Picture this: The holiday rush has ended. The frenetic excitement of another massive shopping season has died down. Now we can all take a minute and breathe a sigh of relief as we look at the our sales numbers for the past few months. You did it… and did it well. Congratulations.

But now is no time to rest on your laurels.

Just because the holidays are over does not mean your profit windfall has to be  over too. Sure, it is most likely going to decrease a bit but by keeping your sales momentum going you can draw the decrease out over the next month or so. (Or you can sit back and watch it dramatically plummet. Your choice!)

Look, I know you are tired, the holiday months can be extremely draining, but we are talking about continuing to make above average sales here – that’s worth putting off your vacation for another month, isn’t it?

Luckily, keeping your sales rolling doesn’t require much extra effort.  It’ll involve some initiative (which we know you’ve got because you run a successful eCommerce store) and the normal amount of work you do for promoting sales and specials for your store. Think of it more as a continuation of your holiday promotions rather than a whole new set of work and ideas.

In this article, I’ll lay out the things I do with my stores and you can take the ideas and apply them to your products and markets.

You might think that it would be hard to persuade people to buy right after they’ve done so much holiday spending.  But quite often people don’t get what they really wanted as holiday gifts… or just not every single thing. Because they’ve been doing so much of it over the past few months, they are used to spending at this point… and now they have the chance to spend on themselves.

That’s where your “after holiday” profits come from. You’re offering discounted gifts for bargain hunters and for people to give to themselves.

Here are some things I do to keep the profits rolling in after the holidays:

Whatever sales you were running to get more out of the holidays will help also you get more out of the post holiday season. I re-frame my promotions so they are centered around the idea of “The Perfect Gift You Didn’t Get” or “Get What You Really Wanted This Christmas” or something to that effect. 

As long as the discount is good (I’d go with at least 10%) you won’t need to do that much convincing to get people to feel entitled to buying themselves a gift.

You will also want to get the word out about your post holiday sales via newsletters.

Again, frame it around ‘The Gift You Really Wanted But Didn’t Get” or appeal to the bargain hunters with something like “Huge After-Christmas Discounts”. One of the headlines I intend to use this year is “The Most Awesome Christmas Gift You Didn’t Get”. That particular newsletter is going to be focused on a single product but it could work for multiple products or even your entire store depending on how you want to frame your offer.

Get on the phone with your vendors.

Again, I know you did it just before the holidays to check stock, now it’s time to do it again. As I’ve said in articles past, getting to know your vendors is a good investment in your business. You don’t have to be buddies with them, but it’s good to be on a first name basis and have them happy to answer when you call. Being able to strategize with your suppliers is a great way to get more out of both of your businesses.

Ask your vendors what products they still have a lot of stock on and promote these products as overstock sales. Have a “Post Holiday Blowout Sale” or , “Holiday Overstock Clearance”, etc. You might be able to get a bigger discount on these products if your vendor is motivated to sell them. Let them know what you plan to do – show how you’re going to promote the products – so they can see how quickly you plan to move them. Remember – they’ll be interested in keeping their sales up too! If you can show them a way to do that they’ll be open to helping you achieve those sales.

Don’t be afraid to propose ideas. A good vendor will take a vested interest in your store because they know the better you do, the better they do. The worse they can do is say no, so if you have an idea put it out there. It may not be accepted “as is” but it will open a dialogue between you and your supplier and give you the chance to work together.

Use your store blogs to capture more interest.

Put up blog posts about your post holiday discounts. These can be very similar to your newsletters. Also post your single product promotions. Be sure to put nice, big pictures of the products you’re discounting and make the coupon code stand out so people don’t have to read the entire post or search your blog for it. The more you can put out there and the easier you make it for people to use, the more your post holiday season will be a success.

Along those lines, use your social networks to get more people into the bargain craze or the “I’m buying it for me” mindset. I use sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote my holiday sales and so I’ll also be using them to promote my post holiday sales. Whatever avenues work for you during the holidays should be approached afterward as well.

Network, network, network!

Now I’m going to switch it up a bit and I’m going to go back to what I said earlier about strategizing with your suppliers. When you talk with them you’ll probably come away with a few ideas you didn’t have before. This happens when you talk with other business owners, you get new perspectives. So a great thing to do in the New Year is to join a mastermind or attend local business meet-ups.

For example, I regularly attend local meet-ups in Philadelphia. Just by listening to other business owners talk about what they do or how they handle certain things gives me ideas that I can apply to my stores. No one is an island and no one knows everything. Passing ideas back and forth with other business owners is one of the best ways to expand how you think about your store and sales process.

Just as you might be able to spot an issue or offer a new idea to someone else, they will be able to do the same for you. Having someone outside your business look at what you do can give you fresh perspective that can totally change your approach.

Whether it is a new tool that you find will help you get better rankings, a different line of thought around your Pay Per Click advertising, some constructive criticism about your site design, learning how others create and distribute coupons and sales, etc – joining a business owners group is another good investment in your business.

I’m pushing this because the groups are out and ready to accept new members but a lot of eCommerce store owners think these groups are for Internet Marketers primarily focused on info marketing. Not only is this not true, it wouldn’t really matter if it was because…

You don’t have to work strictly with other eCommerce store owners! I mastermind with a group weekly where I am the only eCommerce person present. Sometimes the best advice or ideas come from people who are not enmeshed in the same things you are. They are not in the same box, let’s say, as you are so they can just throw ideas out there that aren’t constrained because they are not dealing with the same things you are on a daily basis. A broad range of views can help open up your way of thinking, which can lead to new ways of doing business.

So that’s it. Those are my main sales tricks for after the holidays. This is an oft-overlooked opportunity to sustain your holiday sales momentum and these are the basic steps I take to get the most out of my own products post-holiday. You might find some other things to do based on your specific business and product lines and I suggest you do them all and I bet you to continue profiting – even after the holiday rush has ended.

Checklist:
- Continue your holiday sales but re-purpose them for the post- holidays.
- Promote your post holiday sales through your newsletters.
- Talk with your vendors and find out what items they have a lot of stock on.
- Promote the items with a lot of stock as overstock sales.
- Promote your sales with blog posts and on your social networks.
- Join a mastermind or local business meet-up group to continue expanding your ideas.

Related posts:

1. eCommerce After The Holidays
2. Take Advantage of Holidays
3. Increase Your Conversion by 8 For The Holidays

In a way the holidays coming to an end is a relief. It’s an end to the hectic customer calls and emails, an end to extended working hours, an end to the year. Phew, it does feel good to relax.

The tough part is that when the holidays are over all too often the sales and profits plummet. Not a good way to start off the new year. But there’s not much you can do, right? I mean people were buying for Christmas, they’re not in the same buying mode now so it makes sense that sales would drop off… doesn’t it?

It doesn’t have to my friends. People have gotten cash for Christmas, they’re also gotten things they didn’t necessarily want and didn’t get things they did want. And, they ARE still in buying mode – only now it’s for themselves.

So how can you capitalize on the after holiday buying season? You can run after holiday sales and promotions.

Get on the phone with your vendors and find out what they have overstock on, then work out a deal to get you better pricing, and promote the crap out of that product. I’m running a “Get What You Really Wanted For Christmas” Sale in the Armory. As of this writing it is 4 days after Christmas… my sales have not dropped. And I don’t expect them to in any sudden fashion. They will eventually return to normal monthly levels, but not until around the middle of February and the decline will be a slow one instead of the typical drop off the cliff many eCommerce store owners experience.

So use your vendors, they will appreciate the continuing sales. Use your list, make them feel special and get them thinking that they most certainly do deserve to treat themselves. Use your store and your blog to get new customers buying with your super after Christmas discounts.

These tactics work and make the after holiday blow much much softer. If done right you won’t even feel it.

Related posts:

1. Take Advantage of Holidays
2. Keep Your Sales Momentum Going After the Holidays
3. Increase Your Conversion by 8 For The Holidays