Christmas in July

Christmas my friends, is just around the corner! Okay, it's July, it's not really just around the corner so much, it's more like down the street, turn left at the Shell station, go two blocks, make a right at the old church and it's right after the blue house with the pink flamingos in the front yard. But! It's never too soon to start planning.

Christmas is Cafe Press's coup de gras of sales! It's when you can expect to do your best business of the year assuming you don't have an otherwise seasonal business that links you to summer or something dreadful for Christmas sales. For shops that have been languishing in sales or have just started up this is a good way to get you motivated or motivated again. You can boost those sales if you offer designs that are geared towards the season but having just one or two designs for Christmas isn't really capitalizing on the season. Add a Christmas section if you can. A number of designs will more likely land you sales than if you only have a single Christmas design. Think cards, think gifts, think whatever you like, but having Christmas designs can be a boon to your shop. You don't have to start thinking about it today or tomorrow but remember when you are planning for Christmas sales you are not planning for December 25th, most shopping will be done between the end of Thanksgiving (November 23rd) and (for CP shoppers) December 22nd (we must account for shipping time afterall) or so. So your real target date to get those designs up should be November 24th. But hold it a minute! Ever notice how shortly after Halloween (or even before Halloween for some businesses) you'll start to see a couple displays of Christmas goods up and raring to go in your local department store? Stores put these out this early for one reason. They sell. If you are an early bird and start getting your Christmas gear together early you have the advantage of being one of the first shops to have Christmas stuff out and you'll be part of a smaller pool for those early Christmas shoppers (of which there are many). Another thing you'll do is you'll get your stuff seen and people may remember you when they decide to do their Christmas shopping rather than just happening upon your shop if you have your stuff out closer to Christmas time.

Something to think about when deciding whether or not to get started on your Christmas section is that the list of presents people will buy for Christmas is finite. What I mean is this, once someone buys their gift for dad they don't need to buy another one for dad, once your sister's present is purchased, zap, that present is off the list too. Yeah, so? Well, my point is, if you have a wonderful little gift that fits for dad in your shop but your shopper has already purchased a gift for dad, well, then you probably won't get that sale. That's why it's good to have your stuff up earlier. That way your shop visitors' list is more likely to be wide open and anything that fits for one of their loved ones is much more likely to get the sale because that person hasn't been shopped for yet. Early design posting is more likely to attract potential sales than late. Capitalize on the entire season my friend and you can expect the best return. Now with that being said, follow the lead of the department stores. Don't put stuff out TOO early. People may not buy if you put the stuff out TOO early (I would stay away from putting anything up before November personally) and if they visit multiple times the products may eventually sort of fade into the backround and go invisible because people have seen them for so long. They should be NEW when your customers are likely to shop or JUST ABOUT to start shopping.

I would also recommend against (despite the title of this post) naming your section "Christmas Section" unless you plan to also have a "Hanukkah Section" or "Kwanza Section" unless of course you are only going for people who are purchasing "Christmas" items. If you title something "Christmas" you have positioned yourself for a Christmas shopper but you have eliminated the other holidays and the people who aren't terribly religious. Go for the more generic "Holiday" unless of course you are a religious themed store and Christmas is the only section that's really important. If you are a general store or one that doesn't rely on people of one religion vs. another it's just easier to keep a more "masses friendly" section like "holiday". Within the section of course, go nutso! Have Christmas cards, Hanukkah cards, Kwanza cards even generic Holiday cards and you'll stand the best chance of making sales.

Note on Hanukkah: If you are selling hanukkah designs for pete's sake spell it right! Hanukkah is the most widely accepted spelling at this time, you can also go with the more traditional chanukah if you like but bear this in mind. A search for the word "hanukkah" on google returns 13 million results, searching for "chanukah" returns just under 4 million. Cater to the masses for the best success, go with hanukkah unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise. A really industrious person may offer both a "hanukkah" design and a "chanukah" design, but I would think that's more confusing than anything. Probably best to stick with just one spelling unless you can determine ahead of time that you'll realize more sales from offering both. Of course a wise business person WOULD include both spellings into their product description. ;)

So that's it. Christmas IS coming. It's never too soon to start planning. It may seem incredibly early to start thinking about it, but don't forget it's going to take you a while to hammer out all those designs too. It really is never too early to start planning for the cash cow of the year.

One last note on Christmas. If you decide to make some designs that require a lot of time invested in them consider omitting the year or making the year something that's easy to swap out. Don't focus a long and ornate design just around "Merry Christmas 2006!" or something unless you can change that year pretty easily, that way you can use the same design next year.