It’s Sooner Than You Think
There was a day when it was considered sacrilegious to even mention Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Well, like it or not, those days are over. Malls are decorated for Christmas long before the Thanksgiving feast begins.
Retailers that wait until Thanksgiving miss the opportunity to help their customers get a good jump on their shopping “chore”. No, it shouldn’t be seen as a “chore”, but the longer it is put off, the more of a chore it becomes.

Help Your Customers Get a Head Start
Last minute shoppers face these challenges:
-The malls are crowded.
-The weather is bad.
-The merchandise is picked over.
-The prices are inflated.
People on the average have 25 people to shop for. The sooner they get started the more enjoyable it will be. Here are some things that you can do NOW to get the customers to start their Christmas shopping in your store TODAY.

Make a Countdown Sign
Start Now, Say, “There are ONLY 50 Shopping Days left before Christmas.” Update it EVERY DAY. There are many ways to make one; be creative.

Other Things You Can Do…
-Provide a wrapping station with paper, ribbons and cards.
-Start decorating now; small at first, and then go all out after Thanksgiving.
-Provide a printed shopping list to help people remember who they are going to be shopping for.
-Start the Christmas music playing right after Thanksgiving.

If you are in Hawaii remind customers that a gift from Hawaii will be the most unique gift under the tree.
Remember what they say about the early bird.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 11:33 am and is filed under Retail Selling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.