Fashion Retail Ecommerce

Merchandising Tips To Win-at the Holiday Season

Once again, it’s time to bust out the tinsel and deck the halls for your November-December holiday sales season.

For retailers, this truly is, in the words of that holiday song, the most wonderful time of the year and can account for upwards of 20% - 30% of annual receipts. If you’re counting on a black Christmas, you need to be well prepared and fully optimized to come out a winner at the holiday season.

As you plan your holiday season, here are some essential merchandising tips and cadences that most of you could really leverage for making the most of your holiday season. 

1. In October, she shops first for herself. Get the season rolling by encouraging self-purchases starting in mid to late October. Be the fashion source she’ll rely by advising her with authority what’s hot and trending for the season. Pull together all your merchandising, creative and marketing strengths to build the momentum into the peak of the holiday season.  
2. In November, she’ll combine shopping for herself with early gift buying. Get her in the mood with your most dazzling holiday looks. Surprise her. Inspire her. She is always more likely to buy for herself first. Her earliest gift purchases are likely to be the most important gifts for the most important persons in her life. Be sure you propose her to best-of-brand gifts that shows you know her, you understand her and that you are relevant. This will ultimately maximize your average unit price and margin. 
3. In December, the main event. By now, she’ll be shopping for gifts in earnest. But she must also meet a budget. Offer her can’t-go-wrong gifts by price point. Also propose gifts of your key product categories such as the sweaters gifts.  Make gift buying with your brand as easy as possible.
4. Gift cards when it’s down to the wire. As the holiday looms closer and you your shipping cut-off date nears, encourage gift cards and e-gift cards as the perfect gifts. Remind customers that they can still choose e-gift cards until the last day of the holiday. Let her know she can personalize her gift card by strongly promoting the ability to send a greeting card with a gift card or message with an e-gift card - this is a key selling point.
5. After your shipping cut-off, direct her footsteps to your store. Besides choosing gift cards, late shoppers can still find great gifts at your brick-and-mortar locations. In all your customer communications - your Web site, emails, tweets and social media presence -give prominence to your store hours. This is a clear omni-channel winner. Best of all, customers are likely to spend more during in-person shopping visits.
6. The season doesn’t end when the holidays are over. Post-holiday, invite customers back to spend their gift cards or make exchanges. Hint about that cute little item she was disappointed not to find under the tree - and remind her that it won’t be long before the hottest styles are gone.
7. Let them know you care. On Christmas or just prior, make sure you thank your customers for a year of patronage and wish them a happy holiday. It’s a little thing, but it means a lot. Customers like knowing that you’re not “all business.” Also, it doesn’t hurt to give a shout-out to Hanukkah (December 8-16) on your Web site or in your emails - everybody likes it when you make them feel included.

If you need yet more suggestions, check out these tips on winning the holiday season from seasons past:

• Use your gift guide to boost holiday conversions - here's how.
• 10 last-minute tips to win-at holiday.
• How fashion retailers are reinventing holiday offers and promotions.

I hope this is helpful. And here’s wishing all of you a happy and successful holiday season! 

Now it’s your turn - how do you win-at the holiday season? How do you make holiday shopping fun, inspiring and easy. Please share with us. 

 

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10 Last Minute Tips To Win-at Holiday

This year appears to be much the same as last year - the economy is tight and so are the consumer's purse strings. 82 percent of those surveyed by America's Research Group planned to spend less or the same as last year. Therefore, the merchant who fully prepares and optimizes to successfully compete at the holiday season is also more likely to wrap up a successful financial year. 

Ideally, holiday planning should begin in the first quarter - at the very latest, by the second quarter - as this will provide merchants adequate time to plan and implement seasonal merchandising assortments. For merchants who have not started the process yet, it's not too late. Here are the 10 last minutes tips to help you win-at holiday:

• Holiday launch date. Determine the kick-off date for your online holiday season. Most customers begin their holiday shopping starting in October and continuing all the way up to the holiday.
• Site freeze. Prioritize and get the crucial projects going in time for the holiday season. Try to avoid launching major projects around the holiday peak season. 
• Holiday self-purchase merchandise versus holiday gifting merchandise. Product launch cadence is key. Prioritize between "for me" and gifting merchandising as customers tend to buy "for me" first and then for others.  
• Gift cards and e-gift cards. These are particularly effective in capturing demand from customers who shop too late for shipping to guarantee holiday delivery. Promote gift cards throughout the holiday season and emphasize e-gift cards once it is too late to guarantee holiday delivery. 
• Hang up some holly. As in a brick-and-mortar store, online customers expect a store look-and-feel that conveys the holiday experience.  
• Gifting center. Provide customers with an easily located, convenient, and compelling gift center complete with gifting ideas, gift wrap, gift cards and more.
• Holiday services. Provide an easy access to holiday services, especially information on holiday shipping and last-day-to-ship to assist customers in planning their shopping.
• Post-December 25th. Kick-off the liquidation strategy, promote gift card redemption and begin to introduce resort or spring preview.
• Sales and specials. This season, more than ever customers are looking to get more and pay less. Incorporate sales and specially priced merchandise into the holiday offering.
• Social cause events. Tie the holiday season to social cause events that resonate with your customers. Spread the words on your social cause events on Facebook and other social media sites.

If you win-at holiday, you are more likely to win-at the entire financial year. That is how important the holiday season is. So, what do you do to win-at holiday? Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

 

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Use Your Gift Guide To Boost Holiday Conversions - Here's How

According to National Retail Federation, holiday sales are expected to improve slightly this year. U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $688 on holiday-related shopping, compared to about $681 last year. And in Canada, according to a survey conducted by Deloitte, 52% of Canadians said they will spend the same amount as in 2009, 44% planning to spend less and only 4% planning to spend more. With these tough market prospects in front of us, every retailer will have to work as hard as they possibly can to have a successful holiday season.

Even though Black Friday is the official kick-off to the holiday shopping season, for many retailers the holiday shopping season is already in full swing. Once again citing to the National Retail Federation, about 34% of consumers will start shopping in November. And my personal visits to some 50 top retail apparel, footwear and accessories sites in both the U.S. and Canada confirm that all the holiday bells and whistles are up and running on almost every retail site.

We can also expect this year's holiday online shoppers to be more demanding than ever. Not only do they want it fast, easy and secure — they also want on-time delivery and the biggest bang for their bucks. Holiday gift guides are created to meet these expectations. All the most exciting offers, most wanted gifts and the must-know holiday services and information should be easy to find and all in one place. A great guide is built to quickly serve and convert a holiday shopper. 

The multi-channel retailers with a strong catalogue background seem consistently to do it better. So what makes for a winning holiday gift guide? Here are the key features that make a gift guide compelling:

• Free shipping offer. On-trend with customer expectation for free shipping this holiday season.
• Holiday services. Clearly call out the holiday delivery schedule, gift-wrap and wish list services to ensure hassle-free and risk-free shopping.
• Gifts for everyone. Creatively developed gifts for everyone on the shopper's gift list, including home and pets.
• Gift for every budget.  No matter what your budget — under $10 or $25 for the thrifty or $1 million for a fantasy gift.
• Win with the key items. These are the holiday gift choices you'll never get wrong: sweaters, pajamas, slippers, scarves and stocking stuffers.
• Free, free, free! Give customers the biggest bang for their bucks with compelling free gift-with-purchase (GWP), purchase-with-purchase (PWP) or even gift cards to drive repeat visit for post-holiday sales.
• Make me feel special. Creative pricing with 2-for or 3-for to drive volume sales.
• Get social. Get the community to do the selling. Merchandise top-rated gifts voted by the community.
• Personalized gifts. There's nothing more special than a personalized gift — you know it was created just for you. Leverage existing products such as tote bags and stocking stuffers to create memorable personalized products. 
• Gift cards. Remember, this is the one perfect gift for everyone. Promote gift cards everywhere.

Feel like your holiday gift guide is not up to these retailers? You may still have time to fine-tune it and up your game. If you're already locked into your holiday strategy for this year, at least do some looking ahead and prepare to come back even stronger next holiday season. Which other gift guide features do you find compelling? Let’s us hear from you in our comments.

 

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Gift Card - Are Fashion Retailers Missing The Boat?

According to data from Jevelin Strategy & Research, cited by Internet Retailer, online gift card sales in the U.S. will grow at a compound annual rate of 29% over the next several years, hitting $5.86 billion in 2014. The online gift card is expected to be the sweet spot in the overall gift card market. Key reasons for this projected growth are an expected retail sales increase, a growing online penetration rate and a new, more consumer-friendly federal law setting a minimum 5-year expiration date and putting limits on dormancy fees.

In the last few years, smart online retailers have already positioned themselves to take advantage of this market trend by offering electronic gift card. Following on the explosive growth of social media, smart online retailers are also offering gift cards through social media networks such as Facebook. And, most recently, Amazon.com announced a brand new method of allowing customers to send Amazon.com Gift Cards to their friends on Facebook. This has certainly made gift-giving much more compelling and social.

However, a close examination of the major fashion, apparel and footwear retailers in both the U.S. and Canada reveals fashion retailers falling behind the curve compared with their non-fashion retail counterparts. Roots, for example, does not currently offer gift cards online, whereas American Eagle — one of the most advanced fashion retailers — offers both traditional and electronic gift cards as well as mobile gift cards.

In general, the findings show that retailers can be divided into 6 groups:

• Not available. Retailers in this category either do not offer gift cards online or simply do not offer gift cards at all. If they do, customers are typically directed to purchase at a brick-and-mortar store. Roots is one the retailers who does not offer gift card online. The other retailers in this category tend to be smaller retailers.   

• Traditional gift cards. Retailers in this category offer only traditional gift cards that can be mailed to the customer or recipient directly and are often not redeemable online. Coach is another retailer offering only traditional gift cards. The findings show numerous Canadian retailers — Aldo and Pennington’s among them —offering only traditional gift cards .  

• E-gift cards. By far, the majority of retailers offer both traditional and electronic gift cards. The electronic gift card is a great product for customers who need instant gratification, as it can be emailed instantly to the recipient in any amount and personalized with a message or even a design, making the electronic gift card a great product for special occasions, the holiday season and last-minute gifting.  

• Mobile gift cards.  According to some estimates, about two-thirds of the world’s population has mobile phones. That's around 4 billion people.  Smart retailers like American Eagle are among the very few fashion retailers to offer mobile gift cards. 

• Gift cards on social media sites. With a savvy understanding of the social media trends, retailers such as Sears and Starbucks have been offering gift cards to their Facebook fans. This is an untapped opportunity for many fashion retailers.  

• Social gift cards. With its recent announcement, Amazon has shaken the retail world once again by offering a brand new product — a gift card that can be sent directly to one’s Facebook friends. With this offering, Amazon has clearly demonstrated an understanding of the very essence of social media. 

The future of shopping is not just about having a brick-and-mortar store, Web site, mobile commerce or Facebook page — it is about adapting to where, when and how consumers choose to engage with your brand and coming up with products and solutions that work across channels and across platforms. There is certainly an untapped market for online fashion, footwear and accessories retailers in the gift card business.

So, question for discussion — what do you think is holding back our industry compared to their non-fashion retail counterparts? Jump in and share your thoughts in the comments.

 

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