With winter clinging to its last breath, the time has come to finally remove the last remnants of it in your inventory. If you have any product left over from your previous spring cleaning and President’s Day sales, you must start thinking of ways to get rid of it before the sun warms up and customers begin looking around for summer clothes.
When you can’t think of any other ideas for getting people in your doors, maybe it’s time to bring the sales out to them.
Let them know
Sometimes you have to take that extra step to lure people in to your business. Shoppers won’t know about any sales if you don’t advertise them. Depending on your budget, you can take out ads on TV or in the local newspaper, but there are cheaper alternatives that still provide enough of an enticing flash to grab their attention.
An easy method is changing the tags on your sale items. Your normal tags are fine for everyday merchandise, but for your deals, you might want to shake things up with some more vibrant sale tags that are both larger and brighter. That way, the tags themselves are easy identifiers for your stock that you’re trying to get rid of.
If you haven’t already, cover your store displays and windows with promotional signs and posters. You can choose to keep it elegant and only dot them with a few here and there to spread the message or you can go all out and cover your windows to a point of near excess. If you decide the latter, then sort and arrange them into some larger design or image that will make them hold their gaze longer. Don’t be afraid to fuse your signs into your overall theme and other planned decorations. If you’re shifting your shop and its display fixtures to the more lively spring, then use some of your nature props like strings of leaves or flowers in combination with the signs’ borders. Keep your signs as colorful as possible to take advantage of the weather’s transition.
Meet them outside
Sometimes you have to take the fight out to customers. A little bit of aggressive advertising ensures you won’t rely on customers to do all the searching, but will put your sale in front of them before they even walk through your doors. Message boards are an excellent way to get your point across and they add a whole new layer to your store, expanding outwards. It shows you aren’t restricted to the boundaries of your walls and that you’re willing to get out there and show the world of shopping what you got.
Depending on your style, you can choose a dry-erase, chalk or bulletin board with interchangeable letters. Different options give you the chance to be even more creative with your sales and promotions while allowing you a lot more freedom with the colors and art you can showcase.
Your goal, no matter what, should be to let everyone walking by your store know what you have going on. Once people are aware, your increased traffic will give you a better chance to finally relinquish the cold-weather products you have left in time for the brighter days ahead.
