Holiday Sales Part II
By Darren A. Gaitan
In the last article I talked about the do’s and don’ts of a holiday
sale. Now I will discuss ways to increase your sales and increase
your profit margin. Always approach a sale with the mentality that
if you give a little, you’ll get a whole lot in return. Don’t be
afraid to give extra discounts because the quantities of your sale
will offset the additional discounts you are offering. With that
said, let’s talk about how to make your holiday the best sale of the
year.
First, we should talk about the date(s) of your sale. I know a lot
of people like to have their sale the day after thanksgiving, but
this can be a double edged sword. If you decide to choose this date
you will be competing head on with every major retailer in the
country. A battle you can’t afford to fight. Plus, many of these
stores have a time limit on their sales so you put parents to a
decision; should I go to Macy’s for their three hour sale or should
I go to the karate sale which will always be there? They usually
choose Macy’s because they don’t think of you as a place they
typically shop at. They know you’re always going to be there so 99%
of the time they choose the other store. This will hurt your
business and you shouldn’t ask your parents to choose. Make it easy
and as convenient as possible for the parents.
Here’s what I suggest, plan to have your sale the second week of
December and make it a three day sale. It should be December 6th,
7th, and 8th to be exact. There are two major advantages to waiting
until these days to hold your sale. The first is that parents will
spend a lot of money when the shopping season starts so by the time
they come to the school they will have gone far past their budget.
If you wait until these three days another pay period (most parents
get paid on the 1st or 5th) will have come, and people spend more
money right after a pay period than any other time during the month.
Hence, they will spend more money at your sale. The second reason
for this type of scheduled sale is that people can usually make it
at least one of the days no matter what their schedule is like. When
it’s offered on only one day, most parents will run into scheduling
conflicts. This will lose you money. I’ll also tell you a bonus
about using this strategy, PARENTS ARE ALREADY AT YOUR SCHOOL TO
PICK UP THEIR KIDS FOR CLASSES. THEY WILL BE AT YOUR SALE WHETHER
THEY LIKE IT OR NOT. THEY WILL SPEND MONEY BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO
EXCUSE NOT TO. Could life get any better than that?
After scheduling your sale, you should be looking to stock your
pro-shop with items that are hot sellers. Call Century or your
supplier and have them send you their Christmas catalogs. Place them
every where around the school, even in the bathrooms and on the
benches. Make sure you have a wish list that kids can give to their
parents so the parents know what to buy. Tiger Claw has a pretty
good program if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on stock. I
believe you can order what you want and only pay for what you sell
and you send back everything you don’t sell. I think you still have
to pay for the shipping. This could be a good option if you don’t
have a big budget. Use Mr. Marketer to email out $10.00 coupons to
all of your students if they spend over a certain amount or design a
group of coupons that they can use for the month of December only. I
suggest coupons like an extra 10% OFF certain items, 2 for 1 on
others, FREE small item with the purchase of large item, etc… get
creative. You can also design a limited edition t-shirt that
customers will get if they spend over a certain amount. Make sure
you run the numbers and set the amount where it will be profitable.
One idea that I’m considering is giving away a big item like a TV or
$500.00 cash. This is how the incentive program will work. I’ll have
a prize wheel that parents will get to spin if they spend over
$150.00. Whatever number it lands on, that will be the number of
tickets they will get for the raffle. I’ll give away the prize at
the Christmas party and people can earn tickets up until 10 minutes
before the raffle. It might sound like a lot but it’s not very much
when your sale grosses over $10,000.00. Invest $500.00 and get
$10,000.00 back, it’s almost as good as entering a poker tournament.
My next point will deal with how to market this sale. If you’re a
ChampionsWay customer you already have everything you need. Send out
email campaigns about your sale and include featured items. Announce
that your sale will be a double discount sale meaning that everyone
in the school will enjoy a 30% discount on all merchandise. The
highest discount I offer is 15% so this is where I get the double
discount from. Your mark-up is always 100% so I suggest moving it up
to 110% to offset the profit margin. Make sure that people are
blasted with emails and that the campaigns are always changing.
Remember how I talked about making more money by spending less?
Here’s how you’re going to do it. Offer internet only specials
through your online store. Add another 5-10% off, the reason you
would want to do this is because it doesn’t cost you anything in man
power if people order online. It actually makes your job easier, and
cuts down on the time it takes to process the orders. The best part
is that your store will be open 24 hours a day. You’ll be sleeping
and making sales at the same time. People can still pick up the
orders at the school while you save money on paying employees. Put
packages together available only online and offer your customers
incentives to order online. If I had the choice I would make
everybody order online, it saves me time and money.
I would also us the SMS feature in Mr Marketer to send text coupons
to parent’s cell phones. Send one to all beg, int, and advance
students and change up the offer. You can offer today only specials,
2 hour sales, the possibilities are endless. You can use MM to send
out your coupons through the mail. If you want to get really fancy,
like me, you can use the voice broadcast to personally invite every
student to your sale. Using the store reports on customer purchase
history, you can send emails to groups of people who buy the same
types of items. In addition, send them customized emails that
include featured items that they are likely to buy. By now, you can
see how everything is coming together and why every little piece of
information is so important. It’s not big things that count; it’s
the little things that form the foundation of success that count!
Think of it like this, if you owned a retail store you would want as
many cashiers as possible working because it keeps the lines moving.
It would also keep customers from getting impatient and leaving your
store. The quicker you can make a sale the sooner you can move on to
the next one. For every minute you waste ringing up a customer,
you’re losing another sale. Use every avenue you have available to
you to make this sale as big as I know it can be.
Now that we have covered those details, let’s talk about items that
can really make a financial difference for you pro-shop. You should
design a t-shirt for your school that has every students name and
rank on the back. You list each rank and the students that fall into
that category. List everyone including the black belts and you on
the very top as the master instructor. These are best sellers and
the profit margin is huge. The best part is you can use a simple
design and change it ever year. You can also order sweatshirts
because it’s winter time. The shirts should not cost more than
$7.00(wholesale) a shirt and there will be a small fee for setting
up the screen. Look around on the internet to find the best price,
and if you’re having problems finding them let me know so I can
point you in the right direction. This will bring big profits for
your pro-shop and give your school great exposure. This will also be
one of the only shirts that parents will buy for family members who
are not part of your school.
A couple items that are worth considering are the items that have no
wholesale cost. You can sell a book of coupons for private lessons
from different instructors. They are good for a year and can be used
at anytime. You sell this item at a discount, and make a great
amount of money. I’ve done this in the past and parents use half the
lessons at most. Plus they make a great stocking stuffer. Offer
birthday parties at half price if they book it on the spot. This
also makes a great stocking stuffer. You can sell specials on your
upgrade programs, and coupons for intro specials that parents can
use for family members. You can make up a coupon book that can be
sold. It can include coupons like $10.00 OFF Testing, 2 for 1 for a
buddy night, A FREE Weapon with any upgrade program, FREE Gloves for
a new family member, ½ OFF a Birthday Party, FREE Private Lesson,
FREE Intro Package for a Friend, FREE Pizza Party. It can include
anything just make it enticing and creative.
One service I’m going to offer is gift wrapping. I’m going to have a
small fee to have the items gift wrapped by parent volunteers and
I’m going to donate the money to a charity that provides meals for
needy families during the holidays. I might also use the money to
buy toys for children that I will donate to Toys-4-Tots or donate
the toys to my friends’ restaurant that feeds the needy on Christmas
day. Parents will love getting the items wrapped, and you get to
help those in need. Everyone wins. Here’s an idea a little of topic
but definitely worth mentioning. For every student that upgrades in
the month of December, wrap up their uniform and have the parents
put it under the tree. I can’t tell you how powerful this is for the
students. Start doing this now.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, I could go on and on but if I
did that we be in June by the time I finished. If you need help in
any of these areas feel free to email me darren@championsway.com . If you’re not sure how to set-up something up inside of MAS I can
help you or point you to the right person at ChampionsWay. I would
also suggest watching a lot of the videos that CW has posted inside
of the help center in MY OFFICE. This is how I learned to do a lot
of things in MAS. Next week I will be go over ways to keep your
enrollments up during the Holiday season.
Darren A. Gaiten
Associate Consultant
ChampionsWay Inc.
877.774.5425
darren@championsway.com
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