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Do you know if you've got the right stock ready for peak season? Or could

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you be missing out on sales or even sitting on piles of

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unsold stock come January? Having

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a clear plan for your stock is the absolute backbone of a

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stress free quarter four. We are heading straight

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towards quarter four. And yes, it's time to talk about Christmas,

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it's time to talk about peak, and it's time to talk about getting your

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stock planned out ready to go. What we're going to be going

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through in this episode is a simple step by step

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checklist of what you need to think about ready for your peak season

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success. So this might be an episode where you want to grab a notebook because

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by the end you will have a clear plan of action to make sure

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that you are ready to go with your stock for the busiest sales

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period. So why does stock planning matter?

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I spent nearly two decades in big retailers, including some where

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Christmas was absolutely the make or break point of the

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year. And let me tell you, planning out our stock was half

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of the job. It was all about getting ready, getting

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prepared, making sure that we had the right stock at the right

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place at the right time. And the reason for that is

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because stock and sales are completely intertwined. So

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if you are relying on Christmas to drive a big bulk of your sales this

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year, you're going to want to make sure that your stock is going to support

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that. So stock equals cash. It's as simple as that.

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Anytime you're spending money on stock, then it is

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effectively tying it up. So the right stock strategy can help you free

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up cash and boost your profits. There are

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dangers galore in the peak season as well. There's dangers of

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over buying, so tying up money and space versus under buying

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where you might be losing sales. And the peak season

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amplifies both those risks. So it is well

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worth your time spending a few minutes thinking

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about what you want to do to drive your sales at Christmas and checking that

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you've got the right stock to support you. So, for

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example, I spoke to a client in January who

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had had an amazing start to their Christmas season, but because they hadn't

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really recognized just how much their sales have been ramping up,

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they sold out well before the peak sales really kicked in and

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left money on the table. And every year I speak to

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people who have got themselves in a difficult situation on the other way

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around, that they've overbought for Christmas or they've overbought in that

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peak holiday period and therefore they're ending up sitting on

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far more cash than they should in January. So what we're going

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to do today is walk through some simple steps to

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try and get, get ahead of the Christmas rush and

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to give you that peace of mind that you are in a good position

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going into peak. And one of my favorite stories, if you're thinking, well, I,

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I should know this stuff by now, one of my favorite stories is I worked

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with a client, they're a fashion brand, and they came to me because actually they'd

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been to a Shopify event all about Black Friday

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Cyber Monday. And specifically what they wanted support with

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was how much stock they should have for this big event, which was a huge

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piece of their yearly sales that they were planning.

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And they talked all about getting ready for Cyber Monday, Black Friday,

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Cyber Monday. And then afterwards, he went up to the person who

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presented and said, well, how do I actually work out how much stock I need

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to have? And the person said, oh, it's really about your gut feel. You need

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to go with your gut. And for me, the reason that

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I love this story is because it tells me that these kind of things, this

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kind of information is really important, that there isn't enough out there about how you

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actually work this stuff out. And secondly, it just goes to show that lots

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of people who maybe are pretty high up in the e commerce world, in the

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retail world, this is not an area that even they know about

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necessarily. If you're ever thinking, how do I figure this out? How do I even

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do it? Then we're going to unpack some of that today.

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So the first thing you want to do, nice and simple is,

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is you want to look at last year's sales data.

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Now, it's possible that you're listening to this podcast and this is your first ever

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Christmas, in which case you're going to have to skip this step. Although I would

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say, arguably I would have a look at what you've been selling so far

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because it's going to give you some clues as to what your bestsellers are going

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to be at Christmas as well. But let's say that this is

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not your first Christmas, which I'm sure for a lot of you it won't be.

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And so we're going to start with a bit of a review. Now, my favorite

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thing to do in January, I do it every year inside the membership group Resilient

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Retail Club, is we have a lessons learned and strategy

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session which is all about recapping Christmas.

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And so we do it in January because we know

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that people forget and years gets busy and

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you think they'll never forget what happened last Christmas, but you can easily.

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And so what we want to do here is, ideally you'd have done this in

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January, but bearing in mind that there's the best time to plant a

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tree was 50 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.

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So let's go for it. We're going to dive in and look at last year's

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performance. And the beauty is most reporting systems will just let

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you change the dates and look back and it should be pretty easy for you

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to get this information. So what we're looking for here is

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what your best sellers were. We want to know what your best

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selling products were during the Christmas time period. And it's up to you

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what you consider the Christmas time period. You might want to consider the months of

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November and December together. You might want to look at the whole fourth quarter

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October through to Christmas, it's up to you. But during that Christmas selling

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period, however you define it, what sold best, Have a look at

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your best sellers and more importantly, how many of those did you sell?

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You're looking for the 80% of sales products.

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So 20% of your products most likely are going to be generating

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80% of your sales. These are the ones you want to get right. So if

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you've got hundreds of products, don't worry, just focus on your top

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sellers because that is going to be what makes or breaks it.

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So you're going to want to know what, what your bestsellers were and how many

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you sold of them and then also have a look. What products did

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maybe don't pop up on the bestseller list, but you know that as you scroll

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down the list and you look through, you think, oh, do you know what we

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sold out to that really early? Ironically, one of the things that happens,

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especially in independent retailers in bricks and mortar, is when you

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sell out of something, you no longer see it. So it can almost drop out

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of your mind. But just take a time to think through. Were there things that

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you bought and just went really quickly that you could have sold more of? And

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were there products that even if they sold quite well, had they declined year on

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year? Are you beginning to get the sense from your customer that they're moving away?

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And most importantly, you want to take the lessons from this data. You don't just

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want to look at this data just so that you know how that you sold

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400 of the Star ornament in the month of November and December.

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You want to really go through it and look and say what worked well, that

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I need to do more of. Okay, those, those ornaments were great.

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Can I bring more in? Okay. I equally had

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another type of decoration that usually was my bestseller but had dropped

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down. Okay, do I retire it? Do I replace slow movers? And

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where did I miss out? Where did I have products that I definitely could have

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sold more of? So once you've completed all of that

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analysis, then what I'd encourage you to do is

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identify your hero products. So your hero

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product does not have to be Christmassy. It doesn't mean that you

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can't make it a little bit more festive with some festive packaging or

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something like that, just for the Christmas time period. But when I talk

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about Christmas hero products because it has the word Christmas in

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or peak, then people tend to think, oh, does it have to be themed?

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The answer is absolutely not. The most important thing is that

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it's giftable. So what is your best selling giftable item

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year round and is that applicable for Christmas? Chances are probably yes.

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Chances are that's probably going to be your hero product.

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Now you may want to have different hero products.

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You may have one which fits into the five to ten pound price point

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that's great for stocking fillers. There's the 20 to 30

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pound gifting sweet spot, which is also really important at

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Christmas time. And then there's also that 50 pound plus for special

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gifts. Now if you sell jewelry, for example, you

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may not have all of those different price points mapped out. That's absolutely

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fine. You still want to map out your hero product, the one that people are

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most likely to want to buy as a gift at Christmas. But

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equally so, if you are somebody who has lots of different products, you're selling

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lots of different ranges from different brands, then you

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definitely want to pull out your hero products, not just one hero

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product, but across the price points. So why are hero

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products so important? Well, it just helps you keep organized, it helps

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you keep focused. You can make sure that you have at least some kind

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of photography that will help you sell it as a Christmasy item.

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You can focus. If you're going to be doing PR outreach, for example, or

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trying to get into gift guides, then that's what you focus on with your hero

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product. You want it on your homepage, you want it as part of your email

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campaigns, you want it in your social media, for example. And picking

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those products now means that you become really focused and really clear

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as you're going through the season rather than each week thinking, right, well, what

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do I talk about? What do I talk about now? So make sure you've got

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those HERO products mapped out. And the other

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thing that is useful about mapping out your product, your HERO products.

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So if we come on to step three is it also allows you to review

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your range and fill your gaps. So for example,

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you might be doing this exercise thinking, what do I really want to focus on?

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And then you suddenly realize, well, I really don't think I've got any strong

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contenders for stocking fillers this year. Or

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actually everything that I've got is either under 10 pounds or over

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50. I really don't have anything in that 20 to 30 pound

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gifting sweet spot. So it can be a really useful exercise to

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help you think about what you might need to tweak. Are there any

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gaps that you need to bring in? Now, depending on how you source

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your product, this ship may have sailed. You may not be able to get any

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new products in for the Christmas season, in which case you're just going to have

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to think about how you can work your messaging to support the products you do

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have. But for lots of you, where maybe you're designing your own products or,

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or perhaps you're buying products in from other people, you are going to be able

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to make those last minute tweaks, have a look through, have

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a look at everything that you've got, pull out what you think your heroes

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are going to be. It's also good, you don't necessarily want to just

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talk about your heroes all the way through the long Christmas promotional

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period. So you may want to pick up, pick out some alternates as well in

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each category. But then just have a look and think, am I missing anything?

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Again, if you're somebody who is a lifestyle store, for example, a gifting

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store, have you covered off almost, think about what marketing messages

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you might want to send out during that time period and if you've got the

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product for it. So you might want to do gifts for her, you might want

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to do gifts by interest. So for gardeners or for

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bikers or wild swimmers, you might want to think

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about hostess gifts and Christmas

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party earrings and Christmas Day jewelry and think about

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all the different messages and then just think, do I have the product to support

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that. It's much easier to do this now before you get into the busy

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time period than to arrive in November and December and think,

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oh, I wish I could do a gift guide for under 10 pound gifts, but

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I've really just got this one item. So really look strategically at

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your range at this point and if you are able to make changes,

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then have A look and think about where you can fill in the gaps because

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it will make life so much easier for you as you move through throughout the

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season. So step four is

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set your launch dates. So this

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is something that comes up a lot. When

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do you launch Christmas? And it

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depends. It's what you're used to in your business, what's worked for you in the

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past. But I would say very broadly speaking, you can have a

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soft launch. In other words, put it out in store without making a fanfare about

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it, or put it up on your website, maybe even in September or

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October. But then generally speaking, the point in which we can

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all agree that it all becomes Christmas, all consuming, all

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Christmas, or as one of my clients once called it, screaming Christmas,

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is post Bonfire Night. So we get through

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Halloween, we get through Bonfire Night, and then pretty much it

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switches over and we're talking about Christmas. So most people will do their

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full Christmas launch that will be coming up at the

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beginning of November. So have a think about

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when you want to talk about it. Have a think about things like

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when your emails will go out to talk about it, when do you need to

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have photo shoots done ready for those emails,

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when do you want to pitch to pr, if that's something that you're going to

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be doing. And then you can work backwards from your chosen launch

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date to make sure that you map out your content and you

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map out your promotions. Once you set your dates, then

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that helps you work backwards from that, making sure that you've done everything you

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need ready to go for your launch. So you can even

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map out when you're going to create your content. You could do it ahead of

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time. Why not do it in September? It's a much better month to try

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and prep all of your Christmas marketing, for example, than trying to do it

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all in the peak time period. So pick your dates and then

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also pick, like when do you think are going to be the peak selling periods

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for these products? Because that brings us on to step five, which is all about

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forecasting your sales. So you've looked

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at last year, what you sold, you've looked at this year, what you're building, all

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of your ranges around, you've identified. If there's any

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gaps, you filled those in. Now it's time for you to

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think about what you believe that you are actually going to

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sell. So how do you do that? Well, again, if

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this is your first Christmas, it may be a little bit tricky, but I would

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just say, say have a think about what kind of an uplift you might Expect.

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Do you think that if you sell 10 of something in an average week,

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maybe assume that you will sell double that in November and December.

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As long as you have logical assumptions, you're going to be able to tweak

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and refine it so that in future years you will have better information.

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But for this year, you are just going to have to go with an educated

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guess, something that seems logical, that you've

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worked through. But ultimately, until you get into a Christmas season and

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see how it reacts for you, you won't necessarily know. So for

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everybody else you can use historical sales data. So if you

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believe that your number one item is going to be the lavender candle

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this year, last year you sold a hundred lavender candles, but this

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year so far your sales are pretty much double what they've been to this

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point last year, then you could say, right, well I think I'm going to sell

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about 200 lavender candles. Then you

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could say, well, I think I'm going to sell about 200 lavender candles this year.

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So for example, you're just taking a combination of your

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current sales performance and your last year's sales performance,

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putting them together and coming up with an estimate. So that is what you

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call your run rate. So your run rate is how you're currently performing against

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last year. So if your sales are double what they were last year to

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this point, then you can, you could assume, you could take an

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educated guess that your Christmas sales are going to be double. For example,

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you can also go through and if you think actually that feels

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really punchy. I don't like the idea of planning my Christmas sales at double,

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then sure, by all means, be really conservative. I'm quite often

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conservative when I'm planning out one to one clients and looking

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at their Christmas sales. I tend to slightly under plan just

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because sometimes you

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just can't physically process twice as many products

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as last year. So you need to be a little mindful of what's actually going

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to be going on in the business. Do you think that you're going to hit

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those numbers? And if it feels too scary and too

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like you could have to over commit to stock in order to hit those numbers,

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maybe pull it back slightly on the basis that it's better to under promise and

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over deliver than to set yourself really crazy big targets and then be

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disappointed if you don't hit them. So

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if it's a new product again, you could have a look at and say my

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best selling item usually sells about 50 a week during the

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Christmas period and we've got eight weeks of promotion. So I think

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that's going to be about 400 units because I think this new product is

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going to be one of my best sellers. That's why I've chosen it as my

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hero product. So for each one you want to go through and logically look

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at, for your, each one of your hero products you want to logically go

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through, look at what did I sell last year? Either this product or an

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equivalent product. What's my uplift? I think for this year, therefore,

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what do I think I'm going to be generating?

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And again, it is an estimate, right? So

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you're, you don't know for sure the all sorts of different things that can

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happen. It can also actually help you to work out when you

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do this exercise to kind of go through and go, well, hang on a minute,

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if I was selling 200 of those a day, can I even physically

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dispatch that? Again, any work that you can do to check through those

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assumptions now, as opposed to waking up in November and realizing that

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you've got a capacity issue, anything that you can do now is super, super

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helpful. So do think through what this actually means. If you're planning

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double the sales of last year, just think to yourself, now, can I physically

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do that? Who do I need to bring in? Do I need more space? Do

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I need more resources? That's, that's a whole other piece of work. But

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then when you're looking at the individual product

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lines, then always ask yourself this very, very important

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question when it comes to your Christmas purchasing. Which is

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worse, having too much or not enough?

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And ask yourself that for every single product that you're ordering ready

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for Christmas. And there's two different ways of looking at this.

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Some products are Christmas specific. They are

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what I like to call brown bananas, which means that on the 26th of

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December, nobody's going to want to touch them. So that's anything that says Merry

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Christmas, that's an Advent calendar after we've got past about

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3rd December. It's anything that's got a really clear

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cutoff. Those products, generally speaking, if you ask

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yourself that question, which is worth having too much or not having enough, the answer

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is going to be having too much. Because if you're left with it,

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you can't do anything with it for a whole year. You're just going to have

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to sit on that stock, which is basically cash tied up in your business for

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an entire year. So those are the products that you, generally

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speaking, want to under buy. You want to be out of stock of those

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really before Christmas so that you're not left either having to mark

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them down significantly in a clearance sale to get rid of them or sit

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on them for a whole year, store them somewhere and bring them back out for

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Christmas. So those types of products, generally speaking, the question

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which is worse, having too much or not enough? The answer is going to be

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it's going to be worse for me to have too much. So therefore when you're

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planning out your quantities, you're going to bring those quantities down, you're going to be

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a bit more conservative. Now, your year round

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bestsellers going back to this lavender candle, the question

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which is worse, having too much or not enough? Well, actually if I've got too

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much, I'm just gonna have more in January. I won't have to place an order

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in January, that's actually absolutely fine. But if I run

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out of my key bestseller halfway through the season, that's gonna be a

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real pain for me. That's gonna mean that all of the effort that I'm putting

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into these ads, into these campaigns, everything that I've got lined up, that's

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all going to be for nothing. So therefore, that is an

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item where when you do your analysis, maybe you add a buffer on you do

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right. I think I'm probably going to sell 200, but you know what, I'm going

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to buy 250 because it's worse for me if I have not

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enough. So for every single product you go through, ask yourself that

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question which is worse, having too much or not enough?

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And then using that, adjust your forecasts

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accordingly. So either bump it up a little bit to make sure that you don't

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run out or pull it back so that you're not going to be left

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sitting on extra stock. So

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once you have done all of those things, then

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final step, step six is to double check all of your orders and your

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supplier lead times now. So if you are somebody who hand

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makes your product, then you want to prep all of your components early.

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Lots of people I know actually work throughout the summer to get their Christmas stock

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ready. So obviously that's a little late now, but do

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have a look and see what you can do to make sure that you've done

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your work ahead of time. If you're

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like most retailers, this will be a tricky time to be bringing an

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intake. I know for a fact that there's a real cash flow pinch point at

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this time of year in September, October if you are a

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retailer. Lots of people I know get around it by using things like FAIR and

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their payment terms. To help push the payment back further.

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So I do appreciate that it's a tricky time of year, but if at all

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possible you, if you've got products that you know are going to be a really

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important time, really important part of your Christmas marketing

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and now is the time to bring them in. So

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this is your little checklist for you to go through. So number one,

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review last year's performance. Number two, identify your hero products.

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Number three, fill in any price point gaps or any gaps in the range that

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you feel might need to be attended to. Number four, plan out your launch dates

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for Christmas. Number five, forecast your sales by line and ask yourself

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that all important question, which is more important, which is worse, having

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too much or not having enough? And then make sure that you put in a

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plan and you secure and prepare your stocks that you are going to

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have the stock in time for Christmas. And if you're listening to this

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thinking this sounds great but I just don't have time for any of this, then

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I would love for you to check out the stock doctor service. It's at resilient

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retail club.com stockdoctor and we have a done for

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you service where trained retail professionals will come in and help you get ready

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for your best Christmas yet. Thank you so much for listening and

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I'll see you next week.