Post Holiday Stocks? Here’s how you can deal with it

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday are only good, until your buyers buy something from you. But not when you are left with a heap of unsold stock or when your customers return in big numbers. Isn’t it?

Well, many online sellers and retailers face this every coming year. After a great spike in holiday sales – right around the end of Xmas – everything comes rolling towards the X-axis.

• Effective return policies attract buyers to shop from you without any fear. 67% of the shoppers check the return page before purchasing online. Whereas, 92% of the buyers would come to you for shopping again if they’re satisfied with the way you handle returns.
• According to the National Retail Federation, it was found that 77% of buyers were willing to spend the same or more than the previous year’s holidays. Which means, the chances of returns and overstocking eventually increases for the retailers.

Just at the beginning of the New Year, you see a large datasheet of product/items which are either returned back or left unsold. In fact, that is also the worst time of the year where your e-commerce site is sinking with sales numbers, that can be counted on fingers.

However, by end of this article, you’ll be able to deal with :

• The stocks, which were meant to be at your customer’s place
• Recover from the slump more quickly
• And get you back to sales mode

 

Promote the Unsolds

A very old but yet effective way to get your unsold or returned stock, back in the market is by promoting it with some extra incentives.

Yes, with some extra incentives (more than the one you were giving on holiday’s sale) !!  Why?

Because you are not the only seller who is going to promote those slumps. Therefore, offering something extra to your buyers like discounts, BOGO offer, end season sale, coupons or anything – in the end – it would surely get your online store heavy traffic, even after the holidays.

For example, DSW offers $20 gift card on every purchase of $100 in gift cards. This extra $20 you’ll receive via email after all the holiday seasons is over.

 

Big days end, Big sales don’t…

Instead of emphasizing on big-days (holidays) where tons of online buyers would be out for hunting the best offers – spread out your advertising campaign just after everything cools down.

You may be tired of sales after these holiday season, but trust me your buyers ain’t. All they desire to see is, just some big discounts or offers, and if your website offers those things then you’ll get what you want – getting clicks on CTA button.

Everyone individual has different nature of buying -some of them are like me!!. Yes, you’ll never find me hunting down for the best offers or deals during those heavy rush in holiday sales.

Rather, they’d wait for those big day sales to end. Because they believe that for receiving the best service and quality product, it’s better to go shopping when the rush is less.

 

New Year means, something New !!

This year I’ll do this, do that, lose some weights, spend less and blah blah blah..!! Your consumer promises themselves to be a better person at every new year’s beginning.

That’s your chance to pitch your previous holiday’s stocks in their mind by explaining how your product may help them fulfill their new year’s promises.

Amazon’s and other e-commerce giant’s sellers follow this strategy to get rid of with their pre-holiday inventory. Use inventory management tool to strategically set prices on certain products.

People aren’t going to buy junk or unhygienic food, indulge in expensive wardrobe purchases, or buy pricey toys. However, they’ll purchase things that promise to reinforce their New Year’s resolutions.

 

Leverage buyers data

You may have received a good amount of traffic during the holidays. Therefore, a gleaming pile of paradise must be waiting for you.

Its the email address, that you captured during the holiday season.

And, you are in a perfect position, to shoot your post-holiday stocks by sending them the marketing emails.

 

Don’t wait for too long, your customers forget in a short time that they purchased from you. While their memories of holiday shopping are still fresh, start delivering content and information about your products that will keep them alive and active.

Ask your buyers about how was their experience with the product, grow loyalty programs, inform them about new arrivals or upcoming sales, publish customer survey results, and more..(more in the sense, sell your post-holiday stocks using these data’s in a subtle manner).

 

Retarget !!

Make your website lively and don’t let your lazy buyers sleep after the great high sale holidays, keep them engaged with some or the other offers, provide them the retargeting attention that may pull them back and compel them to buy.

According to the data, remarketing has incredible power.

• 147% higher conversion rates have been observed by sellers after remarketing.
• The average click-through rate (CTR) for retargeted ads is 10x that of display ads.
• Showing your visitors retargeted ads increase conversion rate by 70%.
• Retargeting also reduces your cart abandonment rate by 26%.

With a vast amount of visitors or shoppers coming and going through your website during the holidays, remarketing would be a fabulous strategy to get them back for shopping.

 

Bundling

Let say in your post-holiday stock, you have- shoes ($80), jeans ($20), and t-shirts ($30) which are yet to get sold. Whose total sum is $130.

Would that be ok if $30 can get all these products sold?

What I mean is, if you offer all of the three products at

$80 + $20 + $30=$130 $100, then it would increase the chances of getting sold rapidly. Because your consumer always admires discounts – in whatever way they receive.

The above method of selling product is Bundling. It has many key points such as:

• It increases the AOV (average order value).
• Influences customer’s buying decision.
• Get’s you more business
• Bundled products move faster than selling it individually.

 

Analyze your inventory’s data

Each holiday season is a great learning experience for sellers. What did well? What didn’t? Your inventory tool holds close to the answers to these questions.

Taking note of the best selling items, helps you figure out the appropriate amount of inventory to stock up on for the next upcoming months and even for the next holiday season.

Automating your purchase orders increases the efficiency of what to reorder or restock. Thereby you’ll know which items require more marketing and which are already doing well.

 

That’s a Wrap

You can start your new year with kickass sales, rather than starting things off with a massive plummet. Think about the impact that it will have on the rest of the year by following, all these above strategies and reducing your post holiday’s stocks.