We all know the holiday season brings higher sales across nearly every industry: Global sales during last year’s shopping season reached $126 billion, a number that is expected to rise by at least 15% this year. So what can you do to get a piece of the profits? We’ll walk you through a few proven ways to boost your holiday sales, from deciding which products to put on a pedestal to a few marketing directions made possible with teelaunch that can turn a simple product into a seasonal hit.
Before we get to our list of products, take a look at teelaunch’s holiday deadlines for this year:
NOTE:
Black Friday is 6 days later than last year, which unfortunately means you have 6 days less to sell. Start your sales push earlier this year. If you entice your customers to purchase before Black Friday, it will give you more opportunity to profit this holiday season as well as ensure a timely delivery process
Up-selling is easy with teelaunch, below we’ve listed our most common marketing techniques and new product categories that are sure to create some buzz with your customers.
Standard & Combo Products
If you’re a tenured teelaunch user, these are the products you’re probably familiar with. We refer to them as our “standard” products, but depending on how you use them, they can be anything but. From tote bags to cutting boards to our beloved mugs, any product that gets uploaded with a straightforward design for the end customer to purchase is a standard product.
Combo Feature – This year, we added the ability for your customers to purchase a combination of any two apparel items for a discounted price, allowing you to upsell your designs and saving your customers both time and money. If you haven’t utilized our combo feature yet, the holidays are a great time to start doing so. Offering bundled items during the gift-giving season lets your customers know that you’re aware of the stresses of the season and want to make life a little easier for them by crossing off two names from their list at once. Read more about our Combo Feature here.
Photo-Personalized Products
Another exciting feature we launched this year is the ability to photo-personalize your products. This feature is a great way to connect with your customers and let them in on the design process. Store owners are able to create overlays for their products, which allow customers to upload their own photo and scale it to their liking. There are many benefits to offering these types of products, the first of which is increasing your profit margin, as 1 in 5 customers are willing to pay 20% more on a personalized item. Offering photo-personalized products in your store also makes gift shopping an easy and unique process for your customers. Read more about photo-personalization here.
*Other great personalized options – Pillow of grandkids for grandparents, Wireless Car Charger for your busiest friend, Canvas for a family Christmas photo, or a “surviving the holidays” Beer Stein.
Though you might assume it’s best to market your best Christmas or Hanukkah gear, many stores still benefit from creating career- or interest-focused product to make gift-giving easier for their customer’s hard to shop for friends. We’ve put together a list of top personalized-hungry professions and lifestyles to give you a little inspiration on who your customers may be shopping for:
- Parents/Grandparents
- Educational figures (we’re going to include everyone from school bus drivers to lunch ladies in this one)
- Military (check out our newly released military official apparel)
- Nurses/Doctors
- Over the Hill (a full-time profession)
- Pet lovers
Customized Products
Customization with teelaunch works exactly like it sounds: you offer a standard product in your store and include the ability to customize it with anything from a name to a digitally painted portrait. Offering customization to your customers allows you the freedom to create on demand. Take the company Noble & Posh, they’ve fostered an incredibly successful business by customizing canvases with photos of their customers’ pets. They pre-make all of their unique scenes and when a customer places an order, they take their photo and apply transformative photo retouching and blending processes to make it appear like a painting. Simple as that!
Hold Feature – With our new hold feature, we’ve made life a lot easier for our shop owners that depend on custom ordering for tumblers, phone cases, canvases, blankets and mugs. This feature lets you put these items on hold until you’re finished with the customization process so you don’t have to spend time worrying about sending the “dummy” order into production. Read more about our hold feature here.
Monogrammed Products
Our newest catalog of products has just been announced, and just in time for the holidays! Five brand new, (mostly) seasonal-focused products that ready to be monogrammed straight from your website. We’ve included an adult beanie, kids-size beanie, adult gloves, scarves, and a handbag. These accessories are created with great attention to detail and are some of the easiest products you can place in your store! All you have to do is upload and name your products, post ads, and sell. Your customers will create their own unique monogram by typing in their initials (or any sequence of letters they choose) and selecting the font style that best fits them.
Easy to Market
Imagine scrolling through the website of a company that you regularly shop with around the holidays. This year, you see their homepage banner decorated with fresh new fall and winter gear and a “Monogramming Holiday Special!” headline. Such a fun and new concept paired with some major ad space on your homepage makes these new products a must for shoppers looking for unique gifts that send a great message.
And that’s it!
With the holidays just around the corner, it’s important that you start planning your marketing campaigns as soon as possible, holiday marketing campaigns don’t have to be overly complicated and can deliver great benefits to your business. Whether you do a few simple things to “dress up” your brand for the season or commit to a full-on rotation of products that are holiday focused, we’ll be here to help you through it.