Holding an Annual Sales Event

2008-06-09 12:04:52

( Insurance )



Why Hold an Annual Sale?

There comes a point in your merchandising days when you need to hold an annual or semi annual sale. There are a number of reasons for conducting these events.

First, you want to free up your store space of old or unsaleable merchandise. Instead of displaying less wanted items, it would be better to replace them with fresh new merchandise. Changing your merchandise regularly will assure continuous inflow of customers into your store. By having a sale on old or outmoded merchandise, you can recover at least a part of your costs and use the income more productively.

Second, your SALE sign will entice even the most uninterested passerby to casually walk into your store. Before they know it, they become engrossed with your store's products, regardless of whether these are sale items or not. Your sale event can transform indifferent customers into the most loyal ones.

Third, you maintain goodwill with your existing customers by holding annual sales. You are imparting a message that you understand their needs and therefore would like to offer some of your merchandise at more affordable prices.

Proper Organization of the Sale

The key to a successful and smooth annual sales event is proper organization. You need to sort out all your items and identify which ones will be the sale items.

You need to make sure that the sale items are properly tagged with the right price or discount rates. Make sure that the tags are firmly in place, as some unscrupulous customers sometimes switch tags. You also have to update your bar code database to account for the markdowns in prices of your sale items.

Controlling the Annual Sale Event

Sale events can draw huge crowds, so you need to be well-equipped with the right number of sales staff.

Avoid placing any merchandise near the store doors, and make sure that you have a security guard monitoring all shoppers very carefully. Better yet, all your items should have security alert tags attached to them, so that these will sound off if there's any attempt at shoplifting.

Have your sales staff ready to attend to customers. You should have a proper queue system at the payment counter and several staff members stationed there. One sales clerk can scan and ring up the items on the cashier, another can handle the credit card processing, and a third one can bag the items.

You or a store manager should be on hand to handle any complaints or problems. Be proactive in such cases by putting yourself in the shopper's place. Handle every customer with empathy so that they will remember their experience at your store even if they walk away without any purchase. When your customers leave happy and satisfied, expect them to come back another day.


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