What to do when sales are down…
The financial and emotional rollercoaster that is the life of an online retail business owner is certainly not one for the faint-hearted. One month you’re planning on buying a small island, and the next you’re scraping pennies together to pay for the next round of stock. It’s in these tougher moments that you really need to know what to do when sales are down, because they will dip, and having a plan in place can make all the difference.
If you, like me, sell seasonal products such as resort wear (Summer product), or Cashmere (Winter product), Christmas decorations (Christmas product… obvs) you will experience huge peaks and troughs in sales, and managing cash flow rapidly becomes as fun as a double root canal.
After riding this feast or famine roller coaster for over 6 years now, I want to share a few strategies that continue to work for me.
1. Make an offer to your current audience.
If you have ever heard me harp on about the importance of list building, the reason is simple.
Nothing works better than making an offer to your list. Your list = primed customers, “warm leads” that are often waiting for a special promotion or incentive from you to jump online and add-to-cart!
Thanks for being on our list promo:
A strategy we find effective at iland co. is offering our VIP subscribers a $25 gift voucher to use within a set period of time. We send 3 automated emails to our list. Firstly letting them know of the offer, and how to use it. The second is a reminder that their voucher will expire soon, and a final reminder on the last day telling them it’s about to expire.
Whether you want to set a minimum purchase amount or exclude certain items is absolutely up to you, but do remember the more restrictions, the fewer conversions you will receive. If you’re after a fast cash injection, I’d suggest a minimum spend of approximately $60-$80 but include all products. Call it a “storewide offer”.
48 hour Flash Sale:
Think about other promotions or special offers you could market to your audience that would be irresistible to them. Perhaps it’s a flash sale, discounting everything on your site for a short period of time. Or perhaps it’s a further discount on sale items, for a limited time.
Keep in mind, you want the offer to be too good to refuse. The aim is to move stock and raise cash fast!
When wondering what to do when sales are down, these targeted list-building offers and flash sales can be your best tools. The goal is to make an offer too good to refuse—move stock and raise cash fast!
2. Find New Customers
Are you trying to push summer products in the dead of winter? Yep, me too! Sometimes we need to look outside our current location and find new customers who are in the correct climate for our products.
We must ramp up our paid ads to regions that are in opposite seasons to us during our quiet time of year. These customers are in the market for Spring or Summer clothing, while our usual local customers are shopping for knits.
Targeted paid advertising makes it easy to zoom in on specific locations and audiences, so test out some ads to new demographics. Be sure to speak to your customers in relation to where they are in terms of season, and stage of their buying journey. Promote products that are relevant to them right now and consider offering an incentive such as free shipping or a fast action discount to test conversion on this new audience.
3. Explore New Sales Channels
If your traffic and sales are down on your own website, it’s time to seek out where your ideal customers might be hanging out online. Maybe they’re shopping on eBay or Amazon, and you have some slow-moving stock you’d like to clear cheaply there. Or perhaps your ideal customers prefer platforms like Etsy or Hard to Find. Try listing your products there—meet them where they already shop.
When wondering what to do when sales are down, exploring new sales channels can open fresh opportunities and boost your revenue.
However, if sales continue to flounder, there might be bigger issues with your business, product, or website. You could be making one of the top 5 mistakes I often see new eCommerce business owners make. If this sounds familiar, be sure to download my free guide to learn how to overcome these mistakes and avoid them in the future. Download the guide here.
I hope you found these tips helpful! They’re just a taste of what I teach in my coaching program, Online Store Success. The program will be back this July with limited spots available, so be sure to join the waitlist [here] to be the first to know when enrolment opens!
