- Continue To Buy New Inventory: People who come to your website or online store on a regular basis still want to find new items. If they don't find new items they generally won't buy. Don't blame that on the economy!
- Buy In Small Quantities: Limit your purchases and use your money wisely. A bigger sellection will be more important than quantities of each item. For example, if you sell collectibles you dont have to buy the whole estate. Buy a few items and the pieces you can turn over quickly for, say, $20.00 or less. This helps keep your inventory turning and new items appearing regularly even if your sales are, otherwise, less than hoped for.
- Re-arrange Items On Your Site: Re-arranging items on your website, and/or using new, different, pictures, will create the illusion of new items when you don't have any. This won't work all the time, and you will still want to have new items from time to time, but it is a stop-gap measure when you just cannot add to your inventory.
- People Love To Shop: In hard economic times there are mixed emotions. On one hand shopping can feel good. On the other there is guilt associated with it when fincances are tight. If you can provide a selection of items in the under $10.00, and under $20.00 ranges, people can feel good about buying without feeling bad about spending too much.
- Constant Contact Works: It's the most affordable advertising approach and the good news is it works. Opt-in mailing lists, newsletters, or just friendly, personal, emails to your customers keeps you in their thoughts and will result in them returning to your site and, more often than not, purchasing again.
- Keep It Full: There is an old marketing axiom that goes, "offer something or someting, not something or nothing" and it applies all the time, but even more so when times are tough. You need a number of items on your website or online store in order for people to have things to pick over, select, choose, and come to the buying decision. At a minimum, for most sites, you need at least 100 items. Less than that and you will likely see sales drop off to almost nothing.
- Give Something Of Value: Add a little gift along with package you ship. Pick up inexpensive travel sizes of attractive personal care products, print out special recipes, invest in advertising keychains, pens, spoons, or bookmarks. Receiving a little extra is appreciated. It will bring people back to you again and again.
- Keep Working At It: Economic down-turns don't last forever. If you sit back and wait for the turn-around you lose two things, the sales you could otherwise make, and all the good things you can do for your business in the mean time. Not only are you doing things that can, very likely, improve sales in hard times, but you are laying the ground work for better business when times are good again. That really is worth the effort!
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