"Is Santa's Sleigh Big Enough for YOUR Business?"
Ho, ho, ho, everybody! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!
Yes, it’s here again. The much anticipated, and equally dreaded, Retail
Holiday Season.
While their children’s’ eyes sparkle with glee at the prospect of Toys,
Trees, Candles and Parties, parents and all the other adults who own Internet
Ecommerce Stores eyes’ glint with a nervous twitch at the approach of the
busiest retail season of the year.
‘Will my suppliers be able to handle the load?’ they wonder and worry. ‘Will
I be stuck with orders I can’t fill, and customers unhappy about backorders
this Holiday?’
If you’re a Home-based Internet Business owner, you know just what I mean.
I go through it every year myself. The tremendous amount of buying that
goes on during this season empties Wholesale Suppliers’ warehouses faster
than a fire alarm in a hay barn. Whether you stock and ship products from
your home, or you use Drop Shippers, you can never feel certain that all
your customers’ orders will be filled in a timely manner during this retail
feeding frenzy.
You’re not alone. The Wholesale Suppliers are feeling it too. They’ve already
spent months preparing for the crunch; they began doing so during the late
summer and early fall months. They’ve been analyzing past sales years and
trying desperately to make sure they stock just enough product to carry
them through the Holiday Season, but not so much that they’ll be left with
too much extra in January. They have to balance how much they’ll spend on
stocking their shelves, with how much they anticipate selling through retailers
like you and me. Wholesale Suppliers have bills to pay too. They can’t afford
to simply fill their warehouses with thousands of every single product they
carry.
Here at Worldwide Brands, one of the Customer Service questions we begin
to see in increasing numbers at this time of year is “How can I be sure
that my Wholesale Supplier will be able to supply my orders through the
Holidays?”
Well, that’s certainly a valid question.
The answer is this: You can’t be absolutely sure. That’s the nature of business.
Sometimes you eat the Bear, sometimes the Bear eats you. It’s always been
that way. It’s a normal part of the roller-coaster ride that we retailers,
both online and offline, go through every year. There’s always a chance
that during the Holiday Season, you are going to end up with a few customers
who get backordered.
However, there are definitely a few things you can do to stack the deck
in your favor!
Wholesale Suppliers know how much inventory they have. They also have a
pretty good idea how quickly each product is going to sell. So, don’t just
sit there and wait for the email that finally tells you “We’re sorry, but
the item you ordered is out of stock”.
Be proactive. Take as much control of the situation as you can.
Check with your Supplier
Right about now, retail sales are going to start heating up. Contact your
Wholesale Supplier by email and say, “Right now, I’m carrying these products
of yours in my online store.” (List the products for them). “Please let
me know which products I should continue to advertise throughout the Holidays,
and which ones I should prepare to remove due to possible backorders.”
Any Wholesale Supplier worth their salt will be able to respond and say,
“This product is stocked in very large quantities, that one is fair to middlin’,
and we will probably run out of that other one by the middle of November”.
If they don’t respond in a reasonable amount of time, call them and ask
the same question.
Stay in touch with your Supplier on a regular basis through the Holidays,
and ask that same question every couple of weeks.
Cover yourself on your site
Somewhere on your site, you should say something along the lines of “Please
remember that these great products sell very quickly during the Holidays.
It’s a good idea to order early before they’re gone!”, or something similar.
Your visitors will understand that, and it will help to pace your sales
out more evenly during the Season.
Make sure you have a Backorder Policy in place. Somewhere in your site info,
make it clear that backorders are possible, though rare. Explain to your
visitors what you will do in case of a backorder. Most of the time, it’s
enough just to say that backorders will be shipped immediately upon the
products being returned to stock. Explain that you cannot be responsible
for damages (someone not getting a Holiday gift on time) resulting from
backorders.
Prepare an alternate source
If a product does go out of stock, and you end up with a backorder situation,
chances are you won’t have more than two or three of your customers backordered
before you realize what has happened. If that happens, immediately pull
the product from your site. You can leave the image and description up there,
but make sure you turn off the Sale button. Put a note in the product description
explaining that the product is out of stock, and point your customer to
another similar or complementary product on your site that they might like
instead.
Then, know where to find that backordered product at another store, even
if you have to drive to the local Mall. Buy it, and ship it to your customer.
It doesn’t matter if you pay full retail price for it. It doesn’t matter
if you even lose a couple of dollars to do this. During the Holidays, Customer
Service is King. If your supplier runs out of stock, and you have to buy
a couple of products somewhere else in order to fill a couple of backorders,
be sure to tell the backordered customer what you have done for them. I
guarantee they’ll think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and
they’ll not only be back, they’ll tell their friends. I’ve done this a few
times, and never regretted it.
If you go into the Holiday Season with your eyes wide open and your business
prepared, Santa’s Sleigh will always be full. Or at the very least, it will
always appear to be. :o)
Chris Malta
Worldwide Brands, Inc.
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