#624: Maximizing Profitability and Peace During the Holiday Retail Season

Foreign. Business can be a lonely game. But it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat. You guys have been troopers. You've been here all season long, all year long, even through the ups and the downs of the great seasons and the J months. And now you're gearing up for the busiest time of year. And so here's what I wanna do. We are going on a short mid season break. We are gonna take a couple of weeks off from the podcast to give you some time to focus and get re energized in your business. Plan out what's to come, catch up on episodes you missed. We are going to be back with a fresh take on this season's episodes on September 17th. So remember the weeks of September 3rd and 10th. We are taking a little mid season break and we'll see you back here September 17th. So go back. Be sure to leave us a rating and review you guys. That helps us so much to know what you love about this show. It helps new people discover this show and I just love to hear from you and see your smiling faces. So please subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you listen, leave a rating, leave a review and if you ever have feedback or questions and you're like hey Ashley, please cover this topic. Send me a message on Instagram. It's ajalderson, my personal gram. I will personally answer your message or at the Boutique Hub on Instagram. Myself and Shannon Gordon on our team will also take your feedback and answer your messages. So that all to say, I want to hear from you. I want your input, I want your ideas. But I want you to feel caught up on all the episodes that you may have missed this season. And I'll see you back here on September 17th. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. This week it is you and I and we are about to map out your entire holiday business and marketing strategy. Let's make your life easier right by getting this done ahead of time and making a solid plan for this holiday season. So I want to break down three main ways that you are going to start planning and prepping and getting ultra prepared for the holiday season with minimal amounts of time and effort. So let's get into it. All right, number one, the biggest thing you can do to start planning ahead right now is really evaluating. Based on past history and current sales history, what are you going to sell? The holiday season is a little bit different than the rest of the year. And so as I think about the four main assortment plans in a boutique, whether you're selling apparel or you have gift, or you have a mix of some specialty items, typically things will fall into these four buckets. Number one is trend. What is kind of the latest shiny object. It's something that drives customers through the door. They get excited about what's next, what is the trend? Is what is the trend going to be for the holiday season in your business? So it's kind of like when you go to the grocery store, the charcuterie board section, right? It's trendy, it's fun, you're going to plan parties and you're going to have all the party treats. But trend is not the only thing you can sell to make money in your business. If you go to the grocery store, not only do you need charcuterie board stuff, but you need to have the bread, the butter, the eggs, the milk, the meat, the things that are going to feed your family on a daily basis. So the second category to think about is what is your bread and butter? What are you constantly selling? It brings you great margin. You know, it's a consistent sell through. Your customers are always looking for it. What is that now and what is that? Typically during the holiday season, the third category to think about in your assortment is what's your margin builders? What are the things that you consistently know you can sell high and buy low. So if you're somebody who goes to the off price show in Las Vegas, you're someone who's shopping vendor closeouts all year long and saying, oh, this is going to be perfect, it's going to be a loss leader, it's going to be a deal. What is it that you know you can get a great deal on? You can buy it really low and you can sell it high. So you can afford to use those items throughout the holiday season as some sort of loss leader or margin builder, Something that's a bundle option. Something that if you do bogo, you can take a slight discount on it and still make a significant margin. So again, what can I buy low and sell high? Those are my margin builders. Now the fourth category to think about is the most important during the holiday season and that's your add ons and your upsells. You might have a great strategy Year round to do shoes and accessories and beauty products and whatever the little add ons and upsells are around your cash wrap or things that you're layering and merchandising with with your online store. This is critical during the holiday season because this is gift giving season. Right? So what are the quick grab and go items that you're going to be stocking this holiday season that are going to be gifts for teachers, for your mom, for your best friend, for your sister? What are the low price stocking stuffer level gifts and what are the higher price gifts for someone of more significance? What are the things that you know you can market to men or to significant others during the holiday season to come shop for your VIP customers in the store. So what's going to be your add ons and your upsells that complement your current existing products? So that's the most important place to start when it comes to what will you sell? It's what's going to fall in that four part assortment. Planning strategy. The next two things to think about when it comes to what will you sell are number one, like I said, what's going to be your gift mix? So stocking stuffer bars are a huge trend right now. Just like the hat bar and the denim bar and the permanent jewelry and the charm bars. Stocking stuffer bars are huge for the fourth quarter. So what do I have for giftables? And then third, what's my collection plan? So as I think about the holiday season, I'm creating collections that I can launch. Not just new arrivals. New arrivals. Yeah, that's exciting, but nobody really cares. Help me solve my problems by giving me a collection. Okay. This is my where to church collection. This is my gifts for my little sister collection. This is my going back home for the holidays collection. This is my cozy night on the couch collection, whatever it might be. Where are your customers going? What are they going to be doing? What problems are they going to have during the fourth quarter and how can you help solve them? Right, so that's what your collection plan is going to be. So start by answering, what am I going to be selling during the fourth quarter? Now just a quick reminder before I transition to the next topic. I know some of you love to bring in holiday themed merchandise and that's great. But I really want to encourage you, before you bring in a bunch of Santa Claus sweaters, make sure you have a plan to sell them or you have a solid markdown plan with dates built in so you know, not on December 24th but probably at least a week or two weeks before that, you start a strong markdown strategy so you aren't left over with a bunch of Santa sweaters that you can't do anything with in January. Make those markdown plans now. All right. Second way we are going to plan and be ready for the holiday season is mapping out events. People want experiences and they want events more than they necessarily want things. They want a reason to come shop with your business. And when I talk about events, I don't just mean brick and mortar stores only. But if you're an online business, you have an opportunity to host events and pop ups and collaborations and some cool online experiences as well. So let's start right now by at least getting out a calendar and circling. When are those events going to be? A couple of events that you definitely should have in your arsenal. Number one, obviously, Pink Friday. If you aren't already participating in Pink Friday, it is a worldwide event with thousands of boutiques and small businesses of all types that are collaborating in community over competition and really telling the story of what it means to shop small first this holiday season. Now, the reason we created Pink Friday at the boutique hub is I love small business Saturday. It's a huge day for so many stores. The only thing I really have a beef with is I hate that it comes after Black Friday. It's like an afterthought. Most people have already gone out to the big box stores on Black Friday. They've spent a bunch of money and then the small businesses kind of get the leftovers. Well, so many people in the retail industry were hosting events and open houses and holiday previews before Black Friday even began. So at the hub, we began to talk and collaborate and think like, man, why can't we all collaborate with one another to encourage our customers to shop small first? So whether you do Pink Friday or Pink Friday weekend, I encourage you to get out, collaborate with other business owners again, online, brick and mortar, do pop ups. It doesn't matter. Just get collaborating and get your customers out to shop small first. And then the most important part is this. And that is I want you to tell your story. I want you to remind people on Pink Friday of who you are, why you started this business, what is your big dream, your big vision, your big give back? Like, why are you here and what's your journey been like? Like, tell me behind the scenes. I want to know you and I want to know about your business and why it matters that I shop with you. So that might mean collaborating with your local TV Station, women's magazine, regional magazine, local newspaper, radio, stat, Chamber of commerce. It doesn't matter. I just want you to find a way to get your story out. If you sign up for Pink Friday, which again, it's completely free and you don't have to be a member of the Hub to participate, it is for every single small business owner in the world to participate in. The link is in the show notes. You're going to get all kinds of promotion ideas, graphics and sample press releases that I highly encourage you to use to tell your story. So that's Pink Friday. A few other events I really want you to also think about are if you're a brick and mortar, you're certainly going to have a holiday preview or an open house. You'll probably still be come. What is the word I'm looking for? You'll still be hosting a small business Saturday event right after Black Friday. Many of you are doing Cyber Monday, many of you are doing Giving Tuesday, where there's some sort of give back element. It seems like a lot, like it's a lot of things there in a row. So be prepared with that buying plan. Another event that I think is really important, those of you who have online businesses, is the gift card season. So once we've passed the USPS holiday gift cutoff date, which they announce that every year, like today is the last day to order. If you want to receive your gifts by Christmas, once you've hit that date or a few days leading into that date, that's when you start a strong gift card sale. So significant gift card discount. So you're encouraging people to come in and spend that cash which guarantees you're going to get people back in in after the start of the new year. I also encourage you to think about who can you collaborate with this season and host online or in store or pop up events. Again, it doesn't have to be a business. Just like yours might be an apparel boutique and a children's boutique or a gift boutique in an apparel boutique or a salon and a boutique. Whatever it is, find other stores to collaborate with. This is, this is like customer acquisition season. So it's not even about just selling stuff, but it's about meeting as many people as possible because everyone literally is buying during the season. So get the collaborations going. And then finally, last idea Men's night. Men's night is also a big opportunity. It's gotta be kind of last minute. We in my small town in North Dakota used to call this Scrooge Night because it was kind of like, okay, the man finally remembered a week before Christmas that Christmas is coming and he should get some gifts. So that's your night. To make it easy, do bundles, encourage the men to come out, do a yeti cooler giveaway, make it fun, serve beer if you can, but get the guys into your store and help them look like heroes over the holiday season. So all essential events to think about Are you ready to participate in Pink Friday 2024? This is your official invitation. I hope you join us to shop small first and promote your store. Whether you're online or you have a beautiful brick and mortar that you want to really tell your story about. Why to shop small first this holiday season November 22, 2024 is the Friday before Black Friday. And annually, every single year on Pink Friday, we join together to promote this idea of shopping small first before Black Friday before the big box stores. You know I love Small Business Saturday and I just hate that it comes after Black Friday. It's an afterthought. That's why Pink Friday again is always the weekend before Black Friday. So join us. Sign up to promote your store to be on our Shop Small first map and receive all of the ideas, toolkits, stickers, window clings, graphics, anything you can use to set up an event in your community or to promote your online business on Pink Friday, November 22, 2024. Link is in the show notes. Be sure to sign up. It's completely free to promote your business on Pink Friday. All right, third strategy to plan and to get ahead during this holiday season is it's one thing to get your buying done, it's another thing to plan your events. But the third biggest monster is planning all of your content. You're overwhelmed. People are in the store. People are shopping online. You're busy. So let's get as much content planned ahead of time as we possibly can right now. And so here's two quick ways to really think about that. So first is what's your three part content planning series? And what that is for me is step one. I just start with my boutique boss planner or whatever my day planner is, and I turn to the month view and I start by just circling those big events that we just talked about. So it's your store's open house. It's your town's ladies night out. It's Pink Friday. It's Black Friday. It's Cyber Monday. It's all the events and big reasons to celebrate that you've got planned. You start by circling all of those in your calendar. The next step in the process is you're going to start by working a week back from each of those events and outlining what photo shoots do I need? What props do I need for those photo shoots? What new graphics need to be coming out for in store for my emails or for my online business during that time? When am I going to build my Facebook event? Because Facebook events are still so important and they work so well, they drive notifications. You can go live in a Facebook event, like still a powerful tool. So when am I building my Facebook event or my group's Facebook event? And then when do I have emails supporting this event? Do I have physical invitations that I'm mailing? Maybe it's a VIP ladies night out or it's a VIP customer open house, whatever that is. So what's the invitations that I need to mail out and then what other supporting materials do I need? Am I doing spin the wheel at checkout? Am I doing a stocking stuffer bar? And I need to make sure I have, you know, all the decorations to make this display happen? Am I doing a pick a discount off a Christmas tree? Am I doing a pop a balloon for a discount? Like, what are the extra props, accessories and needs I have to fully market this event? And then finally the third step is once I've got that mapped out, then I can just say, okay, week by week throughout the season, what's the collections and gift ideas that I'm really focusing on and pushing? And then what's my standard weekly content that I need to fill in here? So new collection drops, Facebook lives, Instagram Lives, TikTok Lives, any product photos, both of new merch, but aged merch as well. What do I need to restyle, reshoot, repost? During this time period, posting something once on a Tuesday morning does nothing. Every product we have, remember the rule of seven, right? If people need to buy something, they often have to see it seven times in order to make that buying decision. So if you look back at your social media and you're like, oh really? In the last week I only posted four products people can buy, then you are drastically behind. I've got to see more of your products. So what is my strategy to get those products new and aging out there and then wrap it up with quotes and memes and personal stories and again, going back to that collection that you're really going to be focused on focusing on. So map out what are the in between pieces. If you're using the Boutique Boss Planner, remember your content planner, which is like days that are blank and Then it has the channels listed out. You can map all of that out in your planner. I would do it pencil and paper so you can erase and move things around as you go. But get the layout done now so that when you come to work Sunday night, Monday morning, whatever your best planning day is, you quickly can just execute what the plan is. You're so busy during the fourth quarter you don't have time to make a new plan, right? Or to rework the plan or to not have a plan. You've got to get it done now. So make sure you are ready with that three step process. All right? Those are my three biggest planning ahead strategies for the holiday season. I have so much more we could talk about. You guys, I love this topic, but I wanted to leave you with this. In today's show notes I have a free download. It's another quick like Ashley's quick tips. It's 15 quick tips on maximizing the holiday season. It's free. I've got it linked up for you. I also have our Pink Friday free signup so you can get involved with Pink Friday and host an event or collaborate with other businesses. Get on our Pink Friday map at shop the best boutiques.com and finally, the last thing I have linked up today in the show notes is an invitation. If you're like, Ashley, maybe this is my first holiday season or I've been through a couple holiday seasons, but I feel like I could do better. And when I say do better, here's what I really mean. This is a big mistake. I see a lot of retailers make. I see a lot of retailers focus so much on did I beat last year's sales numbers or what was my overall like, how much did I sell during the holiday season? And the miss in that and the opportunity in that is it's not about what you sell, it's about what you keep. So if you had to discount the whole store in order to sell this much, but you were left with no profit at the end of the day and then you went to pay your credit quarterly for the first of the year and you had no money in your bank account to pay the irs, let alone pay yourself, and you're exhausted and you're overwhelmed and you're burnt out. It sucks. It sucks. And I've seen it happen to countless retailers. So my biggest wish for you during the holiday season, you guys, just to be flat out honest, as a mom of three, a business owner, someone who's hustling or hiney off just trying to, you know, get all the plans made and host the party and get to the kids school, school concert, all the things right. And run a business during that time. My wish for you is that we can come up with strategies to build more profitability in your business, even if you sell less and make more. I want to see that. But I also want to see you have peace, peace of mind. So you know you've got a plan and you can execute it. You've got some backup plans, plan A, plan B if that's what it takes. And you're doing it right now when maybe your season isn't as busy yet, but you're ready so that you can have peace throughout that holiday season and enjoy those moments. Because again, those of you with families, I just have to like preach this one more time. These are memories you're making and you can't get those back, you can't remake them. So I want to see you be present in all of those moments. So please, whether it's the tips from today's podcast, the free tip download I'm going to share with you in today's show notes, or I have an awesome program. It's the very first course I ever built at the Hub. It's been remade several times and it's been the most impactful. Literally thousands and thousands of retailers have taken it. It's 197 bucks, it's pretty cheap and it's called Holiday Marketing Masterclass. It is my favorite course that we offer that is like a quick bite size 6 module, like get in there, get it done, execute it and I have even multimillion dollar boutiques come back and tell me. Ashley, I go through this course again every year just to remind myself of holiday sales funnels, sales vs promotions, event ideas, Facebook ad ideas, content and strategy ideas, planning my team and executing my operations plans for the holiday season. All of that is included. So I'm going to link up the Holiday Marketing Masterclass in today's episode as well. If you need just an extra step by step boost to get you to that profitability and to that piece this holiday season. So I hope you took notes, I hope you got some nuggets. I'm glad you're here. Thank you. As always, thank you so much for listening to this podcast, you guys. I'm so blessed to get to share this space with you and for you to listen and, and hopefully it's something that helps you grow your business. But genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, I am wishing you profitability and peace and I thank you for being here. If you have any tips, feedback, questions, ideas, notes you want to share with me, my Instagram is AJ Alderson or you can reach me at the Boutique Hub on Instagram and and of course, right here. Leave a rating, review and be sure you're subscribed to the podcast. Guys, thanks for being here. See you next time. Thanks for listening guys. I hope you took away all kinds of nuggets and new ideas from this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a rating and review. We love to hear your feedback and give you a chance to be featured on the show each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition, and to access guest downloads and bonuses and all the resources we talked about on the show, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community. We'll see you next week.