Famous for being a day to shower your significant other with gifts, Valentine’s Day is one of the most celebrated holidays of the year and with sales in the UK alone projected to reach over £926 million it could be a very bountiful time for your business too. This is especially true if you’re a retailer selling more traditional Valentine’s Day goods, such as flowers, chocolates, and cards to name a few.
So, how exactly do you ensure this year’s Valentine’s Day dales are up to notch? Here are 10 steps to ensure you’re maximising your sales this V-Day.
If you use a POS system, and have been using it for a while, then you should have sales data from this time last year that can help you with your Valentine’s Day inventory forecasting.
This data will serve you as a valuable baseline to see which products were the most and least popular – then you can order your stock accordingly and well in advance. You want to ensure you have enough stock that you don’t sell out of all items, but not too much that you’ll be stuck with items you can’t sell. It’s a nice middle ground you’re after here.
The ongoing pandemic means a lot of things have changed, including how much money people are willing to spend on commercial holidays like Valentine’s Day.
If you’ve been collecting your customers email addresses, ensure you send out a promotional email, or emails, as part of your email marketing strategy. Unlike Christmas and other traditional holidays, most people don’t tend to buy their Valentine’s gifts very far in advance.
Start sending your emails out a week or two before the big day and send out a final email the day before and day of Valentine’s Day – it’s never too late to push encourage last minute purchases.
In addition to increasing your email marketing, be sure to post about any special offers or events on your business’ social media pages. You can build hype by leaning in to “limited time only” messaging and by using built-in social media tools, such as the countdown timer feature on Instagram stories.
Instagram has other features that can really drive traffic to your ecommerce website. For example, Instagram’s shoppable tags and swipe up feature on stories. You can also reward your most engaged followers with exclusive offers which drives consumer loyalty.
Don’t be afraid of theming your website for the holiday season. It will draw in the customers looking or the products you’re selling and can remind customers of the holiday, again boosting sales.
You can add a dedicated section to your website for Valentine’s related commercial materials that you have on offer and feature this on your homepage to encourage spending.
We all know how disappointing it can be when gifts don’t arrive on time. If you are able to guarantee that your items will arrive before the big day, that’s a great incentive to get more orders. Mention this guarantee in any Valentine’s Day email marketing campaigns, and social media posts, as well as on your website.
Unwrapping a gift is all a part of the mystery and experience of Valentine’s Day.
If offering a gift wrap option is something you’re able to do, we recommend including it; it is not only a nice gesture, but also one that may make shoppers more inclined to buy their gifts from you. People will appreciate that you’re saving them time and money. We all know what a hassle gift wrapping can be.
Teaming up with a local influencer with a proven high engagement rate can help driving traffic to your website or storefront. Make sure you partner with an influencer that fits the vibe of your business and genuinely cares about your products to ensure maximum success.
Influencers with large followings can come with a hefty price tag but if it is something feasible for your business it can definitely increase traffic to your website and drive sales, especially around busy holidays where people are looking for inspiration on what to buy.
It’s great to be able to forecast what you expect for your Valentine’s Day sales, but it’s also important to know when these sales will happen. You need to gain a good sense of what your busiest days and times are in store, and online also. This will help you live up to customer expectations, you need to be prepared for when those customers are ready to purchase.
Once you know your busiest times in store, you should ensure you have plenty of additional staff scheduled to work those shifts. For your boosted online purchases, you need to ensure you have enough shipping supplies and employees on hand to help fulfil and influx of Valentine’s Day orders.
Your employees are your number one resource in running a smarter and more lucrative business. In order to maximize sales, you should make sure your best employees are on your sales floor or behind the counter during your peak hours. You want to minimise mistakes and create a happy, positive experience for your customers.
We all know what it’s like to leave buying a gift last-minute – it’s stressful.
Entice those procrastinator shoppers by adding a last-minute flash sale on your Valentine’s Day products. It’s a great way to ensure you move as much stock as you can and boost your Valentine’s profits.
You could send out a last-minute email to general more online orders, change your website banner to highlight the sale, or add signage to your storefront to let passers-by know about your last-minute deals.
Remember, a lot of preparing for a holiday like Valentine’s Day comes from trial and error. You will learn with time what works for your business to generate more sales.
There might not be a scientific proven equation for maximising your Valentine’s Day sales, but hopefully these tips will help you better prepare for a spike in consumer spending both online and offline.
Let us know if you found these tips useful in the comments down below.
From The Team @ Cloud9 x
