Hello and welcome to September.
For those of you who have seen some of my posts before - you may remember that I did a post in late July actually about planning for Christmas and getting ready for peak.
Well, we are now in September and peak is coming, very quickly.
So today's post is, my super number one tip for retailers about getting reading, and that is to get yourself a PEAK PLANNING calendar set up.
Now, if you haven't already got one - you can go on to my website pto.ie and if you subscribe you can download a free template for a retail peak planning calendar with the some top tips of what to include, but... for those of you who are happy to do a DIY job -your peak training calendar should include anything that is gonna impact trade or be a trade driver. So for example, you'll want to put into the calendar cyber weekend - the 23rd to the 26th of November, really key, getting bigger and bigger every year. And it's a really good prompt to you to start thinking about what your strategy is for cyber weekend. Other really key trading dates - like when does the local Santa arrive / the local Christmas lights get switched on. These are all things that will influence how you are trading. And when do the schools finish up
and when did they go back to school again after the holidays when did the local offices finish up? And Christmas Day actually falls on a Tuesday, this year. So think about how that's going to impact the way trading patterns are.
Also - child benefit day - the last child benefit day before Christmas - really, really busy trading day traditionally. Just as important as a Christmas shopping day or farmers day as it's been called. Trading patterns are starting to really, really change, particularly with the whole cyber weekend so... and that's another post for another day. But those are all really key things to put on to your trading calendar so that you can plan ahead
From an operational point of view. It's also worth you thinking about your refund policy, if you're doing anything extra for Christmas when you're going to start that and when you're going to finish it. When do the banks close / when you need to do your last change order. These all might seem like silly things, but they're things that will actually make your Christmas go smoothly or not. So start plotting all of this out on to a calendar and -
It's a really good basis for a really good peak preparation, so I hope that is helpful to you. If you don't already have a peak trading calendar you can download one from my website. pto.ie . I hope you have a great way.