Consumers in United States spend more than 50 billion dollars on shopping and online purchases in the last quarter of 2012. According to the statistics, consumers spend more on shopping in the last quarter of the year because of holidays like Halloween and Christmas. As the last quarter of 2013 is just around the corner, it is a great opportunity for those who want to earn some quick money be starting a seasonal business. Consumers are looking for reasons to spend on Halloween and Christmas, be creative to meet the demand and get your own seasonal business up and running before the start of October.
So how do you start a seasonal business? The following are some simple tips that can guide you to start your business in no time.
Research Your Market
A good option to start with, is an online gift store especially for events like Halloween and Christmas. To avoid unnecessary online competition, you can customize your online store for only Halloween and Christmas gifts that can help you generate targeted loyal traffic. But first you need to research about the consumer trends, what type of gifts are people more interested in this year, what are the shipping costs, are consumers looking for expensive or cost effective gifts this year? Research and learn about everything related to your targeted market. You also have to research about web hosting service and a good merchant account provider that can provide you with seasonal merchant account to process your online payments.
Research and good knowledge about your market is key for your success. Don’t invest any capital in your seasonal business unless you have good knowledge about what you are doing and have a complete business plan. Learn about taxation, legal documentation and hiring process for staff if you want a couple of helping hands.
Be Creative with Your Marketing
It is very important to let people know timely about your presence especially for seasonal business owners. Slight delay or failure in your marketing campaign, and the season you are trying to take advantage of will be over before people will know about you. In case of online gift store, a targeted niche based marketing just for Halloween and Christmas can give you a competitive edge by avoiding the competition for general online gifts. Revolve your marketing campaign around gifts for only Halloween, Christmas and other winter events and Holidays. Use social media, SEO techniques, and email marketing for your advertisement.
Select Your Inventory Carefully
You don’t want to have lot of remaining inventory once the season is over, so buy carefully and limited stock. You are not there to sell for the whole year, so if you are left with good number of unsold gift items from your stock, you are in real financial problem. As you already have researched about your market, make sure to calculate the demand very carefully and buy your stock accordingly. Make sure to buy items that are very popular so that you can sell them quickly. Remember, you need to get rid of every item in your stock before the end of the season. A good option is to put the last items at the discount if the season is near the end.
Seasonal online stores are good opportunity to earn some good profits, but not without investing good amount of time in finding a reliable hosting service for your website, a good seasonal merchant account, effective marketing campaign and on time delivery of your products.
