Blog

Preparing Your Shop For The Holiday Season

Christmas is one of the most significant shopping periods of the year, with Brits splashing out over £20 billion in 2022. While many people might be reigning in their spending, for retailers, going all out means you can attract those Christmas shoppers and make this season your biggest and best yet.

While you will likely have already procured your holiday stock and adjusted forecast and staffing levels to account for the rise in business, you shouldn’t overlook how you decorate your store for November/December. For many Christmas shoppers, it isn’t always about what they buy but the experience they have. Hat Display

Preparing Your Shop For The Holiday Season

Mariah Carey and Michael Buble are on defrost to grace the airwaves with their seasonal selection of hit tunes, meaning you need to be ready to play your shoppers some holiday cheer. Playing music in stores requires a license, and as such, you need to be confident you are a licensed broadcaster to ensure you are playing approved music or have the correct type of license for the tunes you want to play. Whether you play holiday channels on SiriusXM or want to play local radio stations, you need permission not to be fined.

Festive window displays aren’t something that can be replicated online and are a big draw to those who would otherwise shop online during the rest of the year. If you have window space, you need to maximise its potential by creating a stunning window display using your seasonal ware or themed decorations and displays that entice people. You might not need to do anything other than dressing up your window, especially if you only have a small store, but well-placed Christmas-themed signage and till-point decor can add to the decorations and give your shop that holiday feel.

Use your ceiling to host in-store decorations and avoid having too many floor displays that can make it harder to navigate the store, or keep your in-store displays confined to one area for maximum impact.

If you are bringing in new lines, especially for Christmas, or you have Christmas-themed decor items such as dinnerware, you need to get appropriate stands to display your goods to highlight them. Making your Christmas stock the highlight of the store by placing it on displays will add to the ambience and help you draw attention to your inventory.

People love nothing more than shopping specifically assigned Christmas gifts. Signage to direct people to the right parts of the store or to create a gifting section can help people see what you have and shop more thoughtfully. It might mean rearranging your store slightly, but by using signage, you help people find what they are looking for and make it an altogether easier experience.

Nothing brings people through the door faster than a sale, and hosting offers and discounts for Christmas shoppers is a surefire way to get customers in and those tills ringing. The exact deal can be up to you, but offering 10% off gift sets, three-for-two offers (something Boots does really well), or loyalty point bonuses for certain purchases make your stock more enticing to buyers by offering great deals to entice them to buy.

Preparing your store for the holiday season is something that should be carefully considered to get the right impact. From decorations to seasonal stock, discounts and Christmas tunes, all of these aspects can really help you capture what this time of year is all about.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to our bi-weekly Stakeholders Newsletter to be the first to hear about our projects and events, or subscribe to our monthly Education newsletter to get the latest news, events, hints and tips from the world of Media and Political Literacy!

Preparing Your Shop For The Holiday Season

Counters For Sale © 2023 Shout Out UK. All rights reserved