We all know the major national holidays. We have July 4th – Independence Day, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day and more.
In April 2015 Emily Refermat posted Merchandising With National Days. She recommended that you capitalize on the wide range of national days (or weeks or months) on the National Day Calendar. You should be very active in creating events around national holidays and some of these other unofficial national days. It can create a bit of excitement and improve the “same-old” lunch and break-period customer experience.
Don’t forget Super Bowl Sunday. Wait a minute, that’s not a holiday. That’s true on an official basis. It has become one of the biggest “holiday” weekends (if not the biggest) for supermarkets, delivery pizza, packaged snacks and so many more products. It’s the culmination of the NFL season and a great reason to have a party.
Two other “holiday” events are connected to Thanksgiving weekend. One is Black Friday – when the pre-Christmas sales kick into high gear. The other is Cyber Monday – the beginning of the surge in on-line shopping for holiday purchases.
There’s another opportunity you might want to consider. Create a holiday on your own. You’re thinking “There he goes again. What does this have to do with my business?” It’s time to change your perspective about the weekly calendar. Go find ways to drive more traffic at your vending, micro market, OCS and onsite foodservice locations.
July 12th was Amazon Prime Day – an unofficial holiday created by the folks at Amazon exclusively for their Prime members. On July 13th CNBC reported that Amazon had its’ “biggest sales day ever.” Amazon’s business is obviously different from yours. But the lesson is really clear. You can create excitement for your shoppers, engage their interest and drive big sales increases.
An easy one is to celebrate the anniversary of “your company’s birthday.” You can offer a special deal on a two-item or three-item purchase. Or maybe offer a special price on some popular products. Discounting the price of everyday products is NOT on my list of favorite promotional practices – but there are times it can work for you.
Be alert to local events in the cities and towns where you are operating. Can you support a local charitable drive by donating a percentage of daily sales? How about celebrating the company anniversary of your clients? Bring in cake and ice cream for everyone. Yes, it will cost you some sales that day. The goodwill and positive feelings you create should lead to more traffic and an increase in repeat sales.
After all, it comes down to selling more stuff.
