Christmas & New Year Proactive approach

It’s almost the new year, and it’s that time of year in between Xmas and New Year when Sales are quiet;

Couriers are finally delivering their delayed parcels caused by strikes and sheer volume within the Black Friday/Christmas period and families around the country are spending their holidays without the panic of shopping.

So now what do you do?

Thankfully we will be looking at a less familiar year of pandemic restrictions heading into 2023 and a new future for e-commerce and fulfilment. But seriously, this next year will be a fresh new start for a lot of businesses everywhere and it could not be a more exciting time for online companies.

In this blog, I will run through why this is the perfect time to be investing your efforts into behind the scenes of your business and what to expect after the new year.

• Expectations – A look into what will be happening during this gap and preventing any wasted time/money.
• First steps & routines – We’ll investigate what may be more beneficial for you & your business during this time.
• Preparing spring sales – Top sellers, adjustments to items, stock organising, etc.
• Overseeing winter stock – Clearance sales and emptying the warehouse of these items.
• Expiring Products – Specifically for those who specialise with edible goods.

Expectations

Now that Christmas peak is over, very few people will be spending their time online shopping until after the New Year, so it is prime time to get working on the small details and drafting plans for what will be done throughout 2023. Don’t have any plans yet? Take time to eye over your previous sales, campaigns and any old ideas that give you a solid foundation to build off. Brainstorm over the latest trends and get a rough idea of what could lead into solid collaborations for the future. Reflection is often over looked despite it’s importance.

It should be expected that the orders may be looking a little quieter, so do not spend too much time thinking about them not being placed through your store and start to consider allocating some checks. Things such as 2022 sale trends, what worked well, what never worked so well,  auditing stock, and any future plans to increase sales in 2023.

First steps & routine

There is an array of things to do in preparation for the new year. Look through your key components of your business and put them towards things such as advertisements, branding, design, (etc.) and then have a look over the stock you provide currently, compare to new trends and consider adjustments, switching out stock or even investing into something new. Elaborate a routine for yourself with investing time into checking in with your fulfilment centre, it may be the grand finale but fulfilment never stops and it’s a good point to drop in any intel you may have about any forecasting for orders, new stock appearances and sales (which I will delve into on the next section)!

With Mintsoft which our best in class Warehouse Management System, everything is easily accessible for both warehouse operatives and clientele.  We advise all clients before heading into January is to look at your inventory for how many of your best sellers are there, look into scheduling some more inbound if numbers are low after all you don’t want to over sell on bestselling products.

Preparing spring sales

Mintsoft allows you to navigate your way into various amounts of reports and one in particular, sales by channel, can help you look at not only the items that have sold the most or the least, but which eCommerce channel this has been the most proficient product on their website. An example is that one client offers significant offers on eBay knowing they can receive more income in comparison to Amazon orders, however, Amazon’s offering the next-day delivery will always catch the attention of customers knowing how soon they can have the items they require. With this in mind, look into what items you sold the most of in each online channel, compare price listings to balance out things such as delivery timeframe and competing brands and begin to narrow down the items you wish to see flying out by the time it reaches spring.

Accumulate how many seasonal items will sell on par with your frequent everyday items and ensure a top-up of stock already scheduled into your warehouse when required. Low stock report can help sending over a scheduled report to your emails, automated by Mintsoft’s system itself, which can show you the items that need more stock sending into the facility and what other items are starting to drop in quantity also.

Overseeing winter stock

As aforementioned, it’s a good time to move on the seasonal stock, once you have configured a sales range, it is vital to communicate to your fulfilment centre about the sale that will be going on and what will be forecasted to happen during this time. Seasonal items, such as themes or holiday specific stock should have a limited shelf period in order to make the most of your time and space in the units. Once you have communicated this clearly to your operatives, the next step would be to looking over what next stock to send in, are you wishing to bulk up further on your best-selling items, supply spring stock or any new and upcoming items that customers are eager to purchase?

The options do not entirely matter, it’s more important to ensure that every pallet and racking space being rented by yourselves are optimizing frequent moving stock. Mintsoft’s range of reports are an endless supply of help if you are ever uncertain of what changes to make, one report in particular “Product Sales By Channel” can help you find your less frequent selling items and provide further aid in which to provide sales. If paired with the “Gross Profit Per SKU” report will help you find similarities within the items being purchased and gives the chance to consider bundle deals or percentage drops. If ever in doubt, contact your warehouse manager to enquire on what more to do to uplift fulfilment outbound after the holidays are over!

Dispose expiring Products

For those of you who specialize in edible produce, it’s a prime time to make note of the amount of stock left with near expiry dates. Naturally your first question is how can we move this stock on without it becoming wasteful and a loss overall?  Request your warehouse if they are aware of any local food banks that are willing to take the stock. Some places will not except items within a certain time frame left, more so depending on the food type itself and if they have any similar products within their facility that still have not been able to move on.

We can understand how easy it is to forget about the dates of the stock, thankfully, Mintsoft’s ‘Products Expiring’ report can alert you when set up for a scheduled report, being able to see all the stock you have available on site and viewing them by expiry date so you can prioritize the time left for the item to be moved on. Another option would be to request of any known ‘B2B’ organisations that will take on the stock for resale, therefore saving disposure and still managing to gain back from the origin’s price.

Last, but certainly not least, businesses that handle items such as these follow a disposal procedure and will amend a Certificate of Destruction for the company that own the products, signed by a witness, the operator who handled the removal of the items and by a member of staff that has acknowledged/requested the disposal to take place.

Hopefully this blog has given an insight of what proactive things can be done between Xmas and Newyear sales lull to assist with getting ahead of the game in 2023.