Easter Sunday
April 12
Last year Easter fell in March. It was the earliest Easter in 15 years and resulted in one of the poorest Easters, sales wise. Part of the reason for that was colder than normal weather, but an even bigger reeason was a lack of preperation by retailers. When you are living day to day it’s sometimes tough to look ahead. But, in retail if you don’t look ahead for upcoming opportunities you will soon be looking back at missed ones.
Start now to decide how to help your customers (that celebrate Easter) have a good one. Candies, chocolate and hard boiled eggs are the best sellers, but not the best healthwise. What do you sell that can be packaged into an Easter Basket that will be well received both emotionally and physically? Get creative now; the clock is ticking.
April 5th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Hello there!
Happy Easter! Chag Sameach! Hope everyone finds all the eggs the Easter Bunny hides…
I had a few clients who used to be very active about each day of the year (International tree day, Secretaries day, International day of the horse etc etc and so on); they always had some kind of promotion that they were working on all the time. They would dress up their windows accordingly, generally a week or so before the day or celebration or event to give themselves lead in time, and if they could not find a ‘day’ to celebrate, they would use the change of seasons, or song titles or Monday blues, or nursery rhymes or famous birthdays, the list is endless with a bit of imagination which they were very good at using.
I remember a pet shop over Easter would make sure they had lots of bunnies in stock. She used to dye the bunnies blue green pink and yellow with food colouring (sounds funny) but the kids loved it. All it took was a dip of the bunny into coloured water and a quick towel dry. With each purchase of a bunny went an Easter egg but more importantly a 1 hour FREE How to care for and feed your bunny ‘training’ course for Moms and Kids. Of course add on sales rocketed as did repeat visits for other pets like goldfish and foods and bells and whistles for the birds etc.
A florist used to hold an Easter Bonnet parade outside her shop with flower arrangements as prizes, Easter was usually busier for her than Christmas. At Easter, she used to say that she had a clear run with little competition for her customers’ attention, she made three or so times as much as she did at Christmas and twice as much as on Valentines day!
A petrol station client used to (probably still does but he was in Durban, not Johannesburg) get his pump attendants to dress up in hired Easter Bunny costumes to dispense petrol. He ALWAYS had queues of cars waiting. I think the children used to drive their parents nuts about fillijng up with petrol here, whether needed or not.
One last example was a simple giveaway of a theme bookmark in a bookshop I used to work in. The customer could choose a religious one or a silly one with bunnies and chocolates, but they would miss the cheaper bookstores and come to us just to see and be given the latest in a series, many used to collect them for each year.
You are right Ron, if I thought some more I am sure I could give other examples of what others of my clients used to do over Easter and other high days and holidays. Anyway.
Cheers
Lestie
Jo’burg S A