Retail Holiday Readiness: Stock Up + Scale Up

photo credits: eva

The first step in getting for the busy holiday season is to be well-stocked and ready to scale up (remember: online sales are forecasted to increase 12%!) Stocking up is a combination of ordering what you need, and making sure you know the ordering deadlines from your vendors. Scaling up is a matter of having everything else you need to handle increased orders.

Stock up

Of course to sell more during the holiday season, you’re going to have to have more. But having more items in stock isn’t just a matter of adding a few more of each item, you’ll also want special, gift-like items.  And because your indie designer don’t keep a big readymade stock, you’ll need to check with them to make sure you know when is the absolute last date you can order. So how do you manage it all?

For starters, make sure you have clear and organized communication with your vendors. And then, make sure you check in with them now, before you come up against the Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) crunch. Get a firm date from each vendor of when you’ll have to have your order in. And then sit down with their catalog, and make that order!

If you’ve created an exclusive private-label product for the holidays, now’s the time to confirm that you will get it in time, and that the designer isn’t waiting on anything from you.*

*Of course, Vianza makes it easy to manage this entire process by keeping your communication and all your catalogs in one place.

Scale up

Are you prepared to deal with 12% more orders? To scale up that much, that quickly, you need more of all your resources: time, money, supplies, packaging, everything. Before you get busy, check your stock of shipping materials (including wrapping paper if you’re going to offer gift wrapping), printer paper, and ink.

And how about having more time?

Even if you run your online shop all by your lonesome, the holidays might be a time that you need some additional help, even if it’s just with sticking shipping labels on the packages. To make sure you don’t overextend yourself or your budget, look into some part-time, seasonal help.

Once you’re all stocked up and ready to scale, the next step is to make it easy for your customers to find you. Tune in next week! 

• taraswiger's blog