7 top tips for planning your Christmas sales strategy

With Christmas around the corner, we’re sure you’ve probably been thinking about your seasonal sales strategy. What’s going to be popular this year? Which of your products will be your best seller? Planning is always key with these busy sales periods. Thinking ahead allows you to stay on top of your game and not get overwhelmed when things get hectic. We’ve put together some top tips for planning your Christmas sales strategy – take a look!

1. Check out the competition

Of course this is something you may regularly (or should regularly) do anyway, and not just to look at what similar products are out there. Checking out the competition allows you to:

• See if your USP is still indeed a USP.
• Compare quality of competing products and customer reviews that may be useful for you to apply to your own.
• Conduct price comparisons.

Comparing prices is a really important one. With so much competition out there, sellers can easily undercut each other, but being the cheapest is not always the best option. Customers are careful with how they spend their money and may jump to conclusions that the cheapest product might not be the highest quality. You don’t want to price yourself out of the market, so consider how competitively you can price your products whilst still making a profit.

2. Look at previous year’s results

We spend so much time collating all this information each year, so why not use it to your advantage to plan your Christmas sales strategy? Check out which of your products was most popular last year. Did you create any offers or bundles that saw a spike in sales? Did you notice some products that got no traction at all and how can you improve on that? Analysing previous work can really help with planning your next form of attack.

If you sell on Amazon, you should also look at which categories were the most popular in previous years. In 2021, toys and games, electronics, and baby products were some of the top categories. Is that something that can be used to your advantage?

3. Check out top keywords

Updating your keywords (i.e. your SEO) is often overlooked. People say they don’t understand it, but it’s much simpler than you think. All you need to do is think about what people might search for when looking for your product and put those words into your listing copy. That’s it!

To start with, just start typing in the search bar and see what suggestions are given. They’re the most popular searches and keywords to use in your copy. We’ve written many a blog on the best ways to find keywords and how to use them – check out this one for some more guidance.

You should also consider if you have any budget for advertising. On Amazon, according to Marketplace Pulse, only four of the first twenty results that are shown are organic. Amazon will always lean towards sellers who pay for advertising space, so if you have any budget for it, it’s worth investing so you don’t get lost in the competition.

4. Research popular trends

It’s easy to keep on top of current trending items in this day and age. A simple Google search will tell you all the information you need, plus there’ll be plenty of predictions on what’s hot this year so you can plan in advance. That doesn’t just mean popular products, but categories as well – very handy for selling on Amazon. There’s even a Best Sellers category on Amazon that you can have a look through for inspiration.

This doesn’t just apply to what products are popular. Look at how people are marketing their items as well. Video has become the most popular form of marketing, boosting people in search results and is certainly more likely to catch the eye of a scrolling customer. Plus it’s not just great for social media. You can also add videos to your Amazon listings now which we would highly recommend. Amazon favours those who use video and will organically push you up the search.

Here are some video ideas to get you started:

• A product highlights video – you have between 5 and 10 seconds to hook in a customer before they scroll on – keep it short and sweet!
• Examples of how to use your product.
• How you make your product.
• An introduction to you – people love to see the human side of a brand.

5. Consider the current climate

It would be foolish not to consider the current financial situation people are in. In 2020, a lot more people were shopping online for Christmas gifts. It’s likely that in 2022, people will be pulling the purse strings a little and shopping around to get the best deals. So why is this important for you to consider in your Christmas sales strategy?

As we mentioned before, you don’t want to price yourself out of the market. But instead of trying to be the cheapest option and potentially lose profit yourself, think about what else you can offer. Can you create bundles of products for a discounted price? Can you perhaps do a couple of Lightning or 7-Day deals on Amazon in the run up to Christmas? A big one that customers are often persuaded by is free shipping. Is that something you can offer?

6. Create a seasonal brand store

Creating a seasonal page within your store will help shoppers find products and offers easier without all the clutter of other brands trying to advertise in your space. Amazon shoppers are said to complete a purchase in less than 3 minutes on average – don’t give them a chance to go beyond this statistic!

7. Advertising Budgets

With your store looking great and ready to capture seasonal sales, you need customers to find it. Bringing shoppers directly to your store is far less expensive than competing for PDP page and search results, which now sits at an average CPC (cost per click) of $0.89, up $0.10 from 2020.

With video advertising being the leading choice for sellers, Amazon recently added the ability to link to your store from video ads, another great reason to ensure your store is updated. That being said, seasonal advertising will be competitive. It always is. Check your budget utilisation and make sure spend is assigned to products you want customers to see and buy. We recommend allocating a larger budget to brand store advertising.

Overall, planning your Christmas sales strategy comes down to a lot of research. Knowing what your working with and the methods you can use to get the best from the Christmas sales period puts you in an excellent position. Plan, prepare and execute. Then you can start thinking about those January sales…

Looking for help with your sales strategy? Get in touch with our team today.