The holiday season is an incredibly busy time of year for retailers, and getting ahead of the curve is the best way to make sure your store stays above water once holiday shoppers come pouring in. Don’t wait until the last minute to optimize your store’s performance during this high-stakes retail period – find tips below that will help your store prepare for the holiday season.
Establish Your Holiday Hours in Advance
Do your best to establish your holiday hours before November starts. If your campus retail location is within a larger campus building, reach out to your university’s administration to determine the building’s hours during the season and ask if your store can open earlier and close later depending on their answer. Once your holiday hours are established, post them somewhere you and your employees can see them like the break room. Knowing this ahead of time will help you and them both better prepare for the upcoming busy season.
Plan for Larger Crowds
It’s no secret that the holiday season attracts an influx of shoppers into brick-and-mortar stores. Start working with your crew to prepare for larger crowds of shoppers by establishing operational protocols for the season. Have a plan in place for when there’s too many customers in your store for any one employee to handle. Look at last year’s order history to know how much inventory you should stock. It may even be worth the effort to hire seasonal help to get through the season.
Review Your Point of Sales (POS) System
There are a plethora of ways for shoppers to purchase goods these days. Cash, credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and contactless payments are the most popular but far from the only ways to pay. Reviewing your POS system to ensure it accepts these kinds of payments through a single station is very important, as each individual station will need to process each kind of payment several times a day. Keeping your POS system up to date will keep the lines moving as your shoppers use their preferred check out method.
Plan Into the New Year
It won’t feel like “normal” again until the calendar says 2026, but that doesn’t mean your store is off the hook from the holiday season just yet. Post-season shopping with gift cards and customers searching for discounted goods that didn’t make it off the shelves will be sure to pop in and increase your store’s foot traffic. Planning into the new year to account for the late crowd of customers will help your store out in the long run.
Sources
https://www.retaildoc.com/blog/things-you-should-do-to-get-your-store-ready-for-the-holidays
https://www.sba.gov/blog/2023/2023-10/how-prepare-your-small-business-holidays
https://www.uschamber.com/co/start/strategy/black-friday-tips-for-small-businesses
https://blog.clover.com/the-ultimate-2024-retail-store-holiday-checklist
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