Everyone knows the summer months can be a bit of a slog when it comes to music retail, but never fear: There’s light at the end of the tunnel. With the dropping temperatures and decrease in sunlight comes floods of foot traffic and new revenue opportunities. At summer’s end, musicians are looking for opportunities to finish crossing off their wish list for loved ones (Or let’s be honest, when it comes to music gear, they’re mostly shopping for themselves. But who are we to judge?) Are you ready for the holiday season? Here are a few things you can do to capitalize on the most wonderful time of the year.
First things first: make sure you are checking that your inventory is accurate. Santa always checks his list —and then checks it twice — and as a business owner heading into the holiday selling season, you should be doing the same. From a customer perspective, it’s frustrating and disappointing to spend hours looking for the perfect item only to find that it’s out-of-stock. When this happens, you’re not only missing a sale, you’re leaving a bad taste in a customer’s mouth. The best thing you can do to prevent this is to proactively ensure that your inventory is accurate well before the holiday shopping season.
Proactively taking stock of your inventory can even help uncover additional inventory and discount opportunities. For example: Are you low on a specific piece of gear? Maybe you’ll want to hold off on applying any type of discounts and instead, fire sale that one item to clear out a SKU. If you have complete overstock of a specific item, it might be in your best interest to clear out some of that inventory. Double checking and reevaluating your inventory count for your entire shop or warehouse not only helps with a better buyer experience, but also it can lead to an especially tempting clearance or overstock discount that attracts customers to your shop.
PRICE YOUR GEAR TO SELL
This leads us to our next piece of advice. It’s no secret that holidays are all about the sales. Price your gear to sell. From early October sales events to Black Friday and Cyber Monday all the way through to the end of the year, retail verticals of all types market their shops through holiday sales and discounted inventory where they can. Sometimes, dealers are given an assist with these promotions in the form of brands offering MAP lifts. Make sure you’re staying up to date with these notices — if the majority of the market is following a MAP lift and you’re not, you’ll surely miss out on sales.
Other times, we need to take matters into our own hands. Because of the cold, maybe your hands are covered by mittens, in which case we’ll need to take matters into our own mittens. Either way, when MAP lifts haven’t been sanctioned for gear you’re carrying, there are still some actions you can take. For any used gear, it’s always important to take a look at recent pricing trends. Does your used inventory seem in line with what’s currently being listed? Or, could you go a step further and see what that specific item has sold for in the recent past? Adjusting prices based on market trends is a great way to move your inventory at the speed of Santa — which is 650 miles per second. Yes, we did the research.
Mentioned previously, if you have a high inventory count of a few different items, the holidays are a great time to liquidate any overstock you might be carrying. Consider offering bundles, which give buyers price flexibility and gives them an opportunity to knock out a chunk of their wish list all in one purchase.
Yes, the weather outside is frightful, but the opportunities for your business are so delightful! Whether it’s through sourcing your inventory to find a calculated discount tactic, or accurately pricing your gear, there are plenty of options to help you not only get through the holiday season, but capitalize on every day of Q4. MI
Jamie Major is Reverb’s seller engagement manager.
