It’s almost November, and if you’re not already running around like a headless chicken preparing for the holiday season, you will be soon! Here’s some tips that’ll help get your small business get prepared.

1. Create an attack plan: Have you started on that sales strategy yet for the holidays? Don’t wait too long! Your competition will start capturing your customers soon if you do not have a good plan!  According to this article from the fantastic Inc Magazine, your approach to the holidays should be planned for all year long.  So, if you haven’t started….what are you waiting for?
2. Localize for your target audience: If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re a small business owner. If you’re a small business owner, chances are that you have a presence within your own community.  So, are there any local traditions, events and meetings that you can take into account when making your attack plan?  For example, say your community has a tradition of caroling every year or a large holiday event. Then, you might try to create a branding plan around those events or offer services/products that cater to those events to help you get your name out.
   
3. Build a base: Be involved in your community. If you’re good with tip 2, you can probably skip this one. If  you don’t have a presence, start building one… now.  Also ramp up the social interactions in Twitter and Facebook.  Now is the time to connect with customers and potential customers using these social tools.
4. Consider sponsorships: Do something for the community. Perhaps sponsor a festival or some type of talk. Or if there’s a university nearby, get involved in some of their events.  This is a great way to give back to the community and also get your business name out there so you are top of mind when people are shopping.
5. Stock up on “bestsellers”: Stock up on products your customer wants. Once the holiday season gets rolling, it’s all about the items.  Try and order extra too. That way, you might not run out if an item turns out to be more popular than expected.
6. Be the best: This is the time when you get to interact with a lot of potential customers either on your website, through social media or in person in your store. Remember at all times make sure you, your business and your employees present a good image that way you give a reason for those customers to come back.
7. Try new marketing tricks: This is a good time to experiment with offers, advertising and even some fun videos about your business and product/service. Who knows, one of the things you try may help you in the future and create some buzz around your small business.
8. Be accommodating: This is a busy time for everyone. Try and be flexible about requests, questions and issues that arise with your customers. If they ordered something and there was a problem, try to be as accommodating as possible. You want these customers to come back.  The customer is always right….especially around the holidays!

Hopefully, these tips will help you. Good luck and have a great holiday season!

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An interesting phen0menon occurred during the kickoff of the holiday shopping season (two phenomenons, actually, if you count the fact that I found a sweater that doesn’t make me look fat).  With most of the focus on the bricks-and-mortar retail sales, which appear to be up very modestly, online sales on both “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” were very strong.  So there is a big question hanging out there (besides the question if 40 is really the new 30 — man, I hope so) — Is Cyber Monday the new Black Friday?

In terms of raw numbers, of course Cyber Monday hasn’t yet replaced the mall.  But in terms of predictiveness, which is more predictive?  Year over Year, offline sales for Black Friday were up 1.6%, with YOY online sales on Black Friday being up approximately 11%.  Then big event, Cyber Monday, showed a 5% increase from 2008 and is the biggest day of sales since tracking of this hallowed day began five years ago. 

So what gives? Are we going to have a flat or booming holiday season?  While the numbers cited above are interesting, there is only one way to handle this type of question in the blog world…anecdotal information!  My brother was in town and, according to my wife, his winter coat was from the 1980s.  While retro is good, you actually have to buy new clothes that look old…it just doesn’t work holding onto your old stuff. 

We hit the malls and it was busy, but according to the Nordstrom and Macy’s sales staff, the Black Friday crowd was similar to a normal Saturday crowd.  There’s not a lot of inventory for winter wear, so we head to REI.  We find the coat, but Dang! it’s pricey.  Being good shoppers, we use the time to find a jacket type my brother likes and my wife barely approves (he’s now moved up to the late 1990s). 

We then go home and hit the online sites for deals.  We find the coat on a great site, BackCountry.com, get 25% off with free shipping (you should check out their blog).  So the offline retail stores acted as a very expensive closet that then benefited the online site.  So, according to my exhaustive research, I think the initial numbers are misleading, and we will have a surprisingly good holiday season.

What are you seeing out there?  Also, is it time for you to update your winter wear?

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Here’s the first KikScore report on the holiday shopping season. Based on our research, there should be an uptick in activity. What am I basing this on? The fact that DC airport is packed today and my flight was oversold. Also, I’m sitting on a plane right now and have asked a couple of folks if they are going to spend more money this year. They didn’t really respond to me, but I sensed that they plan on buying more. Except the weird guy in 10A. The only thing he looks like he’s in the market for is a shovel for all the bodies he likely has stashed in his basement.
Ok. Not very throrough research, but it will get better. Also, feel free to send in your non-scientific polling/economic data.

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We here at KikScore are pleased to announce our new seasonal feature — Panda Watch!  No, actually, it’s going to be Shopping Watch!  We’re going to poll our customers, readers as well as gather our own anecdotal information (at the mall, online stats) to measure how this holiday season is going for everyone.  We’re assembling our crack Channel 4 News Team to gather data.  But just in case Papa Burgundy (that would be Raj) can’t gather all the relevant info, please send us your view of how this holiday shopping season is going.  Also send us your favorite AnchorMan scene.  Here’s a best of clip:best of anchorman.

Stay Classy!

Brian Fantana

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No Black Friday is not every Friday during the NFL Football season before yet another Cleveland Browns loss. If you are an online retailer, you really know what Black Friday is and what it means for your business.  We at KikScore wanted to pass along this very good article on dealing with shopping cart abandonment before Black Friday.  Some interesting statistics from the article are:

• Shopping cart abandonment can result in a loss of 70% of a merchant’s potential sales.
• Merchants that take steps to proactively address shopping cart abandonment by re-marketing to shoppers who abandon their shopping cart can recoup up to 50 percent of the losses from those abandonments
• SeeWhy’s Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Charles Nicholls says that if you re-market through email within hours of the shopper’s abandonment,  merchants can get up to a fifty percent checkout rate on those abandonments

With Black Friday coming, the lesson learned is if you can take proactive steps to address those shopping cart abandonments through re-marketing, you can turn those abandonments into conversions.  That will make Black Monday much better than Orange and Brown Sundays after another Cleveland Browns loss!!!!

Tell us if you have any ideas or suggestions for addressing shopping cart adandonment in the comments.

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