Sarah (from the Boutique Hub) speaks directly to small retailers about avoiding the pre-holiday sales lull in October and early November. She gives three practical strategies: (1) clear out unsold/dead inventory now via discounts/promotions to free cash and shelf space for high-demand items later; (2) reach out to existing customers—remind them of rewards, credits, or boutique boxes and incentivize use before major sale events; (3) launch new products or collections early (October) to capture full-price sales and create FOMO instead of waiting until discount-heavy holidays. The overall goal is to maintain cash flow, keep customers engaged, and prevent lost sales during the fourth-quarter buildup.
Chapters
Hey guys. Sarah, back with the Boutique hub. Talking to you about fourth quarter and what to do in that downtime. As we prepare for all the big retail holidays that we know about, like Pink Friday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday. Yeah, it's a big thing, right? We all know that people wait and they hold back on their cash because they are anticipating big sales in your store the end of November. What does that mean? Yes, you might have a full week or two weeks of awesome sales right then, but does that mean you have three or four weeks of dull time leading up to it? If so, does it really make it worth it? So I've got a couple tips on what you can do as a retailer to keep your customers coming through the door in October and the first part of November. Here's my ideas number one. Number one, if you have any inventory that has not sold up till that point that you know is not the best fit, fit or feel or function for your customer and so far they've had eyeballs on it, that's not really taking. Right. They have not taken action to buy those products. Maybe it's time to go ahead and clear out that inventory, have a sale at that time, get a discount going or some sort of promotion to excite them and entice them to open up their wallets and realize that this stuff is going to be gone. Make it exciting, price it to move early. That way maybe you've cleared out some of that debt inventory and made up some cash or freed up some cash in your business that you can turn back around and reinvest in the good, good stuff, the stuff the customers really want come fourth quarter, the end of fourth quarter when they are buying. You want that high demand product in your store at that time to keep your loyal customers loyal. If you don't have it and you're still sitting on dead product that nobody wanted in October, odds are they don't really want it come November, December. And when they want to buy gifts, they want to make sure they're right. So they're probably not going to buy that stuff then either. They're going to go to somewhere else. So you might as well take advantage the time in October, first part of November to get rid of that stuff. When you can get any sort of cash out of it, you can. So you can reinvest in the good stuff. Tip number two is I feel like November is all about giving thanks. It's a great time for you to tell your customers how much you appreciate them. Do a little Give back. But why not in October and November? Reach out to them and let them know if they have rewards with you, if they have credits with you, if they have any sort of boutique box that they have not used yet in your store, remind them of that and set a date to use those leading up to Pink Friday. Try to incentivize them to spend their money now with you. My last thing is all about building excitement. That fear of missing out limited time only. If you are thinking about launching a new product, do it early. Do it in October to get excited, eyes on your store and get traffic through the door. If you're going to be launching some new collection, do it early. Don't wait. Don't wait. Because come Pink Friday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and all the rest, people are anticipating reduced prices. That's not a good time to launch a new product line. Get the excited eyeballs on your product and get full price for it by launching it early. Create that FOMO fear of missing out. It's going to be gone. They better get it now. It won't last forever. So if you don't prepare for these times, they will be dead in your store and your bottom line, your cash flow is really going to struggle. So ultimately what you have to do is build that excitement and build it early. Keep your customers excited about coming to your site and coming in through your door and interested in spending money at that time. Give them a reason why they need to. So those are three tips. Hopefully that helps. Hopefully that helps reduce that lull. The Black Friday blues, I like to say. So then come Pink Friday, Black Friday, you can go all in on your promotions and those bigger events at that time and you can attract those customers that are looking for the sale. But you don't want to eliminate your sales leading up to it. Give them a reason not to wait. All right guys, happy fourth quarter.
