2013 After Christmas Sales

By far my strongest selling season is the fall, right before Christmas.  But my second strongest selling season is winter, from the beginning of January through about the end of February.

For items that sell well, I definitely want to have good inventory right after Christmas, and you probably do, too.  This is tricky.  The strongest selling season is just before Christmas, and popular items can easily sell out, but you need to have inventory available at the beginning of January.

The last 2 weeks of the year are also commonly taken off for vacation, so there’s a good chance you’re not in town to place or process orders.  Even if you were, there’s a good chance the manufacturers you order from are closed for much of that time.

My solution has been to stock up my most popular items throughout the summer and early fall not for expected Christmas sales, but a combination of Christmas and winter sales.  Unfortunately this is capital intensive, because you have to purchase inventory for your best six months up front.

Many manufacturers will let you defer payment for 60 or 90 days to help with exactly this kind of cash crunch.  They don’t always volunteer this information, though, so if you have an item that sells extremely well, ask the manufacturer about it.

I want to emphasize, though, that you should only do this for items that you know from personal experience are going to sell well.  The last thing you want is to buy a huge amount of inventory on credit that doesn’t sell.  So don’t take chances with this strategy, only use it for your absolute best sellers.

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I hope you had a great Christmas selling season, and that you’re now enjoying some much-deserved time off.  Let me know how it went, I’d love to hear from you!