Five ideas to make your December profitable.

“Mr Bond, you appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” Hugo Drax.

December has landed, but it doesn’t feel the same, does it? We have the World Cup playing out, which should happen in the Summer, but the less said about Qatar, the better. We have multiple external issues that will affect most households. But television, the media, the radio, and the socials have been doing their best to get us all Christmassy.

In our industry, this time of year is when many of our partners take the large amounts of revenue needed to get these businesses through January (the only month with 21 weeks in it) and February.  What is December going to look like this year?

It’s hard to predict, isn’t it? Since the beginning of 2022, online sales have been falling, this initially causes alarm, but it shouldn’t. The online growth retailers saw in 2020 was freakish. There was an urgency for bricks and mortar retailers to get online as they were forced to shut their doors during the pandemic. And, let’s be frank, people working from home will tend to surf the internet a bit more than they usually would.

Fast forward two years, prices have gone up, and people are back in the office. Traffic has slowed, reduced in fact.  Uncertainty has reduced sales. So, how can you, as an online retailer, make the best out of this month, making it successful enough to give you the respite you need for the January and February slump?

Here are five ideas.

1. Get bundling

We know that this month is all about gifting. So, look at complementary lines. Makeup, toiletries and think about toys. What can you put together to encourage your shoppers to increase their basket value? We know that Amazon does this very well with their customers who bought this also bought these and increase the basket by three items. This looks helpful, and as we know people do get stressed over Christmas shopping. Putting together bundles is a win-win situation. And what’s easy is that if you are a StoreFeeder user, we have a perfect tool for this, enter Kit Products.

2. How about an electronic advent calendar?

If you want to do this, you must put your skates on. Email your customers with daily deals. You can use this to clear out stock, push seasonal lines and just get people visiting the site. Give it an advent theme and reach your customers excited by promising surprises daily.

3. Put the decoration up! Make your site festive.

The bricks and mortar stores have had trees and decorations up since the day after Bonfire night. They do it to get people in the mood for parting with their legal tender. You should do the same to your site. Once you remind people that Christmas is all around – the urge to get the shopping done is inescapable.

4. Have a top 40 countdown.

Back in the olden days, one of the exciting things about Christmas was who would be number 1 on the pop charts. It’s almost irrelevant now. Pick some of your best and most profitable sellers, count them down as they begin to sell, and include them in your email marketing. Nothing creates urgency, like only two left in stock! If your StoreFeeder user, we can show you how to do this using out-of-stock thresholds and xxx

5. Vouchers and discounts

This will require some planning and thought. But if you are counting on large basket values and are putting everything in place to make that happen, why not give checkout discounts to be used between January 1 and February 26? We know that it’ll be quiet in the New Year, and it always is; however, if people get a great experience purchasing from you – sweeten it and give them a reason to return and buy again in the new year.

There are five tips for you. Most of these tips can be executed through StoreFeeder – we can't decorate your site for you though; you’ll have to get your web team on that. If you are gearing up for the busy season and feel we can help you. You can reach out here.

Good luck, everyone; we hope December knocks it out of the park for you.