Many small businesses see a spike in holiday sales, as customers indulge in gifting and merriment.
But as any seasoned business owner might tell you, the spike is often then accompanied by the dreaded post-holiday sales slump, as customers now tighten their belts and recover their seasons’ spendings.
Is there really no way out of the post-holiday sales dip? Maybe. Or maybe not.
If you want to overcome the post-holiday sales slump to keep your sales high after holidays like Christmas or New Year, you need to plan ahead. So in this guide, we’ll show you some of the best seven strategies that any small business can do to avoid the post-holiday sales slump for good.
Deal with the Post-Holiday Sales Slump: 7 Steps
1. Don’t stop those sales
The holidays are often ripe with coupons, discounts, and deals left and right, and it makes for one of the biggest reasons customers love to shop during the holidays.
If you want to avoid that dreaded post-holiday sales dip, then the weeks after the holidays is the time to keep up those sales and promotions.
You can angle these ongoing sales after the holidays however you like—call it a clearance sale, a New Year deal, anything at all to get customers in a post-holiday shopping mood.
Be sure to add some urgency to these campaigns too. You can do this through limited edition products, deadlines for using coupon codes, or exclusive gifts they can only get when they purchase before a certain date.
The easiest way to implement sales in your business is through coupon codes that customers use to redeem cool discounts or gifts.
With an easy ecommerce platform like Cococart, customers are able to use coupons on their orders, and you as the shop owner can set conditions and limits, like minimum spend requirements before their discount is applied to their order.
Get Started:
Promo or No Promo? How to Increase Your Sales with Coupon Codes for Customers
2. Tap into customers’ “New Year, New Me” goals
The post-holiday sales slump typically plagues small businesses in January, as customers recover their savings from all the holiday spending. But what also accompanies the post-holidays is that “New Year, New Me” feeling.
People are setting new goals and resolutions. They’re committing to new hobbies or projects. So it’s the perfect time to switch up your marketing messages to tap into those New Year goals.
For example, if your shop sells hobby items like crochet materials, you might tweak your marketing strategy to help new crocheters get started using one of your beginner kits.
Are customers trying to lose some weight this year? Perhaps they’d like to support that goal with plant-based proteins from your small business.
Try to get into the minds of your customers, understand what they’re looking to do in this New Year, and then make sure your marketing messages reflect their goals too.
3. Do some retargeting campaigns
Customers do a lot of window shopping during the holidays. And if you had customers eyeing your shop over the holidays, it might be the perfect time to hit them with a retargeting campaign.
There are a couple ways you can go about this. If you’re using email marketing, then a retargeting email campaign will often do the trick to remind customers about what they were checking out on your shop.
If that’s too complex for your small business, then we recommend Facebook Pixel. It’s much easier to learn and set up for your online shop, and it integrates with several ecommerce platforms, including Cococart. Plus, you’re able to create ads where most customers already are: Facebook.
Set up retargeting ads to avoid the post-holiday sales slump—with Cococart, you can add your Facebook Pixel in as little as two clicks.
Sometimes, all a customer needs is to be reminded of the cool stuff they were checking out in your shop. And if they were caught up during the holidays shopping for other things, then doing a retargeting campaign afterwards might just help you avoid the post-holiday sales slump.
You might like: 10 Must-Know Cococart Features That’ll Level Up Your Small Business
4. Unveil a new or limited edition product
We hinted at this tip earlier in the beginning of the post, but one of the best ways you can avoid the post-holiday sales slump is to create some limited edition products.
When customers know that a certain product or collection is going away, they’ll be more likely to purchase before the chance never returns. This makes this strategy the best if you want to overcome that dreaded post-holiday sales dip.
Plan out your next limited edition launches carefully, and time them to take place just after the holidays to keep sales high. Bonus tip: combine this with tip #2 about tapping into those New Year goals, and you’ll see those post-holiday sales start coming in.
Related:
How This Baker Grew Her Home Business into a Team of 10 and Two Physical Shops During the Pandemic
5. Keep your social media game going
Right around the end of the holidays, people are starting to go back to regular programming. It’s back to work or school, and we settle into old, and perhaps even new, routines.
And when people go back to their pre-holiday routines, you can bet they’ll be checking their social media just like they used to.
This makes it a must to keep up your social media posts. Besides, the new year just might be the year you really take your social media to the next level.
Keep your ear to the ground, don’t be afraid to experiment with new posts and formats, and commit to growing your business using popular platforms like Instagram.
Keep learning:
The Ultimate Guide to Grow Your Home Business using Instagram
6. Offer bulk discounts
Another way you might be able to avoid the post-holiday sales slump is by offering discounts if customers buy in bulk.
You can angle this as a holiday clearance sale, or simply give loyal customers a new way to enjoy more of your products for less.
With a platform like Cococart, it’s easy to set up bulk discounts for customers who want to purchase multiples of a product on your ecommerce store. You can decide between offering discounts as percentage or in specific amounts in your local currency.
If you want customers to save more when they buy more, opt for volume discounts that let you set discount tiers for specific minimum order quantities.
7. Focus on getting more revenue per customer
To avoid post-holiday sales slumps in the future, here’s a key concept and strategy any small business should know: instead of only trying to get new customers to come in, focus on your existing customers and getting them to order more from your shop each time.
This is the concept of increasing average order value—and is one of the keys to making more sales even when you have fewer customers.
Here’s a guide that shows you some easy strategies to increase average order value and get the most from your current customer base.
Read more:
How will you avoid the post-holiday sales dip?
Many small businesses will struggle with the post-holiday sales slump, but you don’t have to. Keep these strategies and tips in mind as you plan out your next holiday—and now post-holiday!—sales and promotions.
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