If you’re a home furnishings, electronics, or apparel retailer hoping to capitalize on the momentum driven by holiday sales, you’ve probably been planning your own homegrown version of a Black Friday sale for months.

If you weren’t able to secure all the inventory you wanted on your key promotional items, there’s not much you can do other than make sure your other marketing and promotional levers are being pulled. Read on for some tips to help you maximize your sales and profitability during holiday sales events. 

Strive to differentiate

Big-box retailers like Amazon and Walmart will of course win on hype, traffic, price, and ancillary Prime benefits like streaming content. So what to do? Differentiate. Lean into what you’ve got in addition to having compelling deal pricing. Smart retailers will leverage the unexpected to help stand out from their competitors during holiday sales.

Consider accidental damage protection plans for example. Amazon offers them on numerous product categories, and has for more than a decade. However, they don't offer protection on apparel and fashion. If you’ve been considering offering product protection plans on your site but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, it’s actually not too late to implement Mulberry extended warranties in time for the holiday season.

The legacy providers (Asurion, SquareTrade, Allstate, Guardian, etc.) can’t help you in time - they move too slowly to help you integrate quickly. You need a partner who can get you live on site within 2-3 weeks of contract signing, or within days depending on the ecommerce platform you use. 

Looking for other creative ways to differentiate with “stacked discounts” that will lift conversion rates during the holidays?

• Discount your shortest-duration accidental damage protection plans to a nominal fee (e.g. $.99, $4.99). A $3,000 sofa with a 2-year accidental damage protection plan for pennies? It’s a no-brainer, and Amazon won’t do that.
• Offer shipping and/or shipping insurance for free or deeply discounted during the holidays. Your customers will jump all over it to protect that deal they waited so long for from the inevitable holiday shipping challenges.
• Give away or deeply discount your white glove inside delivery and/or assembly services during the holidays. Anyone buying a large/heavy item or an “assembly required” item will think you’re a hero.

Price deals smartly

Keep your cool. Always be as sharp as you can on your spotlight deals, but your margins might suffer deeply if you have a case of “last-year-itis.” Keep in mind that the consumer has already been sensitized to expect different prices than in the past, so you have to do what’s right for your business. The savings spread between your deal price and the everyday price is arguably more important than whether you’re forced to be at $119.99 instead of 2022’s $99.99 price on that key deal. What minor conversion points you’ll lose with the price increase will most likely be made up in margin dollars.

Focus your promotional efforts

Stick to what matters. If it’s a year-round best seller with hundreds or thousands of positive reviews, it’ll soar during the holidays if you have the inventory to support it. Resist the temptation to feature B-tier items on site, in marketing vehicles, or in stores just because you’re long on inventory with them. It doesn’t work. Better to mark them down and use non-holiday clearance events to move them.

Promote at the right time 

Pull out your big guns at the same time that popular retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair and Home Depot do. With the expansion of Black Friday/Cyber Monday as a month-long industry-wide shopping spree, you have the opportunity to pull volume forward with lengthy sale previews. Plan your sales event wisely to maximize traffic and revenue.

Remember the end game

Sure, your repeat customers are going to be the most aware of the types of deals your store offers during sales, and leveraging your promotional efforts to retain them and strengthen their LTV is critical. But in sheer volume, you’re likely also going to acquire the largest number of new customers during holiday sales. Your marketing team’s plans to convert them from one-time buyers into repeat customers should be fully baked and ready to launch. These newly acquired customers can help you achieve future sales goals by leveraging President's Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day events.

Be sure to consider how you’ll differentiate with promotions beyond the products themselves — add-ons like product protection can be a great tool to drive sales without sacrificing margins. It’s not too late to stand up a strong plan of action for the holidays, but you don’t want to wait any longer!