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Views from Across the Pond
Monday, Feb. 14, 2011, 5:40 p.m. EST
Choose a Celebration to Boost Pond Store Traffic, Sales
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Text and photos by Trevor Cole
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| On National Popcorn Day (January 19) we offer free popcorn all day long. |
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| Our football display for fall |
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| Halloween displays | The month of February is full of celebrations from Chinese New Year to Valentine’s Day to Black History Month. March brings us Mardi Gras, Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. April includes April Fool’s Day and Earth Day. In fact, every month offers a plethora of events and holidays.
My wife Jeannie decorates for most of the holidays, and if any of them calls for a gift, she’s first in line to find something creative and thoughtful. Jeannie likes for everything to be ‘an event,’ and I bet we all have customers who feel the same way. Are we taking advantage of these opportunities to draw people in to our stores?
Whether you set out at the beginning of the year armed with a list of holidays and a sales plan to promote them or you host impromptu events as you go, it’s easy to find a reason to whip up some in-store excitement. People like celebrations, and they like to feel that they are getting a special deal. Combine the two and you can’t go wrong.
Dress the store up and follow a theme. It can be something as commonplace as a President’s Day Sale or as whimsical and last-minute as an It’s Raining Today special. Traditional holidays are on everyone’s calendar. Most customers are conditioned to expect good sales for these events. You can easily ride the coattails of pre-existing media hype to promote any type of sale during these times, but there also is an array of lesser-known holidays and celebrations to which you can tie a sale:
- Free popcorn for customers on National Popcorn Day (January 19)
- 10 percent off anything red for Valentine’s Day (February 14) or National Heart Month (February)
- All items featuring a rabbit -- from statuary to greeting cards -- 20 percent off during the two weeks of Chinese New Year (February 3–18), Year of the Rabbit.
The idea is to attract people to your pond and water garden store. Regardless of whether it’s an end-of-the-year clearance sale or a nominal special, be creative. It does not mean you have to heavily discount, just make customers aware of the different merchandise that you sell.
For gift-giving holidays, such as Mother’s Day and Graduation, offer gift ideas. We don’t sell the tradition box of chocolate, but we can highlight unique gifts for any occasion. Around Easter, we hang painted eggs from our birdfeeders. In October, we dress some of our garden statuary in Halloween costumes. You get the idea.
Check out your inventory and identify items you want to move. Find a common thread and a theme. Identify a holiday, event or celebration and craft an e-mail shot or media ad around it. Then invite customers to join you while you kick up your heels to the ring of the cash register.
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