With the UK August bank holiday and the US September Labor Day fast approaching, now is the best time to make sure you’re all set to maximise sales.
When
The UK’s last summer bank holiday takes place on Monday 28th August, whilst over the pond, Americans will be relaxing on September 04th Labor Day.
What to Expect
Last year the UK saw August online sales increase by 18.5%, when compared to the previous year, and by 0.4% when compared with July. Public holiday spending is notoriously difficult to predict, being largely weather dependent but with online sales growing year-on-year you have every reason to plan for a late summer boom.
Top Five Tips for Preparing for Online Public Holiday Sales
There’s plenty you should be doing to plan for 28th August and 04th September so let’s get straight to it:
1) Mirror, mirror on the wall what’s going to be the biggest seller of all?
Use last year’s reports and data to predict this year’s best sellers. Traditionally public holidays will see an increase in sales relating to home improvements, gardening and leisure activities but with people using their extra day’s holiday to relax and browse online, this is your chance increase sales across the board. Multichannel management software reports will help you to see what sold best, where so that you can properly prepare (and order more stock!)
Multichannel live inventory reporting will also let you see what stock you have in excess and what seasonal stock you need to get rid of – driving the content of any promotions or sales.
2) Read all about it – Marketing
August bank holiday and September Labor Day are perfect opportunities to increase your marketing efforts in order to increase your website traffic and lead shoppers straight through to your shopping cart. Focus marketing efforts on what you think will sell well and don’t forget to let customers know cut off dates for guaranteed delivery.
It is also a perfect opportunity to offer sales and special promotions: Inventory management software can automatically deduct the individual items from your stocks so you don’t have to.
3) Making your mind up – Returns
Last year, labor day was the peak day for returns. Be prepared for this and remember to update your stock levels across all of your channels (Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Wish) and your shopping cart (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento).
4) The C-word: Christmas
Start thinking about it because 1 in 4 will start their holiday shopping this holiday and eBay are expecting buyers to make almost half a million searches for ‘Christmas’ so now is the perfect time to Upload and update your product listings so that when they do, you’re there.
5) Relax
Remember that is it your bank holiday too. If your bank holiday will be spent manually listing products to individual sales channel, keeping a constant eye on stock levels so that you can individually update them and printing an endless stream of invoices and shipping labels, then ring the Expandly team for a demo on how multichannel management software can save you time and do your bank holiday work for you.
About Expandly
Expandly is multichannel management software that is all about saving you time and effort.
From the moment you login in the morning to the moment you ship your orders, Expandly aims to reduce your workload. It is simple, easy to use and focussed on helping small eCommerce businesses go from home-office or unit to warehouse and beyond.
Find out more about Expandly Multichannel Management software