As the festive season draws to an end, with a shift in purchasing and lagging feet in stores, the week between Christmas and New Years can prove to be the defining factor for your store’s profitability.

Follow a few tips below to drive your sales right through to the end of the festive season.

Put it on sale:

The demand for more inventory to be kept in store over the festive season may leave retailers with excess stock that may require a little more encouragement to be purchased.

Have your festive season clearance sales ready from the 26th of December - don’t put it off until January. Move all excess festive season stock as quickly as possible. You may want to stagger your clearance sales, so as to make it as profitable as possible. Achieve this by starting clearance discounts from 30% for the first week after Christmas, then mark down left-over items by 60%.

For increased sales, you may want to start displaying NEW merchandise to further entice customers to purchase and redeem their gift cards, giving you the boost in sales to carry you to the New Year.

Merchandise:

Christmas is over. Time to refresh your store. Ensure to turn around all your displays, as customers want to see new merchandise in stock. Have clear and neatly packed clearance displays that are eye catching and attention grabbing. Strategically place clearance merchandise in close proximity to new stock that you may want to highlight is now available for sale. New stock may entice further purchases when customers are considering buying sale items. Many of your customers may be returning customers that have purchased over the festive season and may be looking to purchase something new that was not available before, especially if they have a gift card to redeem.

Promote your clearance sale:

Most customers already know that once Christmas is over most retail stores will run clearance sales. Therefore, there is no need for costly marketing and advertising. As you draw closer to the end of the festive season shopping rush, have your employees at checkout remind your customers that there will be upcoming sales the day after Christmas. Use your social media platforms to promote posts geared around your sales, make use of catchy phrases and strong merchandise imagery. Further entice customers with posts of new stock that will be available in store after Christmas.

Returns:

Returns are inevitable over the festive season. Ensure that you have sufficient staff to assist with returns. Should a customer have a receipt make, the return process as fast and painless as possible. Once you have issued a return ensure you get the product retagged and back on the floor, so that it can be sold as soon as possible. Where possible, opt to convert returns to exchanges. Let customers know of your current sales promotions and encourage them to either select from sales items (where they could get more) or upsell them a new item bringing in a little more profit.