Holiday Clock Tolls Today

Start Sales, Incentives and Discounts ASAP. The Holiday eSpending Report – a pulse check of online shopping habits of U.S. adults taken weekly by Nielsen/NetRatings, Harris Interactive and Goldman Sachs – starts now, last week of October. Random samples of 1,000 different online shoppers per week are surveyed from end-October up to 9 days before Christmas … the date by which over half of online shoppers have finished their holiday purchases and are guaranteed delivery in time for parties and celebrations.

e-Commerce Merchants Take Note: Past Holiday eSpending Reports show 37% of online shoppers had already finished by the first week of December. But the worrisome ones were the 10% who had not even started by December 10; those are the folks who figure they missed Delivery Before Christmas guarantees. They end up at the malls the weekend before.

·   Launch holiday-themed sales, coupons, discounts and Free Shipping offers ASAP. If your marketing incentives sweeten the deal, you may persuade that 10% Slug segment to Start Now!

·   Guarantee Delivery by December 24^th and capture laggard shoppers late in the season … especially versus crowd hassles and higher driving costs of mall shopping at the last minute.

Personalized, Customized and Celebrity Copy Cat Gifts

Hottest trend across all product lines is personalized gifts, customized for a specific gift recipient.

·   Kiosk vendors and licensed online merchants know the pull of music CDs, DVDs and Children’s Books personalized with a child’s name, dozens of times in one gift story. Franchiser Mediak leases CD/DVD duping equipment to retailers who customize baby lullabies, trips to the zoo or grocery store, self-esteem programs and Spanish media, personalized with a child’s name.

·   Promote easy-to-personalize merchandise: T-shirts with Art/Digital Photos Transfers, Signature Italian Jewelry Charms and Unique Scrapbook Mementos customized by the gift-giver.

·   If imitation is the most flattering gift, research the visual search site Like.com, which is searchable through matching photos, for details, patterns, colors and shapes you want … including fashions spied on the rich and famous. Then cherry-pick celebrity look-alikes or, perhaps, up-market designer handbags (also known as “replica” or “designer inspired”). Alternatively, find the desired Celebrity Look Alike item on a wholesale merchandiser supplier site, such as Women’s Accessories and Handbags.

Where the Hot Trendy Stuff Is

Information on what moves and what stalls out in the gifts market can be found on Hot Lists and at industry-focused trend-tracking sites. Free Market Research.

·   Scan Hot Lists at online trading sites. For example, Amazon.com (not just books anymore) recently hot-listed Crocs, the colorful clogs that some think are Summer-only footwear. Going for a seasonal sale, Amazon listed “Crocs Mammoth,” which are insulated for warm winter feet.

·   Online auction giant eBay lists Top Sellers on product channels, like Fashion. eBay saw a 73% increase last year in resell of clothing and accessories, even for high-priced, designer handbags. The style director at eBay cited limited shopping time or store access for buyer willingness to pay premium prices. eBay lists top-searched clothing brands as: Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike; in addition to higher-priced designer goods from Prada, Gucci and Marc Jacobs.

·   Search by brand name (Baby Phat, iPod, Abercrombie, Disney) or by product category (plus size jeans, cocktail ring, men’s outerwear, baby clothes, women’s shoes) at Top Ten Wholesale Trends. You can pull charts by date range to see how popular your entered keyword products or brands are. At Top Ten Trends, you are pulling user actions from over 2,000 advertisers (wholesalers, distributors, importers, sellers) on the Top Ten Wholesale network, which is visited by up to 120,000 buyers and sellers a day. That’s a very hot list of which products are bought, sold and searched for in the wholesale-to-retail supply chain.

Segment Merchandise for the Price Conscious

If you arrange virtual or physical display space — organizing gift product categories on your e-Commerce web page, or setting up holiday merchandise displays in a brick-and-mortar store – the more you segment products by price points, the easier the buy-sell experience.

·   Go into a major retailer like Target or a home improvement warehouse store like Home Depot this holiday season and you’ll see aisles, display shelves or hardware bins labeled by price banners:

o   Gadgets and Gifts for Under $10
o   Personal Care Gift Baskets Under $20; Luxury Beauty Packs for $40 and Up
o   Power Tools For Him For Less Than $50
o   Stocking Stuffer Gifts for $5 or Less

·   Search for Holiday Bargains at a jewelry wholesaler — see a list here Jewelry Wholesalers  — and find jewelry catalogs (Men’s, Women’s, Silver-Gold-Platinum, Rings-Bracelets-Necklaces, Wedding) that are further searchable by Price or by Special Discount. Price- or Product-refined search results are then pulled up to the wholesaler’s top web page, flagged as a Weekly Sale or a Holiday Season Special.

·   Discount Outlets and Dollar Stores know they deliver not only value-priced merchandise, but one-stop shopping convenience. Look for special displays of Holiday Party Supplies (balloons, gift bags, banners, greeting cards, invitations) and for the price-capped workplace gift giver: Secret Santa Gifts for Less Than $10 … Office Safe.

Sell Your Value Proposition- Set the Tone Against Your Competition

Whether you sell in wholesale lots or handcrafted gift items, if you’re a reseller of Returned Apparel or direct-to-consumer collectibles, build your brand awareness by differentiating from the competition.

·   Shipping Costs Can Close the Sale. A wholesale distributor who stores front-list merchandise in regional warehouses should flag lower shipping (and dropshipping) charges and delivery times.

·   Can you guarantee on-time delivery for those last minute 10% holiday shoppers (noted above under Holiday eSpending Reports)? You have a value-add that just might tip the sale for late gift givers who cannot face holiday hordes.

·   Do you offer “No Minimums” to resellers? Are you a wholesale distributor willing to break lots and pallet shipments to smaller Minimum Orders? That value proposition opens your business to more retail and auction prospects. List “No Minimum” in your product directory listings, such as at Wholezilla, where you can upload your own product data feeds. (See About Wholezilla.)  Place “No Min Orders” into your pay-per-click search ads, such as clickable ads on the Top Ten Wholesale Network.

· Revisit your Returns Policy. If unwanted merchandise can be returned hassle-free – and without presumptions of fraud or providing lengthy return forms – then you have a customer-friendly policy that could reassure first-time customers, or newcomers to online shopping.