Boosting Holiday and End of the Year Sales Using Markdowns

Well isn’t this an exciting time of year for us online sellers! The holidays hustle and bustle is officially here and 2015 is almost over, which means it’s the perfect opportunity to give our eBay stores a strong sales boost before starting our preparations for 2016.

One of the most powerful techniques to increase traffic and boost revenues is by launching Markdowns. Other than helping you rank higher on eBay’s search, markdowns are a great way to attract repeated buyers, get rid of old items, meet sales objectives, trigger Best Offers, and help you find your item’s optimal price. All of these contribute to a higher sales volume, increasing revenues and making the most out of your online business.

There are numerous options for creating markdowns with a range of discounts, combined with a whole spectrum of products to choose from. So, what should you do? How do you choose the right items to put on sale at the right discount?

Your starting point is planning ahead. The options for creating markdowns are endless. That’s why you first must identify the need or objective for a markdown, and only then specify the right markdown to meet that objective.

Your second step should be writing down the kind of markdowns you’d like to create and determine strategic dates with a Retail Calendar. These can include:

New Arrival Markdowns – Objective: promote new listings. Duration: 3 Day Sale starting the first weekend of every month. Discount: 5%-10%.
Clearance Markdown –Objective: Getting rid of old stock. Duration: 5-7 Day Sale at the end of every quarter. Discount: 40%-75%
Back To School/Black Friday/Thanksgiving, or other. – Objective: Trigger Holiday/Seasonal Sales. Duration: 3-5 days before the holiday and/or on the day of the holiday itself. Discount: may vary up to 70%.

Step three is sorting out your items for the different markdowns, and this is the most complex part. Locating suitable items for markdowns and connecting them to the right discount. Some of the most effective ways to do so are: by listing dates, by inventory level, by amount sold, by date last sold, by amount of watchers, and by free shipping.

Having that said, don’t forget that sales and markdowns don’t need to be created around special events only. Actually, markdowns can be done on a regular basis without any special occasion needed: Once a week for three days, a weekend sale or even a single day sale twice a week. Just make sure that you use a variety of items, so that you don’t “exhaust” the same items and lower their value by putting them on sale over and over again.

You can create markdowns whenever sales are slow, when older items aren’t moving, when you want to stimulate activity or just when you like to drive more interest and traffic to your store. Markdowns serve different objectives.

But always remember, there are no two eBay stores or sellers exactly alike; each business holds its own set of challenges. Sometimes these are unique and sometimes they are similar to others. That’s why it’s CRUCIAL for you to get to know your own eBay store, learn about it and figure out what strategies and tactics work best for you.

For more info regarding various markdown options and strategies, helpful rules and tips for markdown creation in the easiest and fastest way possible, download CampaignGO’s recent Markdown Sales Guide.

The Story of CampaignGO

We are eBay Sellers for the past decade, having two successful eBay stores, with over 10,000 listed items, 15,000 positive feedbacks and thousands of satisfied customers.

CampaignGO evolved out of these stores to develop efficient tools (after we couldn’t find any) to increase our eBay stores’ traffic and BOOST revenues while saving substantial time and money. Our flagship tool is the Markdown Guru that provides you with deep store insight and lets you create markdowns easily and quickly.

Go to CampaignGO.com to learn more.

Best of luck,

The CampaignGO Team.