5 Tips for Planning “After Christmas” & “After New Year’s” Sales at Your Home Business
December 26, 2007 by Mary Emma Allen
Shoppers often look for “after Christmas” and “after New Year’s” sales. So home business owners can utilize this as a shopping promotion, too. The manager of a mall store told me shoppers are always coming into her store looking for special sales after Christmas and for new sales to start out the new year. So her store regularly plans specials
1. Do you have Christmas or seasonal items you don’t want to hold over for another year? Put these out at reduced prices in your shop and online…while supplies last.
2. Plan a New Year’s special or beginning of the year special on specific items or to the first 10 or 20, etc. customers.
3. Run some specials on services through a specific date or to a specific number of customers, if this is a slower time for your business.
(However, when you plan your specials, make sure you aren’t getting yourself into a bind where you’re going to lose money on the items you sell. If they are products you don’t want to hold over and store for another year, that’s one thing. But make sure when you introduce new items at a special price, you state some limits or “while supplies last”.)
4. Organize an “Open House” right after the new year starts to introduce new items. These may not necessarily be items on sale but new ones you’re planning to feature. You might offer refreshments and door prizes with these.
5. Develop a gift card program whereby customers can purchase gift cards to give to recipients who use them to purchase from your store. Laura Spencer, blogger at Work From Home Momma, mentioned gift cards in her post, After Christmas Sales – Top Tips for the Small Business Owner.
If our own household is any indication, gift cards were a major part of Christmas this year. For the first time that I can remember, every single person in my immediate family received at least one gift card as part of their Christmas, said Laura.
What do you use for special promotions this time of year?
(c)2007 Mary Emma Allen
Thanks for the link and quote. You’ve got some good points about gift cards. I wonder if old-fashioned gift certificates would work as well?
You’re welcome. Yes, I think the old-fashioned gift certificates would work even better in some cases. Perhaps you or I, or both of us, should write something about gift cards/certificates on our blogs! I was thinking about another separate post for later on, as I read yours. For starters I decided to add it to this list.