There are two kinds of people in this world: those who don’t want to see holiday decorations until the month of, and those who think it’s perfectly acceptable to start talking about Christmas in July (yeah!) For both kinds of people, RepricerExpress has these seven awesome tips you can employ to start making the busy selling season easier for you.
1. Subscribe to Weather Apps
In a lot of countries, snow happens. And in countries that aren’t used to it, it can grind things to a complete halt, which makes it hard to fulfil your deliveries.
Sign up for a couple of really good weather apps, even the ones that cost money. It’ll be well worth your while to know what weather conditions will be in various cities and countries so you can plan and adapt accordingly.
2. Know When the Crunch Times Will Be
There are several points in the holiday season that you should be prepared to work overdrive for, and also give a head’s up to your staff. Generally, it tends to be the three weekends after American Thanksgiving (it falls on 23 November this year), as those Saturdays-and-Sundays are usually pretty hectic.
Knowing when the busier times are ahead of time may not erase them, but it makes it easier to deal with when you can block it out exactly on the calendar.
Related reading: Essential Ecommerce Holiday Dates 2017 for Amazon Sellers
3. Make the Shipping Calendar Your Best Friend
Unless you’re personally driving out every package, you’ll need to know what cut-off dates each shipping service you use has in place. Make a separate calendar just for that.
Then, you can start to give notice to buyers that they’ll need to buy by X date if they want it to arrive by Y time. As an extra little bit, factor in the handling time on your end so you don’t inadvertently take orders that will miss the deadlines.
4. Become an Inventory-Managing God/Goddess
Know what’ll happen if you run out of a hot item in the holiday season? Buyers will look somewhere else — and then tend to finish the rest of their shopping lists with those merchants.
The only thing worse is if you accept an order and then discover the inventory for that is actually empty. But that doesn’t have to happen! If you make being meticulously organised about your inventory a top priority, you’ll notice a lot fewer wrinkles and stress this holiday season.
5. Print Off Your Own Labels
This tip has two huge advantages: it makes life easier for those on the shipping service end of things, and gives you a valuable opportunity to market your own brand.
Firstly, having shipping labels already ready when you show up at a shipping service counter means your items are one big step closer to being sent out the door.
Secondly, you can add your own artistic flair to the shipping labels that’ll help set you apart, make buyers excited to receive their purchases, and help set you apart from other sellers in their minds. Something so small really goes a long way.
6. Schedule Pickups Instead of Going In-Person
In the previous point, we briefly alluded to going on foot to shipping service centres and dropping off your packages. Most of the time, there’s no problem with this.
But during the holiday season, you’ll be one of many, many people doing this, and a risk of showing up with dozens of other people is your packages have a greater risk of being ignored due to sheer volume.
If you want to lower these odds, just opt for a scheduled pickup time online.
7. Throw in a Little Holiday Extra with Each Package
You’re competing in a buyer’s market these days, which means the power rests with the shopper. It’s not like a small town or a town from a hundred years ago where consumers were largely stuck for choices.
Instead, they can simply close the tab on you and head straight to a competitor who seems to offer a more enticing offer. One of our favourite ways to combat this is to include a little holiday cheer in every package.
You don’t have to go big or fancy, just something personal and heartfelt like a handwritten card or boutique candies.
Final Thoughts
Out of all the things you should be practising this holiday season, perhaps is none more consistently important than repricing. Having the right price for the right product is almost always the single biggest factor in a buyer’s decision, and RepricerExpress will help get you there.
Plus, as our own holiday gesture to you, we’re making the first 15 days free when you sign up now. Ho, ho, ho!
