Oct. 1-7
MARKETING Start planning your holiday email blasts now. Offer gift ideas and feature exclusive deals to make your clients feel special. Top five days and times to send emails: end of October, Thanksgiving evening, Black Friday mid-morning, Cyber Monday afternoon, one week before Christmas.
MARKETING If you normally wait until around Thanksgiving before holding holiday season events at your store, you may want to try going a little earlier this year. Not only do you avoid clashes with your customers’ work parties and family gatherings, but you get an early indicator of what will be popular for the holidays and still have a chance to place reorders.
Oct. 8-14
SEo It takes 30-45 days for website changes to register with major search engines, so if your store’s lagging on page 3 or 4 of Google, you’ve got work to do. Now is also the time to start adjusting site content for the holiday season. Put “Christmas” into your titles and keywords, and start putting that into people’s heads.
INVENTORY Get your bench busy making up last-minute stocking stuffers. Be it nature rock key chains or eyeglass chains with beads, people are always looking for something a little different.
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Oct. 15-21
STAFF Finalize work schedules for the next 12 weeks (include the first half of January). Check your staff’s obligations and work around any clashes. Identify the peak hours and ensure your best salespeople will be on the floor.
STAFF Temporary staff members should be trained and in place by the beginning of November.
SECURITY Check that all your security equipment is working properly and that security cameras are pointed in a useful direction (a common police complaint is that retailers’ cameras too often get only the top of a suspect’s head).
Oct. 22-28
SALES FLOOR Walk through your store as if it were the first time. What do you notice first? Are you being pulled in certain directions? How is the try-on experience in terms of lighting and mirrors? Fix anything that could hurt the in-store experience.
SALES It is not too early for holiday selling. Have your associates start calling customers with wish lists.
MERCHANDISING Spread out best sellers across the store to encourage browsing and impulse buying.
Oct. 29-Nov. 4
OPERATIONS Analyze your checkout procedure. Work on making checkout speeds as quick as possible.
MOTIVATION The next two months promise to be the toughest of the year. Get in the right mental state with a weekend binge on the Hallmark Channel. Their movies can help you remember the simple things, love above all. After all, that’s what the holiday season is about.
