The first year I had a booth, I held onto those beliefs. I didn't sell a whole lot of holiday items that year. I had tons to pack up, even after the Christmas sales were over.
The next year, I had loads of beautiful Christmas treasures. I wanted to make sure they sold. By the first of November, I had very few Thanksgiving or Fall items left in my booth. I didn't want to leave my booth looking drab all month, so I decided to jump the gun and bring out all the holiday items.
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| I put tons of Christmas decor in my booth on Nov 2. |
What a surprise! My Christmas decor sold like hotcakes right away. They were pretty things, so that was partially the reason they sold so well. But there was more to it than that.
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| This was all that was left of my holiday decor by Nov 26. |
By Thanksgiving, I didn't have much Christmas decor left. Some other vendors were just putting out their decor and it was very pretty. Unfortunately they were late. Sales on Christmas items slowed down after Thanksgiving. What's up with that?
As I unpacked my own things to decorate my home, I had a revelation. I unpacked lots of my own holiday decor, coming across things I forgot I had. I felt overwhelmed by my holiday accumulations. I had enjoyed looking at the holiday things in stores in November, but now, I knew I didn't need to buy ANYTHING else. I'll bet lots of customers feel that way.
My advice for vendors - put out Christmas items in early November. This is NOT your home. This is a business. A business needs to stay ahead of the holidays. In December, mark down anything that's left ... unless you have plenty of storage space to keep it for the following year.
Don't just listen to me. Major stores have studied sales practices for years and years. Lots of high dollar research has gone into the decisions they make about when to put out things. Vendors can learn from them.
This article is a little late to help you this year, but remember it for next! As for now, if your Christmas decor isn't on sale, get yourself over to your booth asap and mark down anything you don't want to take back home after Christmas!!!