Trying to clear out inventory and offering sales at the end of the calendar year is not a tactic JUST reserved for large department stores and retail corporations. You can appropriate this sales technique for your small home business too. You don’t even have to be in a product oriented business to make it work…
If you are in direct sales or produce and/or sell a product then it might make more sense to you to consider an end-of-the-year sale. People tend to be spending money at this time of year and seemingly more discretionary income to spend so it might be to your advantage to get in on some of the action. If you have products or services that would make great holiday gifts then you should definitely come up with a sales plan for this time of year.
If your small home business is service-oriented, you can still offer a special “holiday season” or winter discount. You may also be able to come up with a gift angle for a service. For example, if you clean houses, or provide organizing services, or even offer music lessons—you can design a gift package with gift certificates and market it to customers and prospects. People will likely need you to tell them what a great gift your services would be!
The basic tips to conducting any sort of successful sale are to come up with something appealing—it doesn’t have to be complicated, even $20 off until December 31st constitutes a reasonable end-of-the-year sale—and you need to make sure that you do the marketing so that people know what is going on. Web site, flyers, direct mail, postcards, etc. are all good ways—just make sure you spell out the discount or sale specifics so there won’t be any confusion. For a sale or discount campaign THIS year, you should get going since the “shopping season” is already under way!
Also: Closing Out the Year
Knowing When to Buy In and Out of Season