How would you handle slow sales or seasonal slump? 📉

[tranguyen]

Hey everyone 👋!

Today, we would love to learn...

How would you handle slow sales or seasonal slumps?

Can't wait to read everyone's replies!

[DomOfTheNorth]

Depends on where and what you're selling. A few things that can help in general - in my opinion of course:

1) Freshen up your photography or marketing. Having the same "everything" can get stale after while.

2) Create a new product altogether to generate some additional sales. Sometimes that idea on the back burner might need to moved to the front of the line.

3) Reach out to previous customers. Check in on them by phone or by email. See how they're doing. Offer them a discount on their next order or tell them about a new product.

4) Might need to clean up your pricing a little bit and make sure it works for this "nervous" economic climate. If you're able to, drop your prices a little bit.

5) Slow sales? Perfect time to get innovative. Sure, sounds a lot like number 2 but really, slow times are really good for creating something new, adding on to something existing, designing a new website, a new marketing campaign, cleaning up your books, straightening up or freshening up your office or workspace, designing some new marketing plan, etc.

6) Check and see if where you're selling is relevant. Sometimes its now the hip cool place that buyers are buying from and people are starting to buy from other spots.

Try those things. I hope they help! They often work for us.

[Doran]

I like to use down time to work on a project I don't usually have time for.  So right now I'm looking at a new location and a few new services and a treatment room remodel.  

[TCSlaguna]

Spend the extra time trying to enhance the customer experience. Move products around, new paint, better lighting, streamline the checkout experience. Reach out to local hotels, other businesses, and newspapers to collaborate and offer special deals.

[Lovewell]

Normally when we have slow seasons we will cut back on how many team members we have scheduled to save on payroll. Or if the day is slower we will take that as an opportunity to get things done that may have been put off while we are busier. i.e. organizing, doing a more deep clean of certain area of the shop. Working on new menus.

Normally the first few months of the year are slow for us but we have been blessed to have an incredibly busy last couple weeks and hope it continues to stay steady through spring/ summer.

[TPCITHACAMI]

Definitely all that has already been mentioned, but we also drum up fun monthly events! An invite only to repeat customers to preview new product first; or an event that brings the community together such as fundraising for a local foundation (donating portions of sales to it) for example; bump up marketing, engagement posts on social media and just playing catch up on slow days! 

[DomOfTheNorth]

That's definitely a good one.

[lawnbrook]

Our goal for this year is to build a loyalty/marketing list that we can rely on during these times to direct special offers at over slump periods to ease the cashflow.

On top of that, it's pretty much what others have said, keep on top of your staff / produce costs as best you can - and of course make sure you build a buffer during the high season.

Bruce

[BangorSandwich]

We purchased our business during the slow season, so we have been using the time to transition and learn.  It is a restaurant business so we have also been using the time to optimize food cost, focus on minimizing waste, keep labor costs down, and prepare for the busy tourist season that is coming up.

[ReginaRMT]

I try to enjoy the extra time. I also reorganize the space, shred paper and tidy up files.

[MessyMakesArt]

I'm new but I would use the time to go over my website completely and review any changes that may be needed! For example my pricing or designs!

[Michael_L]

Down time can be a gift - help you catch up, improve some things like your marketing or plan and queue up your next few weeks of Instagram posts, that sort of thing. 

If it drags on too long then it's about putting myself in the heads of my clients and seeing what they need, and trying to make sure my name comes up when they go looking for it.

[QuokkaCoffee]

It takes our customer base a while to reset as they come back from the holidays so technically we've been in a slump for a few months now! This year there've been a range of things to counteract that:

• We've been lucky enough however to score some small to medium catering gigs recently to help cashflow instead of just relying on foot traffic.
• Really pushing our iced coffees, smoothies, and milkshakes to complement our hot beverages has worked really well. I remember hemming and hawing last year over whether to get a commercial blender--they're expensive!--but a friend recommended a budget-friendly pro-sumer model that's worked like a charm since we got it.
• Biting the bullet and asking our landlord to install a commercial air conditioner (amortized over the course of our lease) means people are more inclined to stay in-store and buy multiple things over the course of a few hours.
• Running shifts as lean as we can without burning people out has helped a lot too.
• And since we changed coffee suppliers and got access to better whole beans, we've pushed coffee retail sales to make up for the higher upfront costs said supplier charges. 

It's a small cafe and we do what we can. 🙂

[thehappyboothco]

So many great answers here! But maybe one that hasn't been mentioned - recharge. Spend time with your loved ones, and spend some time just "thinking". I'm a big believer in the "Think and Grow Rich" book's philosophy. And, not related to the book, sometimes to solve some of your most challenging problems you need to walk away from them, do something completely different, then come back with a fresh perspective. A seasonal slump might give you time for this.

On a more practical note, reviewing your sales and marketing material, website, contract wording, etc. is certainly a good use of your slow sales time.

[Catchpenny]

We usually plan to close for a few days in January / February to do a refresh on our brick & mortar space. This includes new paint, patching holes, and doing a store floorset. 

We also use January / February to finalize our spring line of products, plan events, build relationships with other businesses, and lay the groundwork for the rest of the year. 

[Smithward]

We're similar. In our first few years of trading we identified times of the year when business was slow regardless of our efforts (we're located in a city where everyone in our target demographic heads out of town for extended holidays in Summer, Easter etc). Initially we thought we'd buck the trend and stay open to pick up customers from other venues who and closed, but we quickly realised that this was actually a time for us to take a break too.

Any other unexpected dips are used to do all the tasks we've postponed. We've found for every lull there's a rush...

[JTPets]

Use the time to get done what you have been putting off

seek out trade show events where you can feature your business to get exposure

work with 3rd parties to address some of your opportunities

refresh your marketing plans

[PartyManiaMD]

The party industry is kind of awkward right now because of economic difficulties. We're currently using this time to evaluate our product offerings, take advantage of seasonal sales our vendors offer, and refresh our product lines. 

The issue was that the last Holiday season was a bit flat so based on our projections we spent too much on Seasonal merchandise versus what we sold. Which translates to less of a buffer for our normal sales cycle and everything is getting so much more expensive. Back when Groupons were a hot thing we'd typically do a groupon and sell thousands of them, nowadays marketing leaves so much to be desired. (instagram/social media doesn't really work for our products or typical shoppers)

I am looking at the logistics of shipping because we get more requests for shipping but it's still something we have to weigh whether it's worth it because of the cost of shipping, logistics of dealing with returns, and frankly dealing with lost shipments/porch pirates.

I wish we had traditional slow seasons but for us we have to turn over the seasonal sections of the store, inventory and pack last seasonal items, and get ready for the next holiday and those are never-ending.

[phillipsrw]

We are push, push, push on marketing. We are fully focussed and engaged on building a solid marketing plan,  loyalty programme and email list, ready for the festive season. We are bucking the trend by dialling back our SM effort using it just for brand awareness and instead focussing our resources on good old traditional marketing methods which we know work. Times like this we need to generate revenue using tried and tested tools without relying on SM algorithms to help if they fancy…too unpredictable and way too experimental in this current environment. 

[Candlestore]

Has anyone had a Blogger contact them to help promote your Business?

I just recently had a Blogger contact me and wanted to promote my  business, as an affiliate.  

Has anyone done this?

Did a Blogger help you out during your slow time?

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

I am not good on the entire Blogging thing and was wondering.

Thanks in advance.

[PartyManiaMD]

Honestly probably a waste of your time especially if it's just a blogger. Even influencers offer questionable returns on investments. Most social media accounts are plagued with fakes/bots and frankly most social media isn't worth the money it costs to advertise on. It's been my experience over the decades that you're basically paying facebook and other social media sites to "let" your existing customers even see your content unless they seek you out. 

Eventually even the large companies realize it's not worth paying for social media advertising because it all becomes white noise to the consumer.

The get rich quick by promoting your product on IG/Facebook IMO doesn't hold a candle to building regulars and growing steadily. It's the same reason I don't put much stock in reviews after having been in the same location for 12+ years.

Unfortunately digital only businesses get to learn the hard way that building a clientele is almost impossible and building a web presence is extremely expensive and has debatable ROI.

Paying influencers/bloggers is a great way to burn money IMO and you even see it if you watch the Shark tank because the companies will talk about how expensive customer acquisition is and it's because of how much "competition" is out there.

You're better off doing local events, networking in your community, and saving your ad spend to reinvest into product. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.