February can be tough for retail. The festive period is over, and the January sales are gone. With many consumers reining in spending after the excess of the previous months, an inevitable sales dip follows.
Yet for businesses, there are ways sales can be boosted and crucially, ways to use the downtime effectively. Below, we give three ways to boost sales in February.
Give Things Away
Many online retailers and services do this all year round. The online casino industry regularly offers free games and spins on slots to get new customers interested. One great example can be found in how they offer free bingo. In February, most people are recovering from Christmas spending and the weather takes a turn for the worst. By offering a home-based service at no cost, providers can begin to build loyalty between their business and the customer. Even if they play for free now, chances are that later down the line they will begin to play for cash prizes.
Even if you are offering physical products and not services or entertainment, you can still hand out freebies. This is the time to create giveaways, enticing customers with the allure of free goods. Perhaps invest in samples of products or hold competitions. The trick is to make sure you are providing something of value. If not, your brand could come away as looking cheap.
Talk to Your Customers
One of the best ways to increase sales and set yourself up for the year is to talk to your customers. They are the frontline of the business. They will be able to tell you your strengths, weaknesses and what they want, often with brutal honesty. You can then use this to inform your plans for the rest of the year.
This also helps build the relationship between you and the customer. More than ever, a connection to a brand is essential to consumers. By asking what they want you are building a two-way relationship.
Provide Training
If February is a quiet month for your business, then take it on the chin and use the opportunity. With few customers and little to do, you can use the time wisely to improve sales further down the line. This can begin with adequate staff training.
Put the focus on cross and up-selling. Cross-selling is how to sell additional products. For example, if someone buys an exercise bike, you may cross-sell the clothing and accessories to go with it. Upselling is where you get customers to buy a product higher in value, usually with better features.
This is done easily on websites when they offer products that others bought or related items in a sidebar. With physical sales, it can be a little harder to do. You do not want the staff to come across as pushy, but you also don’t want them to miss out on opportunities.
Training can take several different forms. You may have actual experts come into train and speak to the staff. Or you could make it less formal and set up courses online so they can be done at quieter times of the schedule, or even at home.
