Preparing For The Seasonal Surge
The holiday season is approaching! For some it’s the Christmas season, for others, it’s the time of year for sales shopping. Retailers are getting excited with the prospect of packed stores and some are a little worried they are not prepared for the seasonal rush.
The Christmas period can be a fast-paced, high-stress time of year for many shop owners. Stocking shelves with the right products and ordering the perfect amount can be critical to not holding on to excess inventory at the end of the holiday season. Even staffing can be an issue when you are trying to guesstimate how many more customers will walk through your door.
Overall retail sales are expected to spike 35 per cent next month, up 5.5 per cent from last year […].” This is tremendous and retailers should plan accordingly to take advantage of the seasonal rush.
Winning industries in the seasonal Christmas surge
According to IBIS World/ABS the winners in the seasonal spike are:
- Liquor stores with an almost 60% spike in December
- Department stores will see a 94% surge in spending
- Electronic Goods will see 56% growth in spending
- Footwear Accessories should have a 77% spike
- Clothing stores will see a 66% spike
All industries see a huge spike in the month of December and retailers should be ready rather than fumbling to keep up. While caution should be taken when purchasing additional stock, ignoring the seasonal influx all together could be the biggest mistake you make all year.
Staffing for the Holiday Season
Maintaining an appropriate level of staffing can be one of the bigger challenges of the holiday season. This can be particularly hard for restaurants. The training needed in a kitchen or restaurant can make a seasonal period ripe for customer service problems. As well, once the rush of customers begins to slow you will need to have your staff work fewer hours or lay the seasonal staff off.
Fortunately, for retailers in this position, less training is needed to keep operations running smoothly. Although the same task of hiring before and scaling down after is necessary.
Paying for the Holiday Season
For many small to medium businesses paying for the seasonal influx can be challenging. As tempting as it might be, you can’t just ignore it. If you ignore the seasonal surge you run the risk of getting horrible reviews through poor service and may even have employees that get overworked and leave at the height of the rush.
Consider a short term business loan
Finding a short term business loan or line of credit to tide you over through the holidays is important. Even if you don’t have the documents or credit file necessary to get a loan from a bank, there are alternative lenders.
How can Westwood Financial Services Help?
We have experienced staff to help you find a loan and answer all of your questions. For more information on business loans, commercial finance, debt consolidation, talk to our experienced and understanding loan specialists to see how our business loans can support your business goals.
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