Preparing for Christmas sales – Maximising your customer base

The run up to Christmas presents plenty of opportunity for your jewellery business both to make sales and to build your customer base for the future. But doing that means being prepared now even if the festive season seems a long way off. So in the second of our Christmas preparation posts we’re looking at getting the best out of previous sales.

During the run up to Chistmas it is important time to think about repeat customers as well as new ones – both attracting back existing customers and creating new repeat customers for the future. This is all about information gathering – you use the information from past sales to contact existing customers and collect details about new sales so you can attract people back in the future.T

When you sell online you receive quite a lot of information about customers which you can collate into a mailing list. If you sell through fairs and markets, it is a good idea to have a clipboard on your stall where you ask customers to put down their contact details – point out that you may sometimes do special offers they might want to hear about. You can also ask people who admire your work but don’t buy if they would like to be on your mailing list. This gives you the opportunity to remind them of what you do in the future.

You need to put your mailing list information into a spreadsheet or collect it in an e-newsletter app like mailchimp.com. Creating a spreadsheet may sound a lot less exciting than making new pieces but it will really help to drive your sales.

As the festive season approaches send out an email newsletter – or flyers by post depending on the information you have about your customers – to tell your customers about any special offers and information on where your work can be bought, for example the markets you’ll be at, or a reminder of your shop’s web address.

Christmas offers

If you want to do a special offer for previous customers think about what would help them out this Christmas. For example you could produce a voucher or code that entitles the customer to free gift wrapping for their purchases. You could make a small charge to other customers if you wanted to offer the service more widely. Make sure you are good at wrapping though.

Or you could offer a discount if customers spend more than a certain amount with you. This may mean they are attracted to sets of jewellery or decide to buy more than once gift with you. And if you tell them the discount is your gift to previous customers, they will feel special.

Whatever you decide, now is a good time to start planning newsletters, flyers and vouchers.

And the best of luck with all your Christmas sales