Getting Your Altru Merchandise Department Ready for the Holidays
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The holidays are right around the corner!
One of the first things I think about when summer ends is that the holiday season is right around the corner. The reason this comes to mind is that I spent 9 years as the Director of Sales at the New Theater Restaurant in Overland Park, KS. During the months of November and December we entered our yearly gift certificate campaign, and I needed the month of October to prepare the database and train temporary employees how to complete sales transactions. In other words the end of summer was always my queue to get prepared for the holidays.
What are you doing to prepare your Altru merchandise sales for the upcoming holiday season? Here are some ideas that might help increase merchandise revenue sales and make life a little easier during a busy time of the year.
Get Inventory Out of the Way: You do not want to be working on inventory during the middle of the holiday season. Ensure that you schedule enough time before the busiest time the year to ensure your inventory is up to date and ready for the season. Altru provides the Physical Count Worksheet that allows for easy tracking of inventory by department. This report includes a barcode that can be scanned in your Batch that allows for easy data entry into the system. It is recommended that inventory be completed during a day off so you can get an accurate count of all items and are not activity selling merchandise during this time.
Ensure shipments are planned in Advance: Similar to making sure your inventory is up to date, you want to make sure inventory is ordered to allow enough time for shipments to arrive onsite. Ensure you are using the 'Merchandise Sales' report to average sales over the past months to ensure you have enough product to match demand.
Configure Your Discounts: One of the main benefits of the Altru discount feature is the ability to make discounts available on particular transactions dates. The busiest day for merchandise sales in the United States is the day after Thanksgiving. One of the main reasons is because of the discounts and offers that are provided during this day. Think about creating a discount for merchandise to encourage constituents to visit your gift shop on the weekend after Thanksgiving. You can even create multiple discounts by time of the day to encourage more people to shop earlier in the day. This does not only drive people to the gift shop but could also lead to larger admission numbers for the weekend. If you already have member discounts for merchandise items consider providing members with a greater discount during the holiday season.
Staff The Shop: One of the main items I got out of the way when I was client was staffing the holiday season. Now this is easier said than done, but if you have employees or volunteers that work a set schedule ensure that you get those individual schedules completed as far in advance as possible. This allows you to concentrate on running the shop and you do not have to worry about creating schedules every week.
Taking these four steps will allow you to concentrate on a successful holiday season and leave plenty of time for all of those holiday parties.
One of the first things I think about when summer ends is that the holiday season is right around the corner. The reason this comes to mind is that I spent 9 years as the Director of Sales at the New Theater Restaurant in Overland Park, KS. During the months of November and December we entered our yearly gift certificate campaign, and I needed the month of October to prepare the database and train temporary employees how to complete sales transactions. In other words the end of summer was always my queue to get prepared for the holidays.
What are you doing to prepare your Altru merchandise sales for the upcoming holiday season? Here are some ideas that might help increase merchandise revenue sales and make life a little easier during a busy time of the year.
Get Inventory Out of the Way: You do not want to be working on inventory during the middle of the holiday season. Ensure that you schedule enough time before the busiest time the year to ensure your inventory is up to date and ready for the season. Altru provides the Physical Count Worksheet that allows for easy tracking of inventory by department. This report includes a barcode that can be scanned in your Batch that allows for easy data entry into the system. It is recommended that inventory be completed during a day off so you can get an accurate count of all items and are not activity selling merchandise during this time.
Ensure shipments are planned in Advance: Similar to making sure your inventory is up to date, you want to make sure inventory is ordered to allow enough time for shipments to arrive onsite. Ensure you are using the 'Merchandise Sales' report to average sales over the past months to ensure you have enough product to match demand.
Configure Your Discounts: One of the main benefits of the Altru discount feature is the ability to make discounts available on particular transactions dates. The busiest day for merchandise sales in the United States is the day after Thanksgiving. One of the main reasons is because of the discounts and offers that are provided during this day. Think about creating a discount for merchandise to encourage constituents to visit your gift shop on the weekend after Thanksgiving. You can even create multiple discounts by time of the day to encourage more people to shop earlier in the day. This does not only drive people to the gift shop but could also lead to larger admission numbers for the weekend. If you already have member discounts for merchandise items consider providing members with a greater discount during the holiday season.
Staff The Shop: One of the main items I got out of the way when I was client was staffing the holiday season. Now this is easier said than done, but if you have employees or volunteers that work a set schedule ensure that you get those individual schedules completed as far in advance as possible. This allows you to concentrate on running the shop and you do not have to worry about creating schedules every week.
Taking these four steps will allow you to concentrate on a successful holiday season and leave plenty of time for all of those holiday parties.
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11/24/2014 9:06am EST
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