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Holiday retail ideas

By Becky McCray

Small town retailers are getting ready for the 2010 holiday season, and we are all wondering, how will it go?

I can’t answer that, but I can tell you a few things you can do right now to set yourself up for the best holiday season possible.

Thanksgiving wine display
First, dress up your store for Thanksgiving. Make a human connection with real people who miss seeing Thanksgiving get any attention. Focus on family, connection, togetherness. Our liquor store always has a “wine for Thanksgiving dinner” display.

Second, make a plan to reach out to your customers during the holidays. If you use traditional advertising or nontraditional online tools, make a plan, have a theme, and work extra hard to connect with people. Too many of us lurch through the season with no plan, saying yes to random offers to buy ads or just reusing old ideas and old ads. Spend the time to make this year different and better. Call up a retail-minded friend and brainstorm!

Third, set holiday hours for your customers’ convenience. The decisions you make about hours play a huge role in your total sales. If you are closed during weekends, you are missing out on big opportunities. You may need to get tough with yourself and your helpers and expand hours this season.

For those up against the big boxes and the online competitors, review these four ways to beat bigger competitors. They are especially relevant in the holidays.

Last year, John Tozzi with BusinessWeek asked for my ideas for holiday promotions. He shared some of my best ideas about shop local and authenticity as a key holiday promotion.

Now I’m asking you. What are your ideas to make this a terrific sales year?

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
  • In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
  • Economic self defense for small towns  - June 7, 2020

October 18, 2010 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, rural, Small Biz 100 Tagged With: retail

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  1. Keri Morgret says

    October 22, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    Make sure your business is findable online, and included in the local directories. I will sometimes skip over going to a business if I can’t find its hours (or phone number!) online, and instead go in person to a business that does have that information online.

    A good post today about local listings appeared at http://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-business-listing-wars/25045/.

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