Topic: Member Workshop: Successful Product Sourcing for the Holidays
Host: whatdoisell Date: Tuesday 07/22 Time: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Pacific time Location: Workshop Board
Description: The holiday selling season is just around the corner and buyers are heading online to shop earlier than you think! But will you have the products they want? Creating the right product line mix is essential to your successful holiday sales. Without a correctly balanced product assortment, you'll be unable to offer your buyers the products that excite them, attract buyers to your listings, or increase your final sales tickets through cross-selling or up-selling. Please join Lisa Suttora Founder/CEO of Certified Provider WhatDoISell.com and featured speaker at eBay Live! 2008 Product Sourcing Panel as she discusses how to put together a winning product line for the holiday season and make this your best holiday selling season ever!
The holiday selling season is just around the corner and buyers are heading online to shop earlier than you think! But will you have the products they want?
Creating the right product line mix is essential to your successful holiday sales.
Without a correctly balanced product assortment, you'll be unable to offer your buyers the products that excite them, attract buyers to your listings, or increase your final sales tickets through cross-selling or up-selling.
In today’s workshop we’ll discuss how you can choose a holiday product line that will excite your buyers, attract them to your listings, and inspire them to buy more merchandise from you with more frequency!
My name is Lisa Suttora and I’m the Founder and CEO of WhatDoISell.com™.
I look forward to spending the next hour with you discussing how to put together a winning product line for the holiday 2008 selling season!
The workshop content is directly below. After you’ve read through today’s workshop, I’ll be here to answer your questions about putting together your holiday product line..
If you’d like me to look at your store and give input on your product line, I can do that as well!
Most of the time when you hear people talk about the holiday season, you’ll find people referring to buyers coming to eBay in November.
And while the Monday after Thanksgiving, also known as Cyber Monday (the biggest online shopping day of the year) brought a record number of visitors to eBay which earned it the #1 ranking of all online shopping sites visited, there is more to holiday selling than that.
While it is true that this is a peak sales time, if you only consider November-December as the holiday season, you’re limiting your scope, missing out on several other holiday selling opportunities and in the end, limiting your sales potential!
Most people think of the holiday season as spanning November and December, however leading up to and following the official gift giving season are several other holiday selling seasons that you should be preparing for.
The list below will give you an expanded view of what the holiday selling season really means.
Let’s look at the seasonal selling opportunities that begin mid-summer:
Beginning Mid-July and running through the end of January we have:
• Back to school shopping • Fall shopping • Halloween • Thanksgiving • Gift giving season (Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza etc.) • Post-gift giving trade in/trade up purchases (Late December - January) • Gift certificate redemption season (Late December - January) • New Years • Fitness (January) • Organization (January) • “Start Fresh” related products (January)
Now you can clearly see that the holiday selling season is NOT that short period from November to December, but rather a solid 6 month selling season that represents a variety of different “holidays”.
This puts a whole different perspective on the opportunities available to you as an eBay retailer.
If you are new to holiday seasonal selling, don’t try to tackle all the selling seasons at once! Pick one or two seasons to focus on first and really dig in and do those well.
Next year, you can expand your holiday season inventory to include more selling opportunities.
Use your Inventory Planning Notebook™ to compile the information outlined in the next steps.
There’s no doubt about it, an in-demand holiday product line drives sales! But how do you put together an assortment of products that your buyers want?
How to you choose the products to stock that will inspire your buyers to purchase more from you each time they shop and return frequently to do additional shopping?
Before we jump into the specifics of building a holiday product line, let’s talk about the purpose of a product line and how it impacts and increases your sales.
A product line is an assortment of products designed to appeal to the same customer base.
For example, if you sell in the organizational products niche, your product line will be purchased with one type of customer in mind – people who have an interest in organizational products, getting organized, streamlining their home or office, beautifying their home or office or buying for someone who has those interests as well.
You wouldn’t carry crab pots in a product line designed to appeal a target market interested in home or office organization. Nor would you carry basketballs.
Your product line will encompass multiple products, brands, styles, and price points, but they will all be targeted at the same customer market.
Your Holiday Product Line Blueprint: 8 Essential Products
There are eight different types of products to include in your holiday product line mix. Each fulfills a very specific and important sales function in your business.
Your product line should be made up of the following types of products listed below.
1. Product Line Staples. Returning Favorites With a New Twist.
These are the (‘meat and potatoes’ products) that you sell on a regular basis.
The first and most important building block to your holiday product line mix is to stock your store with returning customer favorites – those proven winners that you’ve sold well all year ‘round BUT with a new twist.
This means you’ll want to incorporate new styles, new colors, versions etc. of the products you are know are popular with customer. But bring them the most updated, fresh versions of those products available.
During the holidays, customers are looking for the comfort of proven winners but with a new twist.
During the holidays you must satisfy your buyer’s hunger for the new and different. Now more than ever, people are looking for “what’s new, what’s fresh, what’s cool”. They are looking for compelling design and innovation.
All year long, manufacturers are busy creating new/exciting products to unveil for the holiday season. (And this applies to practically every category of products.)
Take a look through your supplier catalogs and look for the new products that are being introduced into the marketplace. Better yet, call your supplier and ask them what new products they are offering for this coming holiday season. Ask them for their recommendations.
Keep in mind, consumers are looking for the latest and greatest gift. Giving “new to market products” makes the gift giver look good in the eyes of their recipient.
Do your trending research to find out what’s hot, what’s new, what’s up and coming in your product category.
Then make sure you have a representation of those products for sale this holiday season.
3. Cross-sell products. Companion products to your product line staples.
The holidays are THE time of year when everyone wants to add a little “something” extra into that special gift package. And it’s up to you to make sure you stock your eBay store with those additional add-on or cross-sell products for your customers to choose from.
For example, if you sell baby clothes, a cute snuggly stuffed animal might be the perfect item for cross-selling.
Selling electric razors for the man on their list?
Carry an assortment of great selling after-shave or anti-fog mirrors for the bathroom and make that additional purchase almost a no-brainer for your customer.
The key here is that you are doing the PRE-SHOPPING for your customer. You are thinking through what products are a complimentary fit for your product line.
You’re getting into the mind of the buyer and going through the shopping process in their head.
“If they buy product A, what other products might they also be interested in?” Then you make these products available to them.
This way, when Joe/Jane holiday buyer come to your eBay store and buy ‘product A’, products B, C, and D are right there waiting for them and you’ve made the cross-sell!
The holidays are THE #1 time that a buyer is likely to upgrade to a better quality/more expensive product, almost without thinking about it.
If you’re not carrying deluxe/high end versions of your products, you’re leaving money on the table.
Higher ticket price products always sell better during the holidays. If it’s a gift – people will justify buying a more expensive products. And when holiday buyers are in “shopping mode” they are more likely to splurge on themselves as well.
Look at your returning favorites, or the new products or seasonal/holiday products category and see which of those products also have a high-end version of that product.
By carrying high-end up-sell products, you’ll be in a position to increase your final sales ticket and the total value of each sale.
5. Advertising products. Designed to get people to click on your listings and into your eBay Store.
Shopping online is a keyword driven business and this is true even more so during the holidays. Buyers come to eBay with popular products in mind, searching for them with specific keywords.
Therefore it is important that you stock some of this seasons more popular products, solely for the purpose of attracting customers to your business.
Think of the kinds of advertisements you normally see in your local weekend newspaper. Stores always advertise at least one or two “hot” products either at full price or on sale.
These products are what are called “loss leaders” – products being sold not for the purpose of profit, but rather for the purpose of getting buyers INTO the store. Once customers get to the store, they see all the other products that are featured and begin their shopping in earnest.
The same holds true for your eBay product line. Featuring products for advertising purposes attracts new buyers to your listings and brings increased exposure for your business.
6. Impulse Buys. They Didn’t Know They Needed It Until They Saw It!
We all make impulse buys from time to time. We walk into a store, see something that is totally cool, fun or innovative and all of a sudden we must have that product that we didn’t even know existed 10 minutes ago.
Your holiday buyers are the same. They enjoy making impulse buys as well – especially during the holiday shopping season!
What products are you offering that are compelling? Which products have that that WOW factor, that “Oh that is so cool!” factor.
As an online retailer you should always be on the lookout for innovative, cool, must have products!
Your customers will enjoy the variety and selection and you’ll enjoy the additional sales!
If you sell products that already lend themselves to seasonal/holiday products or if that is the focus of your eBay business, then now is the time to really beef up your seasonal/holiday product line.
But even if you don’t sell products that naturally relate to seasonal/holiday products, you’ll want to bring in products that do have a seasonal theme.
For example, if you sell sheets and towels, check your supplier catalogs for holiday themed products. While you won’t center your holiday offerings around these products you will want to have them available for the customer who is looking to buy something with a specifically seasonal theme.
You can also take it one step further and sell non-related seasonal products. For example, in the scenario above, if you come across a great set of themed holiday glassware, or even holiday ornaments. You can incorporate those into your product offerings.
The purpose here is to create a mini-profit machine for holiday themed items that you wouldn’t normally sell.
Every holiday there are at least a few fad products that are selling like hotcakes. The ones that have “the buzz”.
You can’t build a business around these products, but you certainly can use them to supplement your sales and income.
The key is to capture the rise of the latest fad while everyone is still looking for that product. And to keep a very close eye on pricing/market demand of fad products as prices on hot holiday products can change.
Look to offer some products to your customers that are trendy, short-term, money makers.
By including the types of products above, you’ll be offering the right product mix to satisfy all of your buyer’s diverse needs. And it will be reflected in your sales. The better you can put together a winning holiday product line mix, the more sales you will make.
Achieving the Right Balance – How Much of Each Product?
Getting your holiday product line mix right is also a matter of achieving the right balance of the 8 types of holiday products.
And while you’ll want to adjust the numbers a bit to fit your niche and your product line, next we’ll talk about some general guidelines on how much of each kind of product you should stock.
These are your proven winners and you want to build on your success with these products and add to their momentum.
For your holiday product line mix you want to bring in 45% continuing favorites, but bring in new colors, styles and versions of these continuing favorites, your proven winners.
If you don’t traditionally sell in the seasonal market, you’ll want to take about 10% of your holiday inventory capital and invest it in the right seasonal/holiday products.
This will allow you to create a seasonal mini-profit machine, but not tie up to much of your inventory dollars in seasonal merchandise.
Advertising products are a big one! And no eBay seller can afford to be without them. There’s an old saying in retail “It pays to advertise.” And it does! Literally!
The more traffic you can bring into to your eBay listings and store, the more opportunity you’ll have to convert those browsers to buyers.
One important word of warning about advertising! You must actually be selling the products you are advertising. Meaning, you can’t use highly searchable keywords in your titles and listings to attract buyers to your store, without selling those products.
Using keywords for products you don’t actually sell is called keyword spamming and it is a violation of eBay’s policies.
So first stock up on some advertising products and THEN get to the business of advertising.
About 25% of your inventory should be comprised of products that you can cross-sell with other products in your store.
These are products you’ll also want to feature using your eBay Store’s promotion boxes, your Custom Store Pages, your Email Marketing Newsletter and by including flyers in your packages with the products you ship to customers.
It’s important that you let your customers know about these products that would be the perfect add-on to the gift they purchased (or are about to purchase).
Unfortunately people often tend to stock cross-sell products in their store or sell that perfect cross-sell product in an auction format listing, but no their customers don’t know it’s available!
As with cross-sell products, you’ll need to actively let your customers know that a deluxe or high-end version of a product is available.
You’ll also want to tell them WHY the more expensive/deluxe version will benefit them. This is not the time to be shy about showcasing the aspects of a better quality product.
Fad merchandise should represent the smallest part of your holiday budget. And I want to emphasize that selling fad merchandise is purely for short-term profits. But a stream of income from a fad product can be a nice mini-profit machine.
Here’s an easy way to determine if you are building a product line that will sell well during the holiday season.
Using a spreadsheet program such as Excel, enter the names of the eight different types of products we’ve discussed at the top of each column of your spreadsheet .
Next, plug in the products you are currently selling in the appropriate columns.
Plug in the names of your product line staples, your advertising products, your holiday seasonal products,etc.
This will give you a visual tool to use to make sure that you create an evenly balanced holiday product line mix.
Once you have a good picture of your customer base in mind and you’ve taken stock of your current inventory, go back to the spreadsheet you created above and identify the gaps?
Good on product line staples, but low on cross-sell and advertising products?
This is where you should focus your inventory dollars. By identifying the gaps in your product line in a systematic method it enables you to focus your time, attention and money on the right areas of your product line.
Rather than being here, there and everywhere, you’ll have an effective system for sourcing the products buyers want during the holidays!
In order to source the inventory that the buyers will want to purchase this season, you need to be up to date with the trends that are happening in your industry..
Put yourself in the world in which your buyers live. Read what they are reading. Listen to what they are saying. Observe what people are talking about now. The media is your greatest ally in this.
Now that you have evaluated your product line, began to immerse yourself in trending information and started to look at related products, it’s time to do your research. One of the pieces of the puzzle of knowing what will sell is to look at what is selling and how it is selling.
To do this, you will need to do baseline research on potential inventory.
You’ve done your research, studied the trending information, now it is time to purchase your inventory. It’s time to:
- Open supplier accounts - Request supplier catalogs - Place small initial orders for test marketing
Don’t wait to do this! If you wait too long to source your holiday inventory, you’ll find that your suppliers will be sold out of their best selling products.
Holiday customers and sales must be cultivated and nurtured using the strategies above. The more thought you put into your holiday product line mix, the better able you’ll be to serve your customers and that will result in increased sales.
Plan for the holidays now and you have an opportunity to dramatically increase your holiday sales, add new customers to your customer base, and multiply those holiday sales into increased revenue throughout the year.
And unfortunately, the reverse is true. If you don’t plan now, a lack of planning will directly result in lost sales.
When you are finished reading the educational content for today's workshop, I'm here to answer your questions or look at your store and make product line related suggestions.
We love workshops to be interactive, so please feel free to ask your questions that directly relate to this topic.
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