Retail Merchandising at Christmas
Every day is an important day as a retail merchandiser but there’s one time of the year that requires even more attention than most; Christmas. Whilst not everyone may celebrate Christmas, it is a key time for any business when it comes to sales and marketing.
Ensuring that your business has enough stock for the festive season should be priority before considering any marketing or sales plans. Focus particularly on your key products and your bestsellers to ensure that you can get through the festive period without any stock issues. Financially, businesses should see a significant increase in sales over the Christmas period, however, optimising your sales even further should still be a key focus. A strong marketing strategy as well as excellent prices and promotions are a great way to increase sales even further.
Working within the retail sector gives you a huge advantage over e-commerce businesses over the festive period, as you have the ability to use visual displays to attract your customers and promote your products. Whilst uniqueness is always the key when it comes to retail merchandising, creating unique displays and promoting exciting products is even more important at Christmas.
In Canada and United States, the Christmas period starts even earlier than many other countries with businesses beginning their merchandising and marketing campaigns in mid-November in time for Thanksgiving. A survey from Market Track has also found that 49% of shoppers have the majority of their Christmas shopping completed by Thanksgiving. More customers are now beginning their Christmas shopping earlier than ever before, making being prepared for the festive period even more important.
Whilst authenticity is key, taking inspiration from previous successful campaigns is a great way to get ideas for your next campaign. However, be mindful that many large corporations may have much bigger budgets than your business.
Can your business offer anything over the festive period that they may not do usually? Can you expand your product range or offer gift cards to give your customers even more options and flexibility? When it comes to gift shopping, customers appreciate having many options available to them and are more likely to make larger purchases or even repeat purchases.
Above everything else, your visual displays need to be your focus at Christmas. Your display needs to show your brand image strongly but how well does it also promote your product? Would your customers be able to identify your brand from your window display alone? Engaging visual displays make customers much more likely to remember your brand and you might even get new customers who have simply seen your display alone!
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