Back-to-school shopping can be one of the most lucrative times of the year for merchants, but only if you know how to do things right. And with a little help from RepricerExpress, you, too, can become one of those famed rockstar sellers everyone’s talking about.
1. Keep Selling Simple and Steady
Let’s look at Christmas for a second. Each year, there are fads that rise to the tops of everyone’s list. Because of this, gearing your selling towards this requires constant upkeep and tweaking so you can stay on top of everything.
Back-to-school shopping is the opposite of that where nothing really dramatic or new happens each year. Kids are always going to need paper, notebooks, jumpers, shirts, sneakers, backpacks and writing instruments, so organise a framework that reflects this and focus on other elements.
2. Let Your Buyers Know You Have Back-to-School Gear
Whether you dabble in a wide variety of products or like to keep it intimate, you need to tell your buyers that you have back-to-school gear available. And hey, even if you don’t think you do, you can definitely re-categorise the things you sell as belonging to the back-to-school heading. Listing sweaters, socks or anything else that kids/teens/adults would use over the course of a school year? Create a section for it!
3. Don’t Skimp On Product Descriptions
Guess what? When it comes to back-to-school shopping, you’re in very heavy competition and will need to do everything you can to stand out from the crowd. Don’t let yourself become a victim to vague or ambiguous product descriptions, especially with a sizeable portion of the population still doing their back-to-school shopping at brick-and-mortar stores. Use every factor to your advantage and fully explain what you’re selling (and why you’re the best option to go with!)
4. Reward the Early Birds
Nearly every type of merchant, no matter what the industry, offers sales specials to the early shoppers. It’s an indirect way of saying thanks to the consumers who get the ball rolling early, especially when you don’t (yet) have to worry about clearing out leftover stock. But the flipside of this is you must be prepared for them, which includes being on top of packing, shipping and answering questions. Plus, you’ll also want to use this time to expand your social media and online presence while you still have the time (and so you can cash in on it later).
5. Jump on the Electronics Bandwagon
Ooh, you know when’s an awesome time to get into selling laptops, desktops, tablets and the like? Yep, you guessed it — back-to-school time! You’ll want to target the high school/secondary and college crowd especially, as they’ll be the biggest consumers of such products. But don’t just stop there and go a few steps further by selling laptop cases or bags, bundling earbuds or headphones, and selling sweaters or jackets with smartphone pockets inside.
6. Retrack Your Data and Analytics
Although you’ll want to be keeping track of your statistics several times throughout the year, if you’re off-schedule with the back-to-school season, pencil in an appointment to go over your metrics again. Data-driven marketing will help you make smart decisions, and smart decisions tend to lead to higher profit margins and bigger customer bases.
7. Remember the Mobile Shoppers
One of the most annoying things when shopping online (well, for me anyway) is when I visit a site on my smartphone and have to keep pinch-zooming and sliding the page around because the web designers and developers didn’t optimise the site for mobile viewing. Buying online is increasing including a growing number of shoppers who use small devices to do their buying, so cater to them by creating a mobile-friendly version of your site.
Final Thoughts
We couldn’t finish up this article without recommending using RepricerExpress as a way to capitalise on your newfound expertise in the back-to-school shopping season. But to launch yourself into the stratosphere, you’ll have to first sign up for your 15-day free trial before you can start your fan club.
