How to prepare your shop for Christmas to get the most out of this revenue-boosting season.
The festive period is approaching… fast. Whether you’re a festive fairy or an unapologetic scrooge, it’s time to ready your shop for Christmas, the busiest shopping period of the year!
Don’t miss out this year. To get you started, we’ve prepared our 6 top tips for getting your store ready for Santa (and you don’t have to give away milk, cookies and carrots!).
How to prepare your shop for Christmas:
1. Get your Christmas hat on. Now.
As a business owner, you must be a person of many caps. Some days you’ll need your Manager’s cap on, others you’ll need to find your Finance cap. Starting now, leave them all in the wardrobe. You only need your Christmas hat for the next few weeks. It’s all you need to think about.
In fact, take your Christmas hat and wear it alone in a quiet room where you can plan out how you’d like the next couple weeks to look.
Why not get your employees to wear them too! It’s a bit of fun and gets everyone excited for Christmas!
2. Start singing about your deals.
Unless you really want to go door-to-door singing about your mince pies, we don’t mean this literally. We’re talking about getting posters, adverts and whatever else you can think of to shout about your festive products and their (presumably) incredible prices.
Don’t underestimate this stage – nobody is going to realise your efforts if you don’t tell them about it. Mince Pies for a £1?! Slap that on a poster!
3. Get your elves in order.
They may or may not appreciate being called elves, but your staff planning is critical at this time of year. Your shelves need to be kept full and people (completely hypnotised by the Christmas rush) need to be in and out in a jiffy. And you need to achieve this at a time where people love time off work to see family. We’re not even going to mention the days your team gets the sniffles and spends the day in bed…
Clearly you need to create some order. Getting ahead of this so each team member knows when they’ll be working will mean they’ll make plans around their work schedule… and maybe even show you some appreciation.
4. Check your naughty list.
You may be full of Christmas cheer but sadly not everybody is. Rather than being jolly, some believe ’tis the season to be stealin’ – which is a great shame for everyone else. Your best bet here is some very obvious security. If you’ve already installed CCTV in your store, firstly check it’s working. Then ensure it’s highly visible with some big signs pointing out the fact that it’s there.
A small deterrent goes a long way – thieves don’t want to spend Christmas with coal in their stockings!
5. Build a grotto.
As magical as your store is, it’s probably never going to look like Santa’s grotto. But don’t let that stop you from trying. Even transforming a small area with some simple decorations for festive products or discounted stock should be a hit with your customers.
This idea is great as you can scale it depending on your budget. Going big on Christmas? Fake snow and a wooden hut! Spending wisely? A small decorated tree and some tinsel will do!
6. Don’t forget the after party. (New Year)
Planning for the Christmas period can be exhausting… but it’s completely worth it. Just don’t forget that there’s a world beyond 25th December. In fact you should definitely be finalising your New Year’s Eve plans as part of this exercise. It’s the perfect opportunity to discount some of the excess stock you’ve ordered (half price wine anyone?) and start the New Year in high spirits.
It’s also likely that a few last-minuters will be dash in on New Year’s Eve itself. As well as stocking up for this, it’s worth ensuring (again) that your rota is clear and your staff know what’s expected of them – maybe even offer an incentive for working the late shift!
Finishing touches…
Of course there’s plenty more that you could add to this list, but it provides a solid foundation for wishing your customers a merry Christmas and getting them rocking around the Christmas tree (sorry not sorry).
Bonus gift!
Don’t forget… Christmas shoppers love to budget using cash. If you’d like information on providing an ATM service to your store visitors, you can get in touch here – we’d love to hear from you!
We hope this filled you with joyful ideas and wish you a very merry Shop for Christmas!