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FEATURE ARTICLE

On your mark, get ready, SELL!

November is the start of the holiday shopping season and if you are a business owner you are most likely faced with worry over consumer budgets this year. Research shows that most parents are cutting their expenses to more than half on holiday gifts for their families and some are even taking on a second job just for the holidays. Here are some ideas on how to successfully make profits during this upcoming holiday season while having to deal with today’s tight budgeted consumers.

Reach out to current & new consumers 
Many businesses today have a monthly newsletter or email campaign to keep customers updated on sales promotions and giveaways. This is an inexpensive way to promote your sales. Sales are the best way to bring in customers this season just make sure to carry them out until the end of the season.  To bring in returning or new customers, give a greater discount for their next return or offer a discount if they bring a friend next time.

Free
A consumer’s favorite word is free. Make sure you use the word in your promotions online and in your store front displays. A great way to get costumers to buy more products is to have a buy-one-get-one-free endorsement or make the second item half off.  Some other ideas are free delivery or shipment, remember free is the important word here.

Team up with other businesses
If your business has an agreement or referral system with another business, come up with a holiday special to advertise. Plan out a proper advertising campaign so both businesses can help each other out and at the same time offer more than opposing competition.

Strengthen your web site
Due to today’s current prices on gas and tight budgeting, many consumers are planning to shop online.  Be sure to update your site for promotions and sales, and have the right tools necessary for the consumers to use.  An example of this is creating a shopping cart feature that stores items until the consumer is ready to checkout.

A wish list is another great tool to have on your site.  It allows consumers to search through your site and save an item on a specific list created for someone else to browse through and purchase or in the future they can come back to it and purchase the items they didn’t receive. This will also eliminate the time it takes to search for the items again. Invest in an online payment system, such as PayPal.  PayPal is a safe way to set up a merchant account so that your consumers can make purchases online.