12 Posts of Christmas: Tip 12—New Year’s Resolutions

I recently had an opportunity to visit with two local long-time Yahoo! Store merchants—Lawrence Ames of Golden West Specialty Foods (check out his wide assortment of BBQ sauces, hot sauces, chocolate poker chips, and other delectable gourmet products) and Shirley Tan of American Bridal (your one-stop shop for wedding favors and bridal gifts). Both offered tons of insight and advice into online retailing that I hope to share over the coming weeks. One observation that I had, is that both are pressed for time. Both Lawrence and Shirley consistently answered “I do that myself” when we asked who does various things around the business. Both had full-time employees to help, but like many of you, there is seemingly too much to be done, especially around the holidays.

The all-out battle for holiday sales is likely winding down now and you may be busy filling those last few overnight-shipping orders. Before you take some well-deserved time-off, make a point to do a “post-mortem” on your holiday sales season; this is especially true if, like many merchants, you make most of your revenue in the last quarter of the year, but the same is true of other high-selling seasons. Some things to consider:

• What worked well that you wish to do again? Email campaigns? Pay-per-click advertising? Special promotions such as free shipping or coupons for a percentage or dollar amount off?
• What didn’t work as well as expected? Did you offer free shipping but lost money on bulky items? Did your coupons help increase average order sizes or did you just break even? Consider how you can change these promotions with restrictions or small changes to make them really profitable for you.
• What did you not have enough of this season? Did you run out of products quicker than expected? Consider how you may wish to increase stocks or not offer slow-sellers during the high-season in order to stock more of your top-sellers if space is a premium. Did you run out of time before you ran out of orders? Consider hiring seasonal help or other ways you can increase your efficiency. Lawrence of Honest Foods had a great tip in switching all shipping options to UPS during the holidays as the ability for buyers to better track their shipping status helped reduce the flood of WISMO (Where is My Order?) calls he was getting.

After pondering these items, put your thoughts on paper and file it away until October of next year. The holidays can sneak up on you quicker than expected, especially when you are managing the day-to-day operations of your business. With your observations written down for handy reference, you’ll be in a much better place to put together your holiday sales plan for 07’. You can even set a reminder in Outlook® for October of next year, or whenever you kick off your holiday planning.

Best wishes and Happy Holidays to all,

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business