The ongoing pandemic altered holiday shopping in 2020, and it looks like that trend will continue as we move into the 2021 season too. Major predictions for this holiday shopping season include lots of early shopping, continued demand for online and contactless shopping options, and a much higher demand for free shipping.
To help your small business prepare for a potentially complicated holiday season, we’ve prepared a brief checklist of things to do to make sure you’re ready to celebrate and prepare for anything that comes your way!
7 Things to Add to Your Business Holiday Prep Checklist
Here is a checklist of the top seven things that need to be on your to-do list this year. Even if it is a little late in the year, it’s better to start planning late than never!
Create Your Marketing Plan
The holiday season gives you many opportunities to market to new customers and even use special sales and promotions. You will want to employ all of the tools at your disposal, including email campaigns, social media, and other forms of advertising. Don’t be afraid to be creative to get your potential customers’ attention.
Update Your Website
It is important to make sure that your website is completely up to date at this time of year. For example, if you offer free shipping (which is super popular), holiday discounts, bundle deals, holiday apparel, or treats, you want to make sure that your customers know about it. It might give you an advantage over your competition.
Check Your Sales Figures
It’s always important to analyze your sales figures, but it is even more important before the holiday season. You can gain valuable insights that will help you plan and set goals and possibly gain insight into what might be able to help improve your sales this year.
Check Your Inventory
Before the holiday season, with all of its shopping and sales hits and causes chaos, make sure you have a good accounting of your inventory. This is not a time of year when you want to be surprised by low stock on a popular item. However, it is also important to ensure that your count is correct before products start flying off the shelves.
Decorate
Almost everyone loves decorations. Their bright colors catch people’s eye, and it makes your business appear more fun and relatable. Decorations also lift the mood, and a happy workplace makes for far more productive employees. However, unless your company has a public religious affiliation, you must remain all-inclusive in how you choose for your business to celebrate the holidays to respect your employees and customers.
Throw a Party
Holiday parties are loads of fun both for employees and customers. It also gives you an opportunity to thank both groups for everything they do to keep your business up and running year-round.
Set Holiday Schedules
For the sake of your business, it is important to set your holiday hours now so you can let customers know when you will and won’t be open during the holiday season. It will also help when it comes to scheduling the inevitable requests for time off around the holidays.
Be Prepared For This Holiday Season!
No matter what your marketing strategy is or how you plan to engage with your customers and employees, you will need a good plan going into the holidays if you want to be effective and reach your goals.
Following the checklist outlined above will better equip you and your business to deal with the upcoming, potentially hectic, holiday season. In addition, learning the lessons of last year will at least better prepare you for anything that comes your way.