Navigating the seasonal transition is a tricky situation. Learn how to come out on top.
As independent retailers, we are wrapping up the old season and planning for the new season. There are a lot of things to consider! These 5 things are MUST-DOs for a seamless transition.
You may delay, but time will not. -Benjamin Franklin
1) Evaluate Existing Merchandise
In the excitement of the new season, It’s easy to sweep last season’s leftover merchandise under the rug and ignore it. But we need to cash out on these goods for a successful seasonal transition. Each piece of existing merchandise needs attention: can we sell it, at its current price, before it becomes seasonally irrelevant? If the answer is “no”, let’s take action to make the answer “yes”.
2) Highlight NEW & FRESH
Customer traffic sees a bump during the transitional period. As our customers are excited to take advantage of savings opportunities, they are curious to discover and take delight in the newness that we’re featuring. Highlight it, talk about it, be excited about it! Our enthusiasm is infectious and selling full priced merchandise is a margin booster!
3) Clean
With cleaning products in hand, let’s reconfigure the sales floor and product displays. Let’s customize those modular fixtures to highlight the current assortment and current inventory levels. Add/remove shelves/pegs/entire fixtures to elevate our customer’s shopping experience with our products in our shop.
4) Sales & Receiving
A new fresh season with a new set of performance metrics to plan, track, and react to. Does our merchandise receiving schedule set us up for sales success? Are we improving? Or are we working harder for each dollar that makes it to the bottom line? Do we have a solid, consistent, dependable way to track our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)? Let’s develop our tools, establish our decision tree, and make the process a habit.
5) Believe in Yourself!
We can do it! The transitional period is overwhelming, but with careful planning and swift actions we can conquer this nerve racking period with grace and ease. Let’s make our decisions based on our experience, knowledge, and business metrics. Don’t delay! As Benjamin Franklin said, “You may delay, but time will not.” Here’s to progress, advancement, and to the fresh new season!
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