January 9, 2025 • 17 mins
Grab your essential FREE guide - How to clear excess stock without damaging your brand.
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Do you have more stock than you’d like but worry that discounting might harm your brand? If so, you’re in the right place.
Today, we’re diving into one of my favourite topics: stock management. If you’re sitting on extra inventory, now is the perfect time to take action. January sales are a long-standing tradition—customers expect them.
So, if you’re feeling hesitant about running discounts, rest assured that this is the prime time to clear excess dead stock without compromising your brand. In this episode, I’ll share seven practical tips to help you maximise your January sale and make smart, strategic moves for your business.
[02:35] Why this is the perfect time to clear out stock
[03:25] Review your five buckets of stock
[06:54] How to elevate your sales messaging
[08:01] Set your sales cadence
[12:18] Make your sale easy to understand
[13:48] Give your VIPs early acess
[14:20] Highlight the ethical urgency to shop
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Do you have a bit too much stock andwish that you could get rid of it,
(00:02):
but you're worried about discountingbecause you're concerned about the
impact that it might have on your brand?
If that sounds like you, then today'sepisode is right up your street.
Hi, I'm Catherine Erdly.
I'm the founder of the ResilientRetail Club and your host today.
You can head over toresilientretailclub.com to find
out more about things like my StockDoctor service, my membership group,
the Resilient Retail Club, and myproduct business mastermind as well.
(00:26):
And today we're going to be touching onmy favorite subject, stock management.
And what I really wanted to drive hometoday is the message that if you have got
a bit too much stock, this is the primetime for you to be clearing through it.
Christmas comes every year andJanuary sales follow behind.
And in the customer's minds,January and sales just go together.
(00:50):
So any activity that you do now isvery, very unlikely to have a damaging
impact on your brand because it'swhat the customers come to expect.
For example, in my house, I actuallyhave a poster from Transport for London,
Transport Museum, and it says winter salesmore quickly reached by the underground.
And it's from 1925, soa hundred years old.
(01:13):
So we know that this idea of the Januarysales has been around for a very long
time and so it won't feel jarring oruncomfortable or worrying if a customer
sees you discounting at this point.
So it is the perfect opportunityfor you to take some serious action.
What I'm going to do today is I'm goingto run through seven key points about how
to use your January sale to clear stock.
(01:40):
Welcome to the Resilient RetailGame Plan, a podcast for anyone
wanting to start, grow or scalea profitable creative product
business with me, Catherine Eardley.
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
(02:04):
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
(02:24):
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
But first of all, why shouldwe be thinking about clearing
our stock at this time of year?
Well, excess stock takes upphysical space, mental space,
(02:44):
financial space in a business.
And so it's something that we haveto clear out in order to free up cash
to bring in stock for the new year.
And if you've read my book, TameYour Tiger, done the course inside
the membership, or worked withone of our Stock Doctors, you'll
know that the key for running aprofitable product business is for
you to be really managing your stock.
(03:05):
And the game is how little stockcan you have and still do the
sales that you wanted to do?
And so one of the ways that you achievethis is by periodic pressure release
valves like the January sale whereyou're able to clear some of the older
stock and release it back as cash intothe business So, seven top tips then.
(03:25):
First one, if you've heard me talk aboutstock clearance before, then you'll
have heard me talk about the buckets.
So the buckets are fivedifferent types of stock.
And before you do any kind of salesdiscount activity, the key way to avoid
it being brand damaging, apart from doingit at times like this, where it's actually
going to be accepted in the customer'seyes, The key, one of the key ways is to
(03:46):
do a discount that is not off everything.
So we're talking about where you'reactually being really selective
and only discounting certain lines.
So what you need to do isidentify what should I keep?
What should stay?
And what should go?
And there are five buckets, broadlyspeaking, that I suggest that
you go through and you look at.
The first is your prime stock.
(04:06):
That's everything that is workingreally well for you right now that
you're happy to carry on with,that you are really seeing as
part of your go forward strategy.
Then you've got your thingsthat are kind of okay.
So you can decide they might takeover you probably won't rebuy them.
But there's nothingreally wrong with them.
So you can just let those take over.
Then you've got your thingslike your ends of lines.
(04:27):
So you might just haveone or two of these.
If you're in clothing, this isparticularly important because once you
get to broken sizing, you generally haveto treat things slightly differently
than when you've got full size runs.
So that might be somethingyou might consider.
But you wouldn't have to take muchmoney off these because they're
generally things that have sold well.
They're just running out, or maybeyou just don't do that type of
product anymore, or it's a collectionyou no longer really stock.
(04:50):
Then you've got your slow sellers.
Now, these are the ones that should makeup the bulk of all of your discounting.
Has anything that you'redisappointed about?
That you thought you'd sell more of?
That maybe you just know isn't workingand you just want to clear through?
And then finally youhave your seasonal stock.
Now this is anything that Iwould call a brown banana.
So this is something that, well, in thiscase probably might be Christmas stock.
(05:12):
Now, Christmas stock's aninteresting one in January.
You've really got two options.
Either you put it away and you bring itout next year or you hit it really hard.
So people will buy Christmas productsin January sales, but they're usually
looking for them to be somewherebetween 50 and 70 percent off.
So you have to decidewhat's it worth to you.
If you've got a lot of Christmassystock and it's just going to
(05:34):
be taking up a lot of space.
And you've got a lot of cash flowtied up in your Christmas stock,
then I would suggest thinkingabout doing it January clearance.
But you will have to bequite, quite harsh with it.
You will have to discountit quite dramatically.
Or if it's just a few bits and piecesand you think, you know what, this
is actually not going to be much of abother if I just put it away, then that's
(05:56):
something that you could do as well.
So you need to kind of makea call on seasonal stock.
If it's anything else that's slow,that's completely non seasonal, like
Easter or Halloween, Valentine'sday, I definitely wouldn't try
and clear it in a January sale.
I think we're really talking aboutthings that are relevant for now.
And equally so if it'ssuper out of season.
If we're talking about clothing andyou've got shorts, for example, unless
(06:19):
they're workout shorts, because of course,January is a big moment for new year,
new you lots of health, all that kindof thing, those kinds of products sell.
If it's something that is reallysummery, then I wouldn't try
and clear that too much either.
Because ultimately it's muchharder to sell things when
they're really out of season.
Christmas is kind of borderline because,of course, Christmas is gone, but people
(06:41):
are still thinking they may have notpacked away their Christmas stuff yet.
So they may think, "Oh, I'll get afew discounted pieces, pack them away
and have them ready for next year."
So that's tip number one for yourJanuary sale is look at your buckets.
Number two, if you're reallyworried about damaging your
brand, messaging does matter.
And the great thing is aboutsales is you can actually make
(07:02):
them sound pretty premium.
The perfect example of thisis go and look at Liberty.
Liberty have sales just likeeverybody else, but they are
very, very considerate and mindfulwhen it comes to their wording.
I don't think they even really talkabout the word stock clearance.
Go and have a look at their wording,because it's really special, the
(07:24):
way that they talk about things.
They talk about delightful discountsor amazing offers or incredible
products at incredible prices.
It's all of that kind of thing.
And I think that's a greatexample if you want to talk
about a sale in a premium way.
Sale doesn't have to be super.
discounty sounding,even if the prices are.
(07:45):
It can sound like our treat for youor making way for exciting new nurses.
There's ways of spinningit that sound positive.
So I think if you are somebody who isspecifically concerned about the impact on
your brand, then go and take a look at theway that Liberty talk about their sales.
Number three, think about how longyou want to do your sale for and
(08:06):
within that think about what weused to call the sale cadence.
So the sale cadence is really about therhythm of the sale how it progresses.
And here's an example.
Let's say you've got a four week sale.
The first week, your message is goon sale, sale starts, sell begins, or
if you're doing the premium version,our exclusive offers just for you,
(08:26):
available now, this sort of thing.
That's the main message.
The second week, you've got choices.
It could be new lines added.
I'm personally not a fan of addinglines in as you go through a sale.
I think you should identify what you wantto sell and then just move through it.
Big retailers do it, if the sale'smaybe not doing as well as they
want, or something else has comein and they've now I've had enough
(08:47):
time to realize it's not selling.
So they add that in, whatever else.
But I think for most small businessowners, you just want to identify
your sale and work with that.
You could do further discountsi'll touch more on that in a bit.
But definitely something that you coulddo and that could be a new message.
So it might go (09:01):
sale launches, second week is further discounts,
third week is up to 60 percent offcause you've gone further and you've
got deep enough discounts, andthe fourth week is sale end soon.
So think about the time period.
How long should it be?
It kind of depends.
If you've got a lot of stock to getthrough, I would go for something
(09:22):
like a three or four week sale andI would think about the different
messaging and I would be quite,focused on each week, marking things
down further if they weren't moving.
And I would be looking to do things, likeextra percentage off at the end of the
sale for maybe for specific customers.
But just basically, I would be lookingat ways to keep the sale moving and to
(09:45):
get to do something new with it eachweek and to push it, push it, push it.
If you've just got a bit ofextra stock, then I do a two
week sale, a one week sale.
If you've just got a few factoryseconds, you could do a story
sale on Instagram, for example.
You know, it could be a weekend.
You can do like a really deep short sale.
If you want to just clear everythingout in a weekend, do one sale weekend
(10:08):
and the discounts are quite deep.
I'd say, you know, a lot of stockto get through three to four weeks
is a good, decent amount of time.
So point number four is then, thisgoes back to what I was touching on
is don't just do one set of discountsand say, "right, well, if it doesn't
sell, then the sale didn't work."
Every single week when I worked in bigretailers, our job on a Monday was to
(10:30):
come in, look at the sales that happenedthe week before and to make adjustments.
So we would be going through the saleproducts and we would look at how much
stock we've got left, how fast it'sturning and we would make decisions.
Do we hit it again?
If it needs to go further.
And we would do that every single week.
So I must have done that exercise.
I don't even know how many times,a couple of hundred times for sure.
(10:54):
Because big retailers, they're often onsale or have some sort of sale going on.
It depends, but you know, sometimes 15,20, 26 weeks of the year between the mid
season sales and the end of season sales.
So there's always something to renew.
And one of the mistakes that I see smallbusinesses make is that they'll start
a sale and they won't get much of aresult because they took 15 off things.
(11:15):
But then what they don't do isthey don't go back and do further
discounts, further markdowns.
And I feel like that's really a missedopportunity because they haven't
gone back and relooked at thingsand then taken further discounts
on the things that weren't selling.
And therefore they're too quickto say, "Oh, it doesn't work"
or "sales don't work for us."
And equally so, if you're going throughthe sale and you're not clearing through
(11:37):
things, then you really need to belooking to take further discounts.
If your main goal is at the end of thesale to have as little left as possible.
Which for most people it is.
So you do have to take action and ifthings don't work very well with the
first level of discount, you have totake it further and see what that does.
We always used to say thateverything will sell at a price.
You just had to find that key price.
(11:59):
So have a look.
If you're inside the membership,you can go take a look in
the Tame Your Tiger course.
We've got a whole module there allabout how to put together a decent
sale, and we've even got a sale templatewhere you can put your stock in and
it will calculate out for you how manydays worth of stock you've got left.
So it's definitely worth taking a look at.
Tip number five for sale, make itreally super simple to understand.
(12:22):
Now I saw this a fair amount when Iwas in Black Friday, things like that.
Some businesses justgot really complicated.
It was like, there was one yogamat company and it was like three
yoga mats, get 20 percent off.
Plus, an extra 5 percent forVIPs or something like that.
Anyway, it was too complicated.
You want it to be really,really super simple.
(12:44):
And we were having this discussioninside the Resilient Retail Club
membership Facebook group, actually,before Christmas, all about how
do you physically mark down.
And in stores, it may not be themost attractive, but the most
effective is a "was now" sticker.
So "was now" sticker will have theprice that it was and what it is now.
In big retailers, we usedto also put on hangers.
So for clothing, for example, wewould have cardboard hangers that
(13:06):
would go on that would also tell youwhat kind of discount you're getting.
So is it 50 percent?
60 percent?
But then we'd always have tohave those was nows because most
people can't do mental maths.
So don't assume people can workout what 50 percent off is.
Definitely don't assume people can workout what any other kind of discount
is, because most people just can't.
(13:26):
So make sure you're alwaysdisplaying your was and now.
If you're e commerce,then that's much easier.
Obviously it's already displayed,but just in general, regardless
of how you're actually displayingprices, just think about keeping it
really, really super simple for sale.
This isn't about having tier discountsor this with that or that with this
is literally just was now keepingit really, really super simple, so
your customer doesn't get confused.
(13:48):
Number six, give your VIPs early access.
So if you've got a sale, this is agreat opportunity to really encourage
people to get onto your mailing list.
So you should be talking aboutpromoting your mailing list to
people as an opportunity to findout about your sale and to sign up.
So make sure that you're giving them earlyaccess or maybe they get extra discount.
(14:09):
Maybe they get extra 10 percentoff at the end, who knows?
But for sure you want to be comingup with ways that you can use
your sale to incentivize thingsfor your most loyal customers.
And then number seven ishighlight ethical urgency.
So ethical urgency is what I call itwhen you are highlighting to people that
things really are ending soon or that youreally are running low on certain things.
(14:33):
Please do share those withyour customers because it is
a purchase trigger for people.
The way that human psychologyworks is we love a deadline.
We love to know that things are runningout or we're more likely to buy,
we're given that nudge to buy whenwe've got a certain amount of time.
So don't forget to talk about thoseethical urgency moments, whether
that's sending out an email withwhen of things that you've got one
(14:54):
left of, for example, that's quiteoften quite a popular thing to do.
Last chance to buy, reallyhighlighting that, but then also really
highlighting the timing element too.
So if you are coming to the endof your sale, do make sure that
you are highlighting that andhow much time they've got left.
Even countdown time iswhen it's going to end.
Just again, proof that this is notkind of one of these sales that you
(15:16):
see on these places where they justalways run sales all year round.
You're like, no, this reallyis my limited time sale.
And making sure that you are pushingthat to your customer so there you go
my top tips for making your januarysale help you clear out your dead
stock without damaging your brand.
And they are identify your buckets, workout what kind of stock you actually want
(15:38):
to tackle, and just tackle that stock.
Think about yourmessaging, keep it premium.
If that's something that you'reconcerned about, have a really clearly
defined time period for your sale andalso work out what your cadence or
your rhythm is throughout that time.
So you're not just sayingsale solidly for four weeks.
Don't just do discounts once, repeat them.
So review and take action, make itreally, really easy to understand for your
(16:00):
customers, give your VIPs really earlyaccess or extra perks, extra money off,
whatever that might be, and make sureyou're highlighting the ethical urgency,
making sure you're highlighting the enddates and also the remaining quantities
for example.
I'd love to hear how you found thisepisode and if you've used it to put
together your own sale, why not tagme if you're going into sale, I'd love
(16:21):
to see how it has worked out for you.
And if you've got any questions,then do drop me a DM on Instagram
at resilient retail club.
Always love to hear from you.
If you want to know more aboutjoining the club, there is a link
in the show notes, or you can headover to resilient retail club.
com slash membership.
And if you would love to have the time andinclination to look at all your stock, but
(16:41):
just know that you don't, then go checkout our stock doctor service as well.
That's also on at resilientretailclub.com.
Do you have a bit too much stock andwish that you could get rid of it,
(00:02):
but you're worried about discountingbecause you're concerned about the
impact that it might have on your brand?
If that sounds like you, then today'sepisode is right up your street.
Hi, I'm Catherine Erdly.
I'm the founder of the ResilientRetail Club and your host today.
You can head over toresilientretailclub.com to find
out more about things like my StockDoctor service, my membership group,
the Resilient Retail Club, and myproduct business mastermind as well.
(00:26):
And today we're going to be touching onmy favorite subject, stock management.
And what I really wanted to drive hometoday is the message that if you have got
a bit too much stock, this is the primetime for you to be clearing through it.
Christmas comes every year andJanuary sales follow behind.
And in the customer's minds,January and sales just go together.
(00:50):
So any activity that you do now isvery, very unlikely to have a damaging
impact on your brand because it'swhat the customers come to expect.
For example, in my house, I actuallyhave a poster from Transport for London,
Transport Museum, and it says winter salesmore quickly reached by the underground.
And it's from 1925, soa hundred years old.
(01:13):
So we know that this idea of the Januarysales has been around for a very long
time and so it won't feel jarring oruncomfortable or worrying if a customer
sees you discounting at this point.
So it is the perfect opportunityfor you to take some serious action.
What I'm going to do today is I'm goingto run through seven key points about how
to use your January sale to clear stock.
(01:40):
Welcome to the Resilient RetailGame Plan, a podcast for anyone
wanting to start, grow or scalea profitable creative product
business with me, Catherine Eardley.
The Resilient Retail Game Plan isa podcast dedicated to one thing,
breaking down the concepts and toolsthat I've gathered from 20 years in
the retail industry and showing youhow you can use them in your business.
(02:04):
This is the real nuts and bolts ofrunning a successful product business,
broken down in an easy, accessible way.
This is not a podcast about learninghow to make your business look good.
It's the tools and techniques that willmake you and your business feel good.
Confidently plan, launch, and manageyour products, and feel in control of
(02:24):
your sales numbers and cash flow to helpyou build a resilient retail business.
But first of all, why shouldwe be thinking about clearing
our stock at this time of year?
Well, excess stock takes upphysical space, mental space,
(02:44):
financial space in a business.
And so it's something that we haveto clear out in order to free up cash
to bring in stock for the new year.
And if you've read my book, TameYour Tiger, done the course inside
the membership, or worked withone of our Stock Doctors, you'll
know that the key for running aprofitable product business is for
you to be really managing your stock.
(03:05):
And the game is how little stockcan you have and still do the
sales that you wanted to do?
And so one of the ways that you achievethis is by periodic pressure release
valves like the January sale whereyou're able to clear some of the older
stock and release it back as cash intothe business So, seven top tips then.
(03:25):
First one, if you've heard me talk aboutstock clearance before, then you'll
have heard me talk about the buckets.
So the buckets are fivedifferent types of stock.
And before you do any kind of salesdiscount activity, the key way to avoid
it being brand damaging, apart from doingit at times like this, where it's actually
going to be accepted in the customer'seyes, The key, one of the key ways is to
(03:46):
do a discount that is not off everything.
So we're talking about where you'reactually being really selective
and only discounting certain lines.
So what you need to do isidentify what should I keep?
What should stay?
And what should go?
And there are five buckets, broadlyspeaking, that I suggest that
you go through and you look at.
The first is your prime stock.
(04:06):
That's everything that is workingreally well for you right now that
you're happy to carry on with,that you are really seeing as
part of your go forward strategy.
Then you've got your thingsthat are kind of okay.
So you can decide they might takeover you probably won't rebuy them.
But there's nothingreally wrong with them.
So you can just let those take over.
Then you've got your thingslike your ends of lines.
(04:27):
So you might just haveone or two of these.
If you're in clothing, this isparticularly important because once you
get to broken sizing, you generally haveto treat things slightly differently
than when you've got full size runs.
So that might be somethingyou might consider.
But you wouldn't have to take muchmoney off these because they're
generally things that have sold well.
They're just running out, or maybeyou just don't do that type of
product anymore, or it's a collectionyou no longer really stock.
(04:50):
Then you've got your slow sellers.
Now, these are the ones that should makeup the bulk of all of your discounting.
Has anything that you'redisappointed about?
That you thought you'd sell more of?
That maybe you just know isn't workingand you just want to clear through?
And then finally youhave your seasonal stock.
Now this is anything that Iwould call a brown banana.
So this is something that, well, in thiscase probably might be Christmas stock.
(05:12):
Now, Christmas stock's aninteresting one in January.
You've really got two options.
Either you put it away and you bring itout next year or you hit it really hard.
So people will buy Christmas productsin January sales, but they're usually
looking for them to be somewherebetween 50 and 70 percent off.
So you have to decidewhat's it worth to you.
If you've got a lot of Christmassystock and it's just going to
(05:34):
be taking up a lot of space.
And you've got a lot of cash flowtied up in your Christmas stock,
then I would suggest thinkingabout doing it January clearance.
But you will have to bequite, quite harsh with it.
You will have to discountit quite dramatically.
Or if it's just a few bits and piecesand you think, you know what, this
is actually not going to be much of abother if I just put it away, then that's
(05:56):
something that you could do as well.
So you need to kind of makea call on seasonal stock.
If it's anything else that's slow,that's completely non seasonal, like
Easter or Halloween, Valentine'sday, I definitely wouldn't try
and clear it in a January sale.
I think we're really talking aboutthings that are relevant for now.
And equally so if it'ssuper out of season.
If we're talking about clothing andyou've got shorts, for example, unless
(06:19):
they're workout shorts, because of course,January is a big moment for new year,
new you lots of health, all that kindof thing, those kinds of products sell.
If it's something that is reallysummery, then I wouldn't try
and clear that too much either.
Because ultimately it's muchharder to sell things when
they're really out of season.
Christmas is kind of borderline because,of course, Christmas is gone, but people
(06:41):
are still thinking they may have notpacked away their Christmas stuff yet.
So they may think, "Oh, I'll get afew discounted pieces, pack them away
and have them ready for next year."
So that's tip number one for yourJanuary sale is look at your buckets.
Number two, if you're reallyworried about damaging your
brand, messaging does matter.
And the great thing is aboutsales is you can actually make
(07:02):
them sound pretty premium.
The perfect example of thisis go and look at Liberty.
Liberty have sales just likeeverybody else, but they are
very, very considerate and mindfulwhen it comes to their wording.
I don't think they even really talkabout the word stock clearance.
Go and have a look at their wording,because it's really special, the
(07:24):
way that they talk about things.
They talk about delightful discountsor amazing offers or incredible
products at incredible prices.
It's all of that kind of thing.
And I think that's a greatexample if you want to talk
about a sale in a premium way.
Sale doesn't have to be super.
discounty sounding,even if the prices are.
(07:45):
It can sound like our treat for youor making way for exciting new nurses.
There's ways of spinningit that sound positive.
So I think if you are somebody who isspecifically concerned about the impact on
your brand, then go and take a look at theway that Liberty talk about their sales.
Number three, think about how longyou want to do your sale for and
(08:06):
within that think about what weused to call the sale cadence.
So the sale cadence is really about therhythm of the sale how it progresses.
And here's an example.
Let's say you've got a four week sale.
The first week, your message is goon sale, sale starts, sell begins, or
if you're doing the premium version,our exclusive offers just for you,
(08:26):
available now, this sort of thing.
That's the main message.
The second week, you've got choices.
It could be new lines added.
I'm personally not a fan of addinglines in as you go through a sale.
I think you should identify what you wantto sell and then just move through it.
Big retailers do it, if the sale'smaybe not doing as well as they
want, or something else has comein and they've now I've had enough
(08:47):
time to realize it's not selling.
So they add that in, whatever else.
But I think for most small businessowners, you just want to identify
your sale and work with that.
You could do further discountsi'll touch more on that in a bit.
But definitely something that you coulddo and that could be a new message.
So it might go (09:01):
sale launches, second week is further discounts,
third week is up to 60 percent offcause you've gone further and you've
got deep enough discounts, andthe fourth week is sale end soon.
So think about the time period.
How long should it be?
It kind of depends.
If you've got a lot of stock to getthrough, I would go for something
(09:22):
like a three or four week sale andI would think about the different
messaging and I would be quite,focused on each week, marking things
down further if they weren't moving.
And I would be looking to do things, likeextra percentage off at the end of the
sale for maybe for specific customers.
But just basically, I would be lookingat ways to keep the sale moving and to
(09:45):
get to do something new with it eachweek and to push it, push it, push it.
If you've just got a bit ofextra stock, then I do a two
week sale, a one week sale.
If you've just got a few factoryseconds, you could do a story
sale on Instagram, for example.
You know, it could be a weekend.
You can do like a really deep short sale.
If you want to just clear everythingout in a weekend, do one sale weekend
(10:08):
and the discounts are quite deep.
I'd say, you know, a lot of stockto get through three to four weeks
is a good, decent amount of time.
So point number four is then, thisgoes back to what I was touching on
is don't just do one set of discountsand say, "right, well, if it doesn't
sell, then the sale didn't work."
Every single week when I worked in bigretailers, our job on a Monday was to
(10:30):
come in, look at the sales that happenedthe week before and to make adjustments.
So we would be going through the saleproducts and we would look at how much
stock we've got left, how fast it'sturning and we would make decisions.
Do we hit it again?
If it needs to go further.
And we would do that every single week.
So I must have done that exercise.
I don't even know how many times,a couple of hundred times for sure.
(10:54):
Because big retailers, they're often onsale or have some sort of sale going on.
It depends, but you know, sometimes 15,20, 26 weeks of the year between the mid
season sales and the end of season sales.
So there's always something to renew.
And one of the mistakes that I see smallbusinesses make is that they'll start
a sale and they won't get much of aresult because they took 15 off things.
(11:15):
But then what they don't do isthey don't go back and do further
discounts, further markdowns.
And I feel like that's really a missedopportunity because they haven't
gone back and relooked at thingsand then taken further discounts
on the things that weren't selling.
And therefore they're too quickto say, "Oh, it doesn't work"
or "sales don't work for us."
And equally so, if you're going throughthe sale and you're not clearing through
(11:37):
things, then you really need to belooking to take further discounts.
If your main goal is at the end of thesale to have as little left as possible.
Which for most people it is.
So you do have to take action and ifthings don't work very well with the
first level of discount, you have totake it further and see what that does.
We always used to say thateverything will sell at a price.
You just had to find that key price.
(11:59):
So have a look.
If you're inside the membership,you can go take a look in
the Tame Your Tiger course.
We've got a whole module there allabout how to put together a decent
sale, and we've even got a sale templatewhere you can put your stock in and
it will calculate out for you how manydays worth of stock you've got left.
So it's definitely worth taking a look at.
Tip number five for sale, make itreally super simple to understand.
(12:22):
Now I saw this a fair amount when Iwas in Black Friday, things like that.
Some businesses justgot really complicated.
It was like, there was one yogamat company and it was like three
yoga mats, get 20 percent off.
Plus, an extra 5 percent forVIPs or something like that.
Anyway, it was too complicated.
You want it to be really,really super simple.
(12:44):
And we were having this discussioninside the Resilient Retail Club
membership Facebook group, actually,before Christmas, all about how
do you physically mark down.
And in stores, it may not be themost attractive, but the most
effective is a "was now" sticker.
So "was now" sticker will have theprice that it was and what it is now.
In big retailers, we usedto also put on hangers.
So for clothing, for example, wewould have cardboard hangers that
(13:06):
would go on that would also tell youwhat kind of discount you're getting.
So is it 50 percent?
60 percent?
But then we'd always have tohave those was nows because most
people can't do mental maths.
So don't assume people can workout what 50 percent off is.
Definitely don't assume people can workout what any other kind of discount
is, because most people just can't.
(13:26):
So make sure you're alwaysdisplaying your was and now.
If you're e commerce,then that's much easier.
Obviously it's already displayed,but just in general, regardless
of how you're actually displayingprices, just think about keeping it
really, really super simple for sale.
This isn't about having tier discountsor this with that or that with this
is literally just was now keepingit really, really super simple, so
your customer doesn't get confused.
(13:48):
Number six, give your VIPs early access.
So if you've got a sale, this is agreat opportunity to really encourage
people to get onto your mailing list.
So you should be talking aboutpromoting your mailing list to
people as an opportunity to findout about your sale and to sign up.
So make sure that you're giving them earlyaccess or maybe they get extra discount.
(14:09):
Maybe they get extra 10 percentoff at the end, who knows?
But for sure you want to be comingup with ways that you can use
your sale to incentivize thingsfor your most loyal customers.
And then number seven ishighlight ethical urgency.
So ethical urgency is what I call itwhen you are highlighting to people that
things really are ending soon or that youreally are running low on certain things.
(14:33):
Please do share those withyour customers because it is
a purchase trigger for people.
The way that human psychologyworks is we love a deadline.
We love to know that things are runningout or we're more likely to buy,
we're given that nudge to buy whenwe've got a certain amount of time.
So don't forget to talk about thoseethical urgency moments, whether
that's sending out an email withwhen of things that you've got one
(14:54):
left of, for example, that's quiteoften quite a popular thing to do.
Last chance to buy, reallyhighlighting that, but then also really
highlighting the timing element too.
So if you are coming to the endof your sale, do make sure that
you are highlighting that andhow much time they've got left.
Even countdown time iswhen it's going to end.
Just again, proof that this is notkind of one of these sales that you
(15:16):
see on these places where they justalways run sales all year round.
You're like, no, this reallyis my limited time sale.
And making sure that you are pushingthat to your customer so there you go
my top tips for making your januarysale help you clear out your dead
stock without damaging your brand.
And they are identify your buckets, workout what kind of stock you actually want
(15:38):
to tackle, and just tackle that stock.
Think about yourmessaging, keep it premium.
If that's something that you'reconcerned about, have a really clearly
defined time period for your sale andalso work out what your cadence or
your rhythm is throughout that time.
So you're not just sayingsale solidly for four weeks.
Don't just do discounts once, repeat them.
So review and take action, make itreally, really easy to understand for your
(16:00):
customers, give your VIPs really earlyaccess or extra perks, extra money off,
whatever that might be, and make sureyou're highlighting the ethical urgency,
making sure you're highlighting the enddates and also the remaining quantities
for example.
I'd love to hear how you found thisepisode and if you've used it to put
together your own sale, why not tagme if you're going into sale, I'd love
(16:21):
to see how it has worked out for you.
And if you've got any questions,then do drop me a DM on Instagram
at resilient retail club.
Always love to hear from you.
If you want to know more aboutjoining the club, there is a link
in the show notes, or you can headover to resilient retail club.
com slash membership.
And if you would love to have the time andinclination to look at all your stock, but
(16:41):
just know that you don't, then go checkout our stock doctor service as well.
That's also on at resilientretailclub.com.
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