Start Getting Ready For The Christmas Season Very Soon!

Santa Is On His Way!

It doesn’t seem like to long ago that I was saying Sell Sell Sell! And now Christmas 2008 will be here very soon. It is a fantastic time for retail sales so it is vital you are ready to start really selling so you can make as much profit as possible.

So, when should you start preparing for Christmas?

From experience I would say any time from now, and the sooner the better because you need to be prepared. One of the major supermarkets took delivery of all their advent calendars last week so they are gearing up already for Christmas.

Level Of Sales Will Be Up…..Again
For years now internet sales have been on the increase and they will continue to grow. The 2007 Christmas period saw a 54% increase in sales compared to 2006 Christmas, and they predict a 50% increase compared to 2007! So even if you have been running an ecommerce store for years you need to be more prepared than ever.

My First Christmas – Go On Beat Me!
I remember my first christmas dropshipping (2005). I can’t recall exactly how much profit I made but it was something like £160. It was an amazing feeling because the majority of sales came from eBay and a few from a crappy ecommerce store I had set up and linked to from the Nochex classifieds service (no longer exists). I only started selling a few days into december and my profit margins were not very good but I still made a bit of money off my own back with literally only a few pounds investment!

If this is your first year dropshipping have a go at beating my £160 profit! A few months down the line the dropshipper closed and so my business was ruined because no other dropshipper sold similar products – anyway thats another story…. This christmas could be your springboard for 2009!

Issues Of Christmas
The amount of online shopping people do at this time grows significantly, so mosts aspects of running your business require more time.

If you are going to do more ebay listings you will spend more time making the listings
If you run an ecommerce store you will spend more time managing products out of stock, offers, new product etc.
More time answering customer questions
More time filling out orders with dropshippers
More time keeping your cashbook up-to-date
Its all about more more more of everything!

Dropshippers will also be sending out info to you on products out of stock, when they will be sending out their last deliveries and other issues they may be having. So you have to really be on the ball to keep everything running smoothly.

Christmas is a great time for small dropshippers – how do you expect to do this year?