas Competition

Create some simple, fun competitions for your customers.  For example, get them to list 5 gifts from your store, one for themselves and 4 for other people they have to buy for.  Click here to download a sample form which you can adapt for your store.

It can be a daily or weekly draw.  Winner gets all 5 gifts (up to a certain value if you have high ticket items).  This encourages customers to think of the gift purchasing opportunities in your store while they are getting other things.

Your team can also use the ideas to help other customers with suggestions for their hard to buy for friends and relatives.

The Question for Ladies

As we know, a lot of the burden for keeping track of who to buy for, what to buy and doing the searching and buying and wrapping and labelling is done by ladies, especially Mums.

It’s exhausting working out what to buy for his family and even his children as well as combined friends.  So, to make these ladies feel special the question is, “What are you going to treat yourself to this Christmas?”

The November question

In preparation for Christmas you have to practice ducking and weaving.  Why?

Because that’s what boxers do and you’ll need to too, once you ask the November question.  The question is, “Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?”

Then get ready to duck out the way, weave to the side and check your customer’s reaction. 
Even if they don’t throw a punch, the response may well be a groan or a comment like “I don’t even want to think about it”.  Great!  This allows you to respond with “Sounds like you’ve got some people that are difficult to buy for?”

Now, you can go on to be a problem solver.  And if you help them to find a suitable gift not only will you have created a sale, they will feel fantastic.  I’m sure you’ve experienced that feeling of euphoria followed by relief when you find the right card or gift for a friend or loved one.  You can help your customers feel the same way.

Even if you can’t match your merchandise to the needs of your customers you can at least help them to think through their gift buying dilemma and narrow down the options.

If they have started their Christmas shopping, congratulate them, pause then ask, “Any difficult people still to buy for?”  Then follow the same problem solving process as above.