This Week's Featured Newsletter Article:

"Getting Your Business Through The Holidays"

by Chris Malta

This is a special time of year in more ways than one!

Here we are again, folks. It's Crunch Time! Not only do you have to deal with your Holiday celebrations, your relatives, and all that gift shopping; you have to keep your Home-based Internet Business running as well! This is the time of year when your business will be at it's fastest pace. You'll be taking a larger number of orders, answering a higher volume of Customer Service Email, worrying whether your suppliers are going to run out of the products you're selling, and all the things that come with running a Retail business during the busiest buying season of the year.

If you're just starting out, don't worry...you'll know what I mean at about this time next year.
But, whether you're new or experienced in your Online Business, there are still more things you should be doing right now! Believe it or not, you also need to be preparing for NEXT YEAR. There are things that you should be doing right now to make sure your business carries through well into January of 2005. When the Holidays end and the New Year begins, things change quickly in the wholesale and retail worlds, and you need to be ready for that.

So, here are two brief lists for you. They have nothing to do with who's Naughty and who's Nice, but they'll help your business have a merrier Holiday Season, and a solid start in the New Year. :o)

List One: Getting your business through the Holidays

1. Holiday Season is also Backorder Season. Make a short list, from your current sales trends, of the items that are selling best for you right now. Also make a short list of those items you think will sell well in the next few weeks as Holiday Gifts. Then, check with your supplier(s), and ask them which items on those lists are most likely to go out of stock during the Season. If your supplier thinks they may run out of certain things, find out what their expected backorder periods (the time it will take for the supplier to get them back in stock) are, and note those periods on your Product lists. Be prepared to tell your customers that you have to backorder a product, and know how long it will take. You should try to check with your supplier about once a week during the Season, if that doesn't aggravate them too much. Remember, they are extremely busy too!

2. On your product lists, try to list alternate, similar products you can offer to your customers IF your supplier does run out of the product your customer wants. Often, you can save a Holiday sale by suggesting an available alternative. During the Holiday Season, customers usually do not want to wait for backorders, because most of what they are buying are gifts. They don't like to take a chance that the gift may not arrive in time.

3. On your best-sellers lists (which should be short, remember; only the BEST sellers), try to list places where you can buy the product yourself if you absolutely have to. I've done this in the past. Every once in a while, you'll run into a situation where your supplier can't deliver to your customer, but you don't find that out until it's too late for the customer to go elsewhere and find the gift in time. I've actually gone to retail stores (just a couple of times), purchased the product myself, and shipped it to my customer. No, I didn't make any profit, and probably lost a couple of bucks, but believe me, I gained a repeat customer for life. I made sure my customers knew what I had done for them, of course. :o) This is, of course, a rare situation, but it can happen to the first couple of customers you have when you're confronted with an unexpected backorder situation.

4. Write up another short list; this time, a list of the other Internet Sellers that you know are your most serious competition. You know who they are...you check your competitors' sites and auctions once in a while, just like we all do. :o) So, at this time of year, set yourself up a schedule and checklist for checking out your most serious competition every few days. At this time of year, they'll be playing with their pricing, and you'll want to know that if you want to stay competitive. You don't have to check every price on every item they sell. Just pick a few of those best sellers again, and spend half an hour every few days using those indicators to see if you need to make any temporary price adjustments of your own.

5. This is a perfect time to start writing a simple Holiday Greeting to your existing customers. Don't make it a sales pitch! Just wish them a Happy Holiday Season and thank them for their past business, while subtly reminding them who you are and what you sell. The "soft sell" approach goes a long way toward making them want to visit you again. Email that greeting to all your previous customers. If you like, you can make it a simple text email, or you can make it a fancy animated greeting using HTML. Just remember, whatever you do, give them a way to "opt out" (get off) of your mailing list. While these ARE existing customers of yours, that's important in order to comply with Spam laws.

List Two: Preparing to start the New Year right

1. For your wholesale suppliers, January is the month when new product lines roll out. Many times, manufacturers are putting out new and improved products, and the products you're selling now may be on the "old and unimproved" list. That means that your supplier will not be re-stocking them once they run out during the Holidays. A good indicator of whether any of your products will be discontinued, is what your supplier tells you about backorder periods (from the previous list). If they say they don't have a date when products will be restocked, there's a good chance that they won't be. Of course, most wholesale suppliers will simply come right out and tell you that, but listen carefully to what they tell you when you ask about backorder periods. For this reason, you should be asking your supplier(s) NOW for their new 2005 Product information and catalogs. Even while you're caught up in dealing with the Holiday selling frenzy, you need to be preparing to change your web site or auctions to begin selling NEW product models in January.

2. The products are not the only things that will change in January. You also want to be sure that you have your suppliers' new PRICE LISTS for 2005. Often, even the products that do not get discontinued and replaced DO go up in price. You don't want to get caught with your thumb in your ear in January, selling products to your customers at the OLD prices, and then find out that you owe your supplier(s) money for the NEW prices!

3. When you get ahold of your new product lists and pricing from the previous two list items, start preparing product images and start calculating your new pricing NOW. You should have your new web pages standing by, your new auction pages designed, and your new pricing all ready to go into effect right after you toast the New Year! (Or at least, as early on the morning of January 1st that you're able to get out of bed!)

4. Prepare ANOTHER Email to your existing customers. This one should go out at the end of the second week in January. Wish them a Happy New Year, and give them a short list of New Year specials that you want to offer them. Why at the end of the second week? Because that's about when your customers will start learning to deal with the Sticker Shock of the Holiday Season, and will start to come around to spending money again. They've just spent a lot of money on the Holidays, and anything you send them right at the beginning of January is going to fall on ears that have very little left in their wallets. January can be a slow ramp-up back into your normal sales pattern, so don't be discouraged if the month starts out slow.

5. This last item is a little more personal. Try to remember that while you're a business owner, and you have certain things you MUST do during this very busy season, you have family and friends too. However difficult it might be time-wise, be sure YOU enjoy the Holidays too. All the business success in the world is worthless if achieving it makes you and your family unhappy. :o)

Chris Malta

Founder/CEO

Worldwide Brands, Inc.

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