Soon, the days of back-to-school shopping will be upon you. Since school wrapped up for the summer in June, your shelves have not seen much depletion of books, pencils, pens and the like, but you know that will all change shortly. You can plan for this major surge of customers starting now.
Don’t Waste Time
Advertisements for back-to-school shopping are already in the circulars and online. Also, plenty of shops have already started with their sales, so you need to start on your efforts as soon as possible. Developing new marketing campaigns is at the heart of this plan. Decide what the crux of this year’s sales will be. For example, you might want to use the basic premise of an old campaign, but expand it to include new technologies or styles of teaching. Reaching out to your target audience is crucial to do right now since other businesses already doing it.
Stock the Latest Technologies
No matter how long it’s been since you’ve been in school yourself, you need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in classrooms. Technology is growing an ever increasingly important part of the classroom experience, so you don’t just want to have traditional learning materials for students. Find out what classroom teachers are using and be sure to keep those items in stock. Students also need to have equipment, such as computers and reliable printers, at home to help them complete their assignments, so keep these items in your store as well.
Obtain Local School Lists
As a small business, you want to reach out to the people in the immediate community. Find out if any of the schools are able to provide you with their lists of supplies. If any of the employees at your company have children in the schools, then you will have a very good idea of what the students will need. If, for example, you stock up on supplies that the students are going to receive from their teachers, then you might find that you are having a difficult time making sales this year.
Offer Sales and Price Reductions
Failure to offer a back-to-school sale special means that you are going to have trouble keeping up with the competition. Plenty of stores offer specials and cut back on their prices for the big of end of summer events. By avoiding these types of sales, shoppers are going to head to other stores where the prices are lower. Furthermore, offering sales on all types of supplies can mean that shoppers come to your store for all of their needs. Extend the sales to include items that may not have traditionally been included with back-to-school purchases.
Broadening the Scope of Items for Sale
Folders, notebooks, pens, markers, highlights, discs, computer paper and the like are generally going to be a part of the items that students need to purchase when they return to school. However, think about some other items that you could include in your sales that help to attract more attention from buyers. For example, you could include healthy snacks in your lineup this year. Think about activities that students participate in after school. For example, you could also offer sports bags, carriers for musical instruments, plenty of supplies for students who are interested in art and so forth.
Preparing for back-to-school sales is very important for your business. When you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need to start preparing now. Well before September begins, you are going to have to line the shelves and start letting people in the community know about what is going on.