Can an Outsourcing Model Maximize Holiday Season Sales Revenue?

Improving sales revenues during the holiday season is probably already on your company’s “Wish List.” As much as 90 percent of your total annual sales can occur during the holidays if you are in the retailing business.

Maximizing Holiday Sales Figures

By many accounts, holiday season sales volume continues to increase. For example, Amazon’s Cyber Monday holiday sales figures increased by 39 percent between 2012 and 2013.

How can your company take advantage of these sales trends without hiring more permanent or seasonal employees? One practical and cost-effective answer — Outsourcing.

Which Industries Benefit the Most During Holidays?

Of course, some industries benefit more than others from holiday shopping sales. Here are four examples:

• E-Commerce — Online holiday sales make e-commerce companies a natural beneficiary of last minute holiday deals. Tablets and smartphones represent about 52 percent of online transactions according to IBM, so e-commerce sites need to be “e-consumer friendly” for mobile devices.
• Travel and Hospitality — Holiday travel is big business for even the smallest business involved in hospitality, travel and personal services.
• Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) — Last-minute shoppers are still important holiday shoppers that have money to spend, and lower gas prices mean more money to spend on food at convenience stores, dollar stores and supermarkets.
• Traditional Retail Stores — November and December sales can make or break the year for most retail businesses.

What Goods Contribute to Increased Holiday Sales Volume?

When you are planning ahead for holiday promotions to offer in your business, don’t overlook several classic and time-tested holiday purchases:

1. Books, Games and Music
2. Flowers and Greeting Cards
3. Apparel
4. Electronic Gifts

In addition to adding inventory for specific items, some businesses establish “temporary” sales outlets in shopping malls and special holiday venues such as Christmas tree farms.

Are Merchants Prepared to Meet Customer Demand on Quality and Volume?

In your company’s efforts to increase holiday sales, a common barrier is the “supply chain” — getting what you need when you need it. Meticulous planning is a must! You should think of the logistics issues involved in your supply chain as much more than getting your inventory levels right. The need to hire temporary employees is equally important. What if talented employees are not available? What should you do if you can’t afford to hire more employees?

How to Overcome Seasonal Challenges

If you want to position your business to succeed during holiday sales periods, an outsourcing perspective can help you get where you want to go — increasing holiday seasonal sales without a negative impact on your bottom line. While hiring more employees can help, it is often hard to justify the added costs of training and salaries. How much time do you have to constantly train new employees?

Outsourcing your employment needs is a practical and long-term solution to a recurring problem for many companies of all sizes — how to adapt quickly and cost-effectively to sales fluctuations without losing sales and customers.

What Can Be Outsourced?

In any business, “making a sale” does not happen until many other steps are successfully completed. The problem during holiday sales events is that both you and each of your employees has a limited amount of time and can only do so much. Do you really want “new trainees” to handle what your most skilled employees can’t during the holiday rush?

However, here are three time-consuming and specialized tasks that can be easily outsourced:

• Product Image Editing — Enhancing, cropping and tagging images.
• Product Data Entry Management — Adding product descriptions, codes and pricing information.
• Order Management — Getting the order is the final step in increasing holiday sales.

The last example — order management — is especially conducive to outsourcing if you have the right outsourcing partner. For example, customer database management, payment by telephone and order taking should not be handled by your newest and least-skilled employees.

How to Sell More

Unless you are looking forward to expanding your payroll by adding several (or dozens or hundreds) of new employees, you should take a closer look at how outsourcing holiday employment needs can forever change how you do business.

If you want to do outsourcing right, however, don’t just hire any outsourcing partner. Back Office Pro is the right choice — let us show you how to sell more, save time and save money.

One more thing — please share this article and sign up for our email list. We will keep you informed so you can sell even more!

– BackOfficePro