TOW#518 — Sales
As usual, during this pre-holiday frenzy, the sales are the main topic of conversation. And, almost like whipped cream on top, we’re bombarded daily with upcoming sales events: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Weekend Discount etc… People have become so delirious that they’ve even started making plans and warning others about which shops they’ll be going to and when: please don’t disturb me on that day, I’ll be shopping!
Discounts and sales can be nice, but sometimes they can disappoint our expectations. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a look at both sides, so that both can benefit from the sales.
What is it that you, as a customer, should do to prepare for the sales:
- Plan — you can find everything on-line nowadays, so it would be good to make a plan of what you want to buy during the sales. We once had a colleague who would always plan all the things she’d buy during the November sales!
- Budget — have a clearly defined budget that you aim to spend during the sales. Don’t overdo it, nothing’s for free!
- Research — invest a little time finding out what it is that you need, what it is that you really need, and what’s on offer.
- What’s on offer — go to the shops you plan to visit during the sales and find out what they’ve got and whether it’ll be on offer during the sales, as well as whether or not the sales will be for the whole store or for certain sections.
- Plan for shopping — you know that the shops are absolute chaos while the sales are on, so please don’t make a plan that you’ll manage to do everything in five minutes, but instead plan to spend the whole day shopping.
- Manners while buying — just because something’s on sale doesn’t mean it’s junk. So, behave as if those things were your own, and don’t just grab and throw stuff around without any regard for those coming after you!
On the other hand, however, there’s the shops and their concept and way of thinking when it comes to the sales. This is what you should keep in mind:
- Don’t lie — if there’s a sale, let it be a sale. No tricks!
- Labelling — clearly label the things that are on sale, both in the store and on-line. As you can see, above we told our loyal readers and your loyal customers that they should be making plans.
- Additional discounts — have a discount for goods that you have in large numbers and in various sizes (goods that can endure the entire sales) and a larger/additional discount for things that you want to ‘clear out’.
- Staff — you know that it’ll be much busier than normal during those days, so be sure to have extra staff on hand. If your aim is to sell as much as possible, then you most certainly won’t achieve that with the same number of staff, or fewer.
- On-line — if you’re able, make sure the things on-line are also on sale. You’ll not only get people to visit your on-line shop, you’ll also lower the number of shoppers and maybe even staff, thereby earning more!
- Promotion — let the promotion for the sales begin at least two weeks before. But, since we’re talking about promoting sales, what you’ve labelled should be what’s on offer. If you lie you’ll damage your company’s image, and nowadays that kind of criticism spreads quickly and easily.
- Plan — make a plan of the goods that you want to put on sale. My advice would be, unless you’re closing a store, not to put everything in the shop on sale, but instead to put some things on sale, and then later some others, and so on.
Sales are a specific concept and require careful manoeuvring. You must approach them analytically, in order to emerge satisfied. However, one thing’s very important to keep in mind, and it’s this: Take care of yourselves — no pushing and shoving and arguments… if you don’t get what you wanted, it’s not the end of the world — there’ll be other days!
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
@kalinbabusku
Member of the Team
MACEDONIA-EXPORT Consulting
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