Christmas Tips For Retailers

Christmas Tips Slides

I’ve loaded the slides from my ‘How to make this Christmas your best ever’ presentation onto Slideshare so that they are available free for retailers to view, download and use in team meetings and training sessions. 

Christmas Retail 2009

View more presentations from Jurek Leon.

Is your average sale up $6.50?

According to research from the University of Missouri a few years ago US shoppers spend an additional $6.50 per day in the 32 days prior to Christmas.  Compare your average sale per customer over this period with October and November.  Is it up by $6.50 per customer?

Source: John Stanley’s Christmas webinar.

Motivate Your Customers – Gift Ideas Competition

Here’s an idea I included last year that proved popular with my retail clients.  I’m sure it can work in your stores too:

 

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.

Emotional Signage

According to the EFSA Trend Report for Winter 2009/10 (This refers to northern hemisphere winter) these are nine powerful emotional words to include in your Christmas signage:

Elegant

Refinement

Love of food

Sensual

Precious

Natural

Softness

Lightness

Nostalgia

Source: John Stanley’s Christmas webinar.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas

Aussie advertising guru, Jon Bird reports in www.insideretailing.com.au  that in the UK, retailers are trying to make customers feel good, hoping that a warm glow will result in jing ling tills.  He says that Marks & Spencer has done it best of all with their annual celebrity-based TV commercial:

 

http://marksandspencer.tv/player.aspx?bcpid=1733261711&bclid=49480633001&bctid=48735674001

I agree with him that it is a truly charming execution, featuring a glittering array of stars from Stephen Fry and the Absolutely Fabulous team to Wallace & Gromit, talking about how Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without their something special. As he says it would encourage even the hardest hearted Scrooge to pay a visit to M&S. Like John, I love the very Englishness of this commercial too. 

There are more goodies like this at www.christmastipsforretailers.com

No cartons rule during trading hours

Stock up before and after store trading hours – you want the team to be 100 per cent focused on selling, not tasking. Have a ‘no cartons rule’ during trading times which keeps the store clean and team focused on customers.

Source: www.retaildoctor.com.au

Make those maintenance checks NOW!

Always important but now is the time to make certain that all of your light fixtures are working; your exit signs are lit, your fire extinguishers have been checked, your flooring and carpets have no turned up edges that can trip people, your POS and printers are working properly, your doors or door grills are in good repair, ceiling ducts are clean and dust free, fitting rooms are clean and welcoming, shelves are firmly in place to avoid accidents, no chipped glass anywhere, no rough edges on sign holders, the back room is well organized, the plumbing (if any) and any illuminated store signage is working properly.

 

You won’t want to be spending valuable on floor and customer time taking care of pesky maintenance issues that could be taken care of in advance. Emergencies aside, your concentration needs to be elsewhere so… get it done NOW.

 

Source: www.dmsretail.com in Canada.

Put movement into your displays

In his FREE Christmas webinar international retail consultant John Stanley quotes research showing that 43% of shoppers questioned could recall static in-store displays. But a whopping 94% of shoppers recalled animated displays.  Our first objective is to be noticed so this demonstrates the importance of putting movement into your displays.

Elf Yourself 2009 is Live

www.ElfYourself.com the massively popular website that features dancing elves you can customise to feature the faces of you and your friends is back for 2009. The site, which serves as a promotion for USA company OfficeMax has turned into an internet phenomenon, drawing many millions of visitors each year.

Christmas is a magical time at this retailer

Helping your customers rediscover the spirit of Christmas is a terrific way of building an emotional bond with your customers and being remembered in the best possible way long after the festive season and January sales have passed.  Tulleys Farm in the UK (near Gatwick airport) are well known for creating outstanding farm experiences to help promote their produce and their shop as a destination.  Check out: www.tulleyschristmas.co.uk/santas-sleigh-ride.  Tulleys Farm are part of a magnificent movement of UK farm shops creating wonderful farm experiences for families throughout the year. See www.farma.org.uk for more.