For some retail newsagents today, Christmas is over. They will either be at their shops by now or heading in to be ready for the Boxing Day Sale.
For those of us in a shopping centre with major tenants embracing the Boxing Day Sale opportunity, today and the next few days could be huge. Indeed, for some I expect it will be bigger than Christmas.
We have bought stock especially for the sale starting today. We are able to offer this at a substantial (30% to 50% off retail) and still make over 50% gross profit. This is the key to making these sales work.
We’re not advertising externally except through a customer email campaign which went out yesterday. Being in a centre, we can rely on their marketing and the marketing of the majors to bring in the shoppers. Our job is to get them into our shop and buying.
The shop floor is being reconfigured this morning to sale mode: gone are the Christmas displays. This is all about moving product so value is the key. We are using several discount points to attract shoppers – Christmas cards and wrap – 50% off; Christmas specific gifts – 50% off; other gifts – 25% off; plush (today only) – 25% off; calendars – 30% off and several super-special lines we want to move vast volumes of – 50% off.
We would not usually discount calendars yet but with sales barely the same as last year we want to quit the category as we need the floor space for faster moving lines.
Every customer will have a reason to come back thanks to the discount vouchers they will get on their receipts. We’re out to retail some of the new shoppers we will see and get more $$$ from the out of town shoppers visiting our area.
We will ensure that people walking past don’t see us as a traditional newsagency. We will be a fully engaged part of the Boxing Day sale phenomenon. While the first day is vitally important, the event will run ten days to two weeks. We have stock that will enable us to engage for the duration.
If this year is like previous years we will see benefits for non-discounted categories like magazines and everyday greeting cards.
Our sales target is to match our December 1 – December 24 year on year overall growth of 10%.