Now’s the time to review and analyze your holiday sales!
If your season was successful or not it’s time to step back and take stock. The NRF has reported that overall holiday sales were up approximately 4.9% with $682 billion in sales up from $655 billion in 2016. Were you the beneficiary of “A rising tide raises all boats” or did you proactively do some things differently this year. Now is the time to be introspective and examine the plusses and minuses of your holiday sales. Setup a meeting with your key people for a thorough debrief.
Here’s a list of topics to discuss, points to consider and a process to foster a frank discussion
- What went right?
- What went wrong?
- What can you do better?
- Prioritize- Pick the things that will yield the best return
- Establish some measurement goals for 2018 ( key metrics)
- Allow disagreements- openness creates candor
- These discussions should be non- hierarchical- everybody’s opinion counts
- Write a plan based on the results of the meeting
- Discuss who will be responsible for implementing and changes
- E-commerce sales were up 18% Y/Y – Are you in the game?
- 70% of Targets online orders were picked up in store
- Before closing the meeting make sure everyone is aligned
- Test and verify
- How to partner with Amazon
- Retail in store sales are predicted to grow by 4.8% in 2018 and online by 13.2%
In closing there are two quotes that speak to the necessity for this exercise.
This quote is from Jay Samit in his book “Disrupt You!”
“The business world is littered with the fossils of the companies that failed to evolve. Disrupt or be Disrupted.”
Jack Welch former CEO of GE, “Change before you have to”