Using Sales To Drive Profits (2/2)
Your business exists for a purpose — and your sales should always help to serve that purpose. For example, a pet photographer’s business serves a purpose of providing timeless images for pet owners — the photographer’s *sale* should serve the purpose of getting more business from pet owners. When a small business launches a sale for the sake of the sale; there is no ethos or plan for that sale to lead to reoccurring business afterwards.
Purposeless sales are how businesses find themselves only getting business from more, purposeless sales. Without purpose, customers become trained to only shop with you when it seems and is advantageous to them. The business owner, in kind, becomes trained to think they will only get business from the sale — and so, a cycle is formed. Whereas, with purpose, your sale will help you gather useful data and entice customers to what the business will make available (at full-price) next.
How do we break this cycle within our own business?
A good way to gauge what product is best to list on sale; is to be honest about what inventory has not been moving. If “Inventory A” is taking up space that could hold an item that would sell at a more valuable clip; list “Inventory A” for sale. Do not hold onto something just because it is hard to understand why other’s do not value it, the same way your business does. That would be akin to hoarding.
Be strategic and list the sale at a time and season that the desired demographic will provide the most traffic to your business. If the season is not optimal but you want to list inventory now before it loses further value — you have to be all the more prudent to list and market your sale in a way that entices the consumer. An example of this can be found all over a place like Walmart.
During the winter season, there tends to be an emphasis of sales placed on summer wear. Because even large chains like Walmart can struggle with moving inventory at times. Keeping this in mind will help you place a sale without taking it personal, this would impact your ability to persevere and use the sale to drive profits.
Additionally, the word “sale” does not have to mean a lack of profit. Please read this carefully; the word “sale” just means how much a business is listing an item/service for. It does not mean how much the item directly cost the business to produce.
For example;