Nick Whitmore, Managing Director of falseeyelashes.co.uk, speaks to us about how he copes with Christmas and lessons he’s learned from 2012.
Questions devised by Martina Mercer
When do you start to consider Christmas? What is your D Day?
Because the products we stock tend to be used for Christmas parties as opposed to actual Christmas gifts, our D Day is as early as the end of October when the first few Christmas parties occur.
What measures do you take to prepare for this (hopefully) profitable, busy time of year?
The main measure we have to take is to ensure we’ve got enough stock in our warehouse – usually everything else just falls into place. Without the correct stock however a lot can go wrong. We start building up stock levels from the end of August to meet demand throughout Oct/Nov/Dec.
Do you take on extra staff to help with the orders, enquiries and customer service?
No, although this year may be the first year that we do. Usually it’s all hands on deck and we might start a little earlier to tackle the orders we receive. Most of the year as the MD I perform administrative duties and hold meetings with suppliers – over the Christmas period I work the floor with everyone else, which is another pair of hands to help out.
What day before Christmas is your busiest?
Usually the first Monday in December when everyone has been paid and when Christmas party season is well underway. Sales throughout November and December are usually pretty consistent.
Are the sales as important as Christmas itself?
As an online retailer selling across multiple channels it’s very difficult for us to coordinate sales – to date we’ve never held any type of sales at any time of the year.
What sort of sales and discounts do customers expect?
We don’t run sales, but year round we release discount codes on our social media channels – anything from 10% to 25% – customers are always very receptive to these.
What extra marketing should retailers invest in at Christmas?
It depends entirely upon your niche. It’s not really “marketing” but this year we’re taking a stall in the local shopping precinct in the run up to Christmas. The stall will be heavily branded with our website URL and the hope is customers will purchase from us online when the stall is removed in late December.
What marketing tricks work? Prize giveaways, Christmas countdowns?
The best marketing tricks in our experiences are to gain exposure in magazines and in blogs. It’s the time of year when people are looking hard for gift ideas, and for the latest fashions and accessories to don to parties. We really push our exposure in magazines and online at this time of year.
Does customer interaction increase at this time of year?
There’s a noticeable increase in customer interaction on social media over the festive period.
What are you doing differently this year to last?
This year we’re selling via a few more channels and we’ve got a much bigger range of products in our inventory. We’re giving our customers more choice, offering a faster more efficient service that we did previously, and we’re gaining maximum exposure by selling across as many channels as possible.
Have you introduced services or technology to make Christmas easier/more profitable?
Last year we introduced a premium piece of inventory management software around November. We introduced it too late and it caused us a lot of issues with those teething problems you’d expect. This year we’ve not introduced anything new to the business and if we do so in the future it’ll be around the summer time, giving the technology time to bed in and time for staff to become familiar with it, before Christmas is upon us.
Have you embraced mobile technology or click and collect for Christmas this year?
Our website is optimised for use on mobile devices. Our site last year wasn’t, so we’re hoping this will make things easier for our customers.
How did you use social media last year and how will you use it this year?
We didn’t do anything of note on social media last year, this year we’ll be looking to run a few competitions and just get into the spirit of things with our followers.
Can you let us in on your delivery best practice? How can you guarantee Christmas deliveries this year?
We work with the Royal Mail and a couple of couriers. Most items are sent by standard Royal Mail delivery, however we do offer time definite services for customers that need a guaranteed delivery date.
Are you prepared for inclement weather? Snowfall, ice and royal mail difficulties?
Yes we are – our staff live fairly close to our office, so unless the weather is particularly bad, we’ll be able to get in. The only thing we can’t prepare for is Royal Mail difficulties – there’s no alternative for us to use in reality.
Difficulties with the Royal Mail will include the selloff which is allegedly going to be the cause of a strike or two by postal workers. If this happens our business will be paralyzed – but then again so will others. Sadly it’s beyond our control.
How do you meet Christmas demands without becoming distracted from day to day business?
It’s the same year round but at Christmas we really start to see an increase in the volume of orders we receive. We have the infrastructure and staff in place to deal with a surge in orders and it’s something we’ve successfully dealt with from the beginning.
We just order in more stock to deal with the increased number of orders – there’s not too much to distract us from day to day business in that respect.
How much are you planning to spend this year on marketing/delivery?
From a marketing perspective, probably around 10 times more than last year – we’re using different/more marketing methods this year. In terms of delivery costs I’d expect us to double our spend – a combination of Royal Mail price hikes and a year on year increase in the number of orders.
What returns are expected?
Around our usual level of 0.5%. We don’t envisage any difference regardless of the time of year, mainly because of the type of products we sell.
What advice would you give to new etailers who are facing their first Christmas rush?
Ensure you’ve got enough stock to actually sell to customers. Then ensure you’ve got the infrastructure in place to deal with a spike in orders. Once you’ve got the stock and infrastructure in place it’s just a case of hiring and training staff.
The first Christmas rush is always the hardest to deal with – you’ve got no benchmark to work from when trying to make sales projections. Once you have your first Christmas under your belt things are a lot easier in the future.
Did anything go wrong in 2012 that you can laugh about now?
I ordered about five months’ worth of stock in November by mistake. I was supposed to put in a big order, but not a ridiculously massive order like that! Needless to say, we didn’t run out of stock – but I did wonder how we’d pay the invoice. We got through it though and I’m no longer in charge of doing the ordering, even though I’m the boss!
For more, visit: www.falseeyelashes.co.uk
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