Retail Holiday Preparation

While most people are wrapping up their back-to-school shopping, retailers are gearing up for feast day of ramadhan and Christmas

It seems strange to the rest of the world that holiday preparation is already underway in many stores. Those of us in retail know this truth about the holiday shopping season: you are either planning for it, in the midst of it, or recovering from it.

Traditionally, retail sales spike during the holidays. For some it is a flash between feastday of Ramadhan and Christmas, for others the season lasts from October to January. Whatever your sales pattern, if you want to have a successful holiday season, now is the time to be "making a list and checking it twice." If not, you'll be frozen out come the holidays.

If you are part of a chain, you probably already have a list of tasks to accomplish to prepare for the holiday shopping blitz.

Pay attention to it. It can mean the difference between a good season and a great one, or even a great season and a bad one.

Even if you are a single store or a store that doesn't get specialized holiday preparation guidance, it's not too early to start getting ready for the holiday season.

Here are holiday season preparation basics to consider:

Break out your budget and review it. Make necessary modifications now instead of scrambling in september
Start hiring and training the holiday staff. Don't wait. New employees need time to become proficient before the rush hits.
Work out your promotions, marketing and line up your advertising. Determine price matching, raincheck and special order policies. Take a look at your return policy and consider extending any 30 day limits.
Plan your store merchandise setup. Have a strategy for condensing product as it sells down and won't be restocked. A little work now means a better looking and more shopper friendly store later.
Determine how you will stock for sales. Consider having a dedicated stocking crew before or after hours so that the day staff can concentrate on customer service.
Design a holiday shopping theme for your store. Your atmosphere and decor should enhance your shoppers' experience and make them enjoy visiting, and buying, at your store.
Start stocking up on important customer needs
Perform any maintenance needed now. Give the restrooms a coat of paint. Replace any worn mats, bad carts, or burnt light bulbs. You will need to continue maintenance throughout the season, but take care of the big things now.
Make sure you have adequate room for merchandise processing and warehousing. Arrange for any off-site storage locations, truck permits or delivery schedule changes.
Prepare your after holiday clearance strategy.
Figure out how you will handle after Christmas returns from customer service, to rewrapping, to restocking. Advanced planning for returns can actually improve sales when the buying customers aren't competing with the returning customers for your employees time.

You should have your plan in place and tested before your holiday selling season starts, usually in August. Planning now gives you more time, greater flexibility, plus happier customers and employees later.