The holiday season is a lucrative time for retailers to make the biggest sales of the year. Here are 7 ways to improve your retail processes to get ready for the season ahead.

1. 7 Ways
How To
Prepare Your
Store For The
Holiday
Season

2. Holiday season is about to arrive!
How big will this 2019 season be
for retailers?
"Nation Retail Federation is expecting
2019 holiday retail sales during
November and December to increase
between a total of $727.9 billion and
$730.7 billion over 2018."

3. Check out some ways to prepare your store for the
holiday season and boost up your sales.

4. 1. Start Early And Plan
Ahead
People start looking for the deals and discounts
before the holiday season arrives. Hence, you
should promote your deals early to make them
aware about your business.
Retailers can plan the marketing strategies,
deals, discounts, and banners well in advance.
Planning allows you to budget better and helps
to ensure that you don't miss out on the festive
season profits.

5. 2. Use Social Media To
Promote Your Business
Make a social media marketing strategy and be
active on channels like Facebook, Instagram,
and Pinterest. It gives your business a wide
reach to connect with the right audience.
You can promote through social media posts,
gift guides, blog articles corresponding to the
occasion. Prepare your eCommerce website
with holiday-themed banners and site headers
to stand out.

6. 3. Organize And Optimize
Your Inventory
Most of people get out to shop in the holiday
season with great enthusiasm, and you don't
want to run out of stock while there is a rush.
Thus, get your inventory stocked up before
hand to fulfill the customer demands.
You can get the estimates through your POS
software from last year's analytics and order
for the trending and hot-selling products. You
can also use cloud hosting services to get real-
time updates and inventory control.

7. 4. Revise Your Shipping
And Return Policies
Many consumers return or exchange their
products, which can be a problem for the retail
business owners during peak time. Therefore,
you can revise the return and exchange timings
on weekdays or non-rush hours.
You can offer services like free shipping on
minimum amount, in-store pickups and delivery
on weekends to ease the pressure in holiday
season.

8. 5. Hire Additional Seasonal
Staff
The holiday season can be a chaotic time for
retailers. Hence, you should have enough people
to fulfill the retail needs on time, which
includes handling customers’ requests,
packaging orders, and delivering the products
on time.
The staff needs to be well prepared for the
hassle. Therefore, hiring additional staff before
festive season gives you an edge in ensuring the
normal business workflow.

9. 6. Automate The Shopping
Experience
During busy hours, there are long checkout
queues and rush in stores. Therefore, self-
checkout systems or mobile payment solutions
should be deployed in stores for a seamless
shopping experience.
You can provide pre-purchase solutions to
customers by providing answers to FAQs,
product recommendations, store locator, and
chatbots for live chat.

10. 7. Gift Card And Rewards
Holiday season is a great time to give away
gift cards to your customers. This is a good
idea for pre-holiday promotions to drive in-
store traffic during the festive time.
Loyalty and reward programs are a great way
to thank your loyal customers during the
holiday season. This creates a sense of
belonging in them towards your brand and adds
value to customer experience.

11. About Us
Ace Cloud Hosing powered by Real Time Cloud
Services, LLC (RTCS) is an Intuit authorized
commercial hosting provider for QuickBooks POS to
retail businesses.
We provide on
superfast SSD-based servers with 99.999% uptime,
100 days data backup, and always-on support.
For more info visit:
or Call us at: 1-855-ACE-IT-UP
cloud solutions for retail industry
www.acecloudhosting.com

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References
- Envato
- Business News Daily
- Ace Cloud Hosting