How to Hold a Sale that Sells: Five Tips

Now that any lingering gingerbread men have been polished off and the crunching of wrapping paper is but a distant sound byte of a memory, here we find ourselves in the proverbial post-Christmas sale period. Both online and  brick-and-mortar shop retailers are taking inventory and deciding how to move their merch. As a vendor, you may be wondering the same thing: Should I have a sale? Should I slash prices or offer up incentives? Where do I even begin now that prime buying-time seems to be over?

As an Etsy shop-owner and occasional boutique seller myself, I too have these thoughts when it comes to selling holiday and non-holiday items alike. How can I organize a successful sale after the holiday whirlwind? What should I be considering when planning a sale? Using my own experience over the years and by talking to some crafty sellers online, here are five tips for holding your first successful sale:

1. Decide why you want to have a sale in the first place

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But not all sales are alike. Do you have too much of a certain item and want to get rid of it? Are your items holiday-oriented and potentially won’t sell post-holiday? Or do you want to attract new customers and get your name out there? A combination of these? 

Jessica of The Shiny Squirrel, an online curated marketplace with a pop-up shop in Brooklyn says, “I have always found that a sale does wonders to boost PR and to entice new customers to shop on the site. Although I generally don’t unload tons of stock during a sale, I always find having a new reason for people both old and new to visit the site can never hurt.” Regardless of the motivations behind the sale, set a goal for what you’d like to achieve. For example, “I want to sell these eight Christmas tree ornaments,” or “I want to gain five new customers,” or “I’d like to make $100 over the next __ days.”

2. Start planning your sale

If it’s more about selling specific items, then decide on changes to make to your prices. But if you’re looking to expand your customer base, and presumably keep those customers coming back, think of special, more inclusive deals. When thinking of a beginning date for your sale, also keep in mind when it should end, so that buyers feel that they should act now rather than wait. 

To entice potential customers after the economy took a turn for the worse in 2008, Lianna of VigilanteLabs, which boasts “Custom Clothing, Secret Identities,” held shop-wide sales like “$10 off any order of $25.” Again, this way you’re not limiting buyers to particular items. Karina of KreatedbyKarina sells bath and beauty products on Etsy and prefers to offer a Free Shipping sale as opposed to discounting prices according to some percentage like “10% of your entire order.” The latter usually requires a revised invoice: “Buyers don’t want to wait to hear back from you, they want to complete their transaction as quickly as possible.” If discounts can be applied by the buyers at check-out time without any revising, all the better.

3. Prep your shop

Even if you’re focusing on selling those homemade sugar plums or hand-knit red and green slippers, make sure everything in your shop really shines. Update descriptions and general shop announcements that reflect the post-holiday season and sentiment, meaning that you can ax those “Are you ready for Christmas?” and “Santa Special” statements. Although we don’t look to the big chains for all selling advice, they have the right idea when it comes to shaping a post-holiday sale: now is the time to focus on what YOU want. Gift-giving for others has mostly come to a close, but what didn’t YOU get? What do YOU still want? Everyone has that Ralphie-in-A-Christmas-Story moment after all the presents have been unwrapped and there’s still a particular gift on your mind. Create avatars, make a sale category, write SALE all in caps, and in general, make people excited about browsing your shop.

4. Promote your sale

Location, location, location as the business motto goes. If no one knows you exist, it doesn’t matter how great your product or service is. The same goes for sales. If no one knows you’re having one, you can’t expect to see a great turn-out. If you have an email newsletter, include the sale announcement within it. If not, look to your avatar, blog, and shop announcement section. 

In addition, consider all of the social media and networking outlets you have (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), the crafting communities you belong to, fellow relevant blogs or bloggers that may be interested. Alert them, but don’t “over-alert” them, or in  the words of Katrina, “Do not, and I repeat—do NOT spam people with your sale. All spam does is turn people off from your shop altogether.”

Most of us won't be taking out full-page ads in the Sunday newspaper, but online advertising can be a fairly economical way to get the word out. A site like Etsy offers advertising "Showcase" spots in categories like "crochet" and "geekery" for $7 a day, which is a minimal price to pay no matter what your budget. Blogger friends may have some virtual space big enough for a small temporary sale banner if they can't plan on devoting an entire post to you.

When should you start promoting? Jessica suggests  promoting close to the sale’s beginning: “Most of the time bloggers will only post it once as to not appear redundant.”

5. Think of the future

Don’t discount too much. Noticing the broader retail world’s patterns, Lianna says, “It is dangerous to discount things too deeply, or customers will never intend to buy your items at full price. Last year on Black Friday everything was so marked down, and then this year the markdowns were much less. As a result, this year’s sales were even worse, because people came expecting to get such a great deal, and didn’t.

Keep track of what worked and what didn’t. Some sellers, such as Sweet Papery, a maker of custom rubber stamps and address labels, include a special code that must be entered upon checking out in order to take advantage of the sale. This is also an easy way to see how buyers came upon your shop if you advertised the code only within a newsletter or on a particular blog.

Have a happy post-holiday selling season!

Alicia Kachmar sells handmade whimsical crochet creatures and foods, ranging from the orange safety cones to black and white cookies to silver-lined clouds. She blogs at her site, writes for Brooklyn Based and contributes to many crafty communities as well as to the planning of crafty events in New York City.