Now that the holidays are a month out and foot traffic may have slowed down a bit, it’s time to reflect on your holiday sales. Have you had a chance to compare them to last year? If so, were they better or worse? If you haven’t, it’s time to gut check all of the efforts you put into prepping for the holiday season and see what worked and what could use a little refining.
Review the numbers
First things first, make sure you pull sales numbers for this year and last year’s sales. Take the time to sift through the numbers and make sure your sales were as good, if not better than last year. If they aren’t, you need to sit down and consider what changed over the course of the year.
Total Sales
Of course it’s important to see what your total sales are for the holiday season. These numbers are easy to pull and give you a quick starting point for comparison. You can break this number down by the whole sales period, month, or day. Then you can start to target what days and months were your most successful.
Top Products Sold
Chances are you already have a pretty good idea on what products are probably selling the best in your store. But with higher sales during holiday months, it’s always worth looking into which products are making you the most money. After you’ve identified your top sellers, reflect on a few things. Are these products you already have in your buying rotation? If they’re not in your buying rotation (and not seasonal items), it may be worth considering adding them due to the high demand.
Review your marketing
Did you run any marketing campaigns leading up to the holidays? If so, did you see more customers in your store as a result? It’s important to take the time to review your marketing campaigns and pinpoint programs that worked and programs that gave you little return.
Coupons
Did you find most purchases were made with coupons? Coupons are a great way to get customers into your store, but if you give too much of a discount or give them out too often, you risk losing money. If customers expect a coupon to come out every 30 days, they may wait to visit your store until they know they can get a discount. Consider using coupons as a ‘thank you’ gift to loyal customers or reward programs that give customers a percentage off after they’ve spent a certain amount in your store.
Email Campaigns
Make sure you’re tracking the success of your email campaigns. If you’re using a company to send out your emails, you should be able to review certain statistics. Check open rate, click-through rate, and subscriptions. If your numbers are low, you might want to consider reviewing your audience and content to ensure you’re sending messaging that will increase your engagement so your offers reach more of your customers.
As a retailer, it’s important to reflect on your year-over-year sales to ensure that you’re meeting the expectations you forecasted. But reflecting on a usually larger-than-normal sales period can help you identify areas where you’re excelling and areas that could use improvement. If you spend the time reviewing your sales, you have a better chance at turning your insights into profit sooner rather than later!
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