Holiday Retail Wrap-Up: What Worked, What Didn’t, and How to Plan for 2025

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. Hey guys, it's Ashley here and I wanted to come to you. I'm recording this in the middle of, you know, that weird time between Christmas and New Year's and you don't really know what day it is. But I had these notes and I wanted to get them to you so you can save this episode as you plan your holiday season for next year. I want to talk about what worked the best after talking to literally hundreds and hundreds of retailers over the last couple of weeks and just analyzing what worked, what didn't, and what would they do different as they plan for 2025? So let's jump right into it. All right, so first things first, without a doubt the best tip that everybody had, anyone who said they had success this holiday season, they all had this in common. They said the earlier I planned, the better. And I mean that in two different ways. So one, of course, is just getting out your calendar in August and simply mapping out what are the days, I'm having events, what promotions am I thinking about running, what, what collections do I want to drop, what is my assortment plan need to look like, what worked last year and what didn't. Just setting your mind on the holiday season starting in August or even end of July was a game changer for people when it came to just feeling like they were prepared, they had a plan and then they could start their promotional cycle so much earlier as well. Now, the second way that people leaned into earlier, the better, and this is really true with what we heard from the national media and national retailers, big box retailers, they all said the same thing. People were shopping earlier this year than they ever have before. And I think that's been true for the last couple of years. I think the idea of like waiting in huge lines on Black Friday and like doing all the chaos, people are not so much down with that anymore. There was certainly more e commerce and online shopping than there was in store shopping nationally, but a lot earlier shopping as well, and the national retailers running earlier promotions. And so this really went hand in hand with a lot of the retailers telling me, you know what Pink Friday was my best sales day of the year. It was the biggest. It was the best. It was the best Pink Friday I've ever had. The more I went all in on Pink Friday, the better it set up the rest of the season. So definitely the earlier you can start hosting events, the better. And it's interesting, I had a couple of retailers who said, you know, even Small Business Saturday, I'm used to having a line around the block. But those shoppers, it was like they were already almost done with their shopping because they were coming out early, they were coming out for an open house, they were coming out for Pink Friday. They were. They were shopping online, Black Friday weekend versus being in store quite as much. So that was a big shift. So remember, the earlier the better in two different ways. The second big tip I heard from a lot of retailers was, and I tell you what, this is my soapbox. This has been my mantra when it comes to the holiday season for the last several years, and that's focusing on the margin versus the sale. So a lot of people will get so caught up in chasing sales numbers. How much did I sell last year? I have to beat that number this year. Sales don't matter if you don't have any money to show for it in the bank. So how can you focus on the margin and the money you're able to keep versus the gross sales number? So even if your sales numbers down, were you still more profitable is the question. And that was really positive feedback from a lot of retailers. Now, I had some retailers say, I was so specific in my planning, I really wanted to run some Bogos and get like, kind of that shock factor when it comes to some of the promotions I ran. So I saw people running a BOGO 50 to 70% off and having a ton of luck in that department as well. All right, fourth big tip that again, constant feedback across the board was on how can I better train my staff. So retailers who leaned into not just them knowing what the plan was for the holiday season, but how do the staff better understand the plan for the holiday season so early? Doing role play, understanding product education, understanding promotional cycle, understanding returns and upsells and bundles and additional offers, and just how to speak to customers as they come through the door, that was a huge benefit. Hey, are you on the list yet? I know you want to be on this list. You don't want to miss this list because we are deep diving into your business college style. Not 101 style, not 301 style. 501 style. And that is inside of our college level course for boutique owners called retail boot Camp. Now, many of you may have already taken retail bootcamp because the cool part about this course is not only do you get to watch it at your leisure, but then join us for 14 weeks of live group coaching twice a year. That's 28 weeks of live group coaching every single year. Once you're inside a retail bootcamp, you're always inside. So you get that same two semesters of group coaching every single year for as long as you want to join us. This year inside of retail bootcamp, I can't wait to go back to deep dive into the six layers of your business strategically, step by step. What do you need to grow before you're ready for the Facebook ads and digital traffic, which we definitely cover. First, we have to make sure, how's your pricing, how's your profit, how's your inventory, how's your team management? We're going into literally every single topic of your business throughout retail Bootcamp. So it only opens twice a year, January and June. Make sure you're on the wait list. I again, once you get in, you're in for life. Why didn't college allow us to do that? Right. Whatever happened to all that college debt we had? That was silly. I can make way better use of your time inside of retail Boot Camp. So I hope you're on the list. Get on the wait list right now so you're the first to know when we open the doors of our 2025 session. I can't wait to see you inside of retail bootcamp. All right, another tip, fifth tip that I heard from retailers. And this was an interesting one. There's kind of two different trains of thought. My dogs wanting to bark in the back. That's. That's the joy of being between Christmas and New Year's is like, kids are home, dogs are barking, all the things. All right, so this was an interesting one. So there's two trains of thought when it comes to, like, planning the products that you're really going to push and sell during the holiday season. Now, of course, there's the cycle of buying when you're pushing out new arrivals and new collections and like the in the moment holiday gear and merch. Right. But then there's also the retailers I spoke to that said, you know, yeah, I did that a little bit. But really what I wanted to focus on most was how much unsold inventory did I have from the rest of the year that I just needed to get rid of. So rather than go in and buy a bunch of stuff. They focused on the markdown cycle of what they needed to clear for the end of the year, and that became their promotion. So whether it was bundling, whether it was bow going in those categories, but they really focused on end of the sales cycle for the year and really clearing out old merch. So remember, you don't always have to buy specifically for the holiday season, and that be the only focus. Use this time to clear out what needs to go as well. All right, two last tips that I heard. The simpler the better. Those retailers who had really complex promotions, you know, maybe it was like a tiered hourly promotion or they had promotions across all kinds of categories in their store. The more complex, the more confusion and a confused mind doesn't buy. So the simpler, the better. The things they could make sense. Signage out of, the things that make great Facebook ad headlines, the things that their staff member could explain in two seconds when somebody walked in the door, even promotional cycles across multiple days. So let's say over the biggest weekend of the year, when it's Black Friday, Small business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Pink Friday, all those things. Rather than having all kinds of different promotions, it was more like there was the big pink Friday promotion and then there was the black Friday weekend promotion or small business Saturday weekend promotion. And they carry that one promotion. They started on Friday all the way through the weekend. And a lot of the big box retailers started the same thing. They opened it up on Thanksgiving Day, ran it all the way to giving Tuesday, and it was the same type of promotion. So the simpler the better, because a confused mind doesn't buy. All right, finally, last tip. And again, I heard this from hundreds of retailers who said, the more I collaborated, the more I collaborated, the better experience I had. So an example, you know, here I'm in Wisconsin, There's a great member of the boutique, part of our mastermind. She lives just north of me, so I'm so blessed to get to visit her store during this time of year. But she had just ongoing collaborations. So she had a vendor event that she was hosting with multiple, you know, makers and artisans and MLM type companies. I mean, she just, the more, the merrier, the more people she could bring together to her space, the better off it was for everybody involved. I saw a lot of online retailers doing the same thing where they were collaborating with others online, Whether it was doing live takeovers or doing live giveaways or just promoting one another, saying, hey, if you're getting this type of gift, go here. And if you need that type of gift, go there and just Small business owners supporting small business owners. So there you have it. Those are my quick retail wrap up tips for a very strong holiday season. It's what worked in 2024. Hopefully you guys took some notes inside of your planner and you've mapped out ideas for 2025 already. Remember, the early bird gets the worm. So just the little bit of planning that you can do now to get ahead, the better off you're going to be for holiday 2025. So wishing you a Happy holidays. I hope this was helpful and I will be seeing you soon. Can't wait to see you on the road in 2025. Whether it's at the Boutique Summit or seeing you in person at Market, or seeing you inside of Retail Bootcamp. It's going to be an incredible year for small business owners and I've got your back. I am with you every step of the way. Thanks again for listening to the podcast you guys. I appreciate each and every one of you and I will see you soon. 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 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.