Preparing your online jewellery brand for Christmas: 8 Essentials activities to preform this Summer
It may feel far too early to be discussing the C word but it’s never too early to prepare for the festive period. Christmas can be the busiest and most lucrative time of the year but it can also be overwhelming and stressful for small brands or individual jewellers. Every product business should have a plan and spend time preparing for it ahead of time to make sure it’s not only a prosperous period but also manageable.
This list of preparations is by no means exhaustive, there are many more activities you could undertake but these are the essential topics every jewellery brands should consider ahead of Christmas.
1. Analyse Data
If you were trading last year you will have a wealth of sales and engagement data to analyse. Using this info you will be able to better predict the stock you need to make, the marketing activities which work for your brand and the time frames you need to work to. I used to hate data, the thought of running reports was incredibly off putting. But over my years in the jewellery industry I have developed a serious appreciation of the power of data and how essential it is for growing brands.
2. Place orders & prepare Stock
To avoid a more stressful Christmas than necessary you should prepare as much stock as possible. Use last years sales data, or intuition, to determine your bestselling and high ticket items, then stockpile them. Don’t leave it until early November (or worse still, December!) to order things like castings, findings or chains. This can be tricky when considering cashflow but if you have a sales plan you can be sure it will pay off.
3. Create festive imagery
Whether you book a formal photoshoot with a photographer and a model or create content yourself you will need to create some visuals which feel festive. This can really help inspire your potential customers to buy. Make sure to include images of your packaging with this content too. When potential customers are buying gifts, they want to know how the piece will arrive, the more giftable your pieces and packaging are the better.
4. Design for gifting
Consider your product. Can you create some new pieces to launch ahead of Christmas? Having new product just in time when people are thinking about buying will benefit you. These new pieces could be a diffusion range of lower price point pieces which would be an easy choice for those shopping for gifts. Depending on your customer profile, you could consider those customers who will want to invest in a high value piece for those extra special gifts. There will also be many people considering a festive proposal, so ask yourself, can you expand or add to a collection of engagement rings for the occasion?
5. Prepare Festive content
Write some blogs about gifting, create gift guide edits of your products, decide on what emails you want to send and when. Get your potential customers signing up to your mailing list as soon as possible. You can then nurture them enough in the meantime so that they are ready to buy when the festive period comes.
6. Plan your selling activities
Consider what marketing you want to do over the festive period. Can you do a Christmas giveaway? Team up with other brands for pop ups for content creation? Would you consider offering discounts or freebies to mailing list subscribers? Are you willing to partake in worldwide events like Black Friday? The more conversations you can have with potential customers the better.
7. Shout about your order deadlines
Decide on the dates which suit you best for your order deadlines. Promote your last date to commission bespoke pieces. Shout about your last order deadlines, this info needs to be visible everywhere. Have it on your website pop up and banner, social media and emails to your customer list. You do not want to give anyone the excuse to not know your deadlines and miss their chance to buy. Consider splitting your deadlines depending on your customer base. You may only sell within the UK but add in a deadline for EU and the rest of the world (ROTW) too to expand your potential customer base.
8. Festive-ify your website early
Your social media and website should be looking Christmassy as soon as Halloween is over (if not before!). This will depend on your order deadlines of course. You may think as soon as you make a gift guide or blog live or make text changes on your homepage those changes are adding to your Search Engine Optimisation. But this is not the case. It can take up to 6 weeks for Google to discover these pages and changes. If you leave Christmas content too late it may not even take effect until it is out of date. Make changes as soon as possible and familiarise yourself with Google Search Console to make sure your Christmas content changes make an impact as soon as possible.
Taking the time to really consider the Christmas period now can help you make the most of it before it’s upon us. How do you prepare for the festive period?
If you feel like it’s time to get support in your business you can always book a FREE discovery call or get in touch. Plus you can follow me on Instagram for more regular jewellery industry & e-commerce insights & actionable advice.