It's the post holiday season and most small businesses are trying to cling on to the high sales that occurred over the holiday period for as long as possible. Well, thankfully, there are other ways you can try and encourage sales to remain high both now and throughout the year. Even outside of the holiday season, there are ways you can give sales a bump. In this article, we will explore a few options you could try to encourage dwindling sales.

Spontaneous Sales

Frequent random sales in store and/or online brings frequent traffic from customers trying to catch deals. Improved traffic both in-person or online, leads to increased sales of products both on sale and regularly priced. When sales are spontaneous, customers will ‘check’ the store or website more often leading to unplanned purchases.

Short-term discount codes sent through email or social media announcements can be incorporated to help move stubborn stock.

Free samples

We’ve all heard of other companies giving free samples but haven’t thought of trying it out in your business. Free samples have multiple benefits. They make customers feel they are getting more than they paid for and it introduces them to a new product. If they like the product, they might buy it in the future. This works best for products that are consumable i.e. limited life-span such as perfumes. In many cases, product suppliers have sample-size options and with the chance of increased sales, they are often willing to supply them for free.

Rewards Program

As mentioned, people love free stuff and the potential of free stuff is a great motivator to purchase items from your store instead of other stores. With a rewards program, you build a loyal client base and only reward your dedicated customers. In a sense, this is building a relationship with them. You don’t always need to give away free products, you can give loyalty customers other benefits such as:

access to larger discounts during sales (exclusive coupons)
priority shopping benefits such as early access to sales
access to separate (and shorter/non-existent) checkout lines
exclusive option to purchase unique products or special limited edition items
exclusive event access
exclusive social media membership

These may seem strange but this type of customer loyalty is adopted by a range of business types from automotive and air travel to cosmetics.

Client Referrals

These days, even amazon reviews are not reliable due to all of the ways fraudulent reviews can be purchased. As a result, people are very likely to ask friends, family and neighbours for referrals. To make sure you are at the top of the referral list, offer customers an incentive for referring business your way. Referrals can be done by more than word of mouth. You can use social media to share advertisements, tag friends or invite clients to in-house events.

Special Events

Events can be organised and held in-store to bring customers into the store whether loyal customers only (exclusive attendees), or simply anyone off the street. An event makes shopping an event by being entertaining. Music, freebie bags, samples, tuition/instruction, facepainting, make-overs, dancing, costumes, live music etc. can be used to highlight the event and bring in people who may not have been to your store previously.

You can use social media to invite customers to the events and have those same customers share the invite to friends by referral. Not only does it spread the word of your event, but it opens your business up to new clientele.

Events can be based on traditional holidays or can be unique to your business such as new product launches, business anniversaries or guest appearances. No matter what event you organize, customers in your store will lead to sales and build product and brand awareness.

Payment Plans

Oftentimes, high price items suffer from more difficult sales due to the high price. Offering alternative payment plans is one way to help move expensive products. Multiple options exist such as third party creditors like paybright, afterpay, Klarna, or companies that finance their own products such as apple or the source (often through the same third parties).

If this type of product applies to you, you may want to look into providing payment options and advertise the low payment options. This could be the step above the competition you need.

Charity Collaborations

Make sales and help a charity by doing a charity collaboration. This can be done in a number of ways such as percentage of sales donations, products donated (e.g. 2 for 1), hours of volunteering etc. Not only are you encouraging sales but you are benefiting a charity while also being promoted by the charity and this means free advertising, an increased client base and excellent community relations.

Being a successful business owner is difficult. You need to be as flexible and innovative to stay ahead of the curve and remain at the top of your game. Using the methods above are just some ways you can improve dwindling sales and start moving that difficult stock. If you need further assistance in improving your sales, contact business coach David D’Silva.

Techniques to boost your sales and move difficult stock