Hello Seller Community!
One moment it’s summer and the next thing you know, storefronts are being decked out with festive lights. This year, as customers return to the highstreets, there will still be a high demand for online shopping so it’s more important than ever to deliver a great omnichannel experience to customers.
In this post, we’re continuing our tradition of sharing resources to help you promote, manage your business and boost sales this festive season. Don’t hesitate to ask questions or share your top tip for surviving this busy time of year in reply below! Not a member of the Community yet? Learn how to join the Seller Community.
Increase the ways you can take payments
You can prepare yourself for bigger crowds while reducing contacts by offering multiple ways to pay. Here are just a few:
- Food & Beverage: Create QR codes with Square Online to allow your customers to order online and minimise contact with staff.
- Retail: Connect your Terminal to your Square Point of Sale to facilitate customers paying on a separate screen. You can also review these products to help you take payments at a distance.
- Don’t forget: Contactless payment limit in the UK is now £100. Here are some more methods you can implement to take payments without making contacts.
Promote your offers on social media and with Square Marketing
If you haven’t already, consider creating promotions for Christmas. You can offer discounts for items on your Square Online site by creating coupon codes. Or you can create discounts that can be applied from your Point of Sale.
You’ve put a lot of effort into creating the perfect holiday offers and sales — now it’s time to tell your customers about it. You can use Square Marketing to send pre-designed or custom email campaigns. Not sure how? Checkout our get started guide for Square Marketing.
- Best practices and resources for running email marketing campaigns
- How-To Guide: Drive Sales on Social Media with Live Sales
- How to use TikTok for Your Small Business
- Cheap & Creative Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Business
Take an analytical approach
Your sales data is always available at your fingertips. From your Square Dashboard, you can track sales and see which items have sold well in the last year, check inventory and make sure you have enough of your popular items on hand. Knowing what you have on your floor and how much each product you expect to sell can make all the difference.
You can also think about creating a gift guide for the Christmas season based on past sales trends and summaries.
Highlight gift cards
Gift cards have been the most popular items on wish lists for more than dozen of years. With Square you can sell physical gift cards and eGift Cards. You pay a per transaction processing fee when the gift card is sold but there is no fee when your customer pays with a Gift Card. Square Gift Cards can be redeemed on your Square Online site, for in-person payments, and to pay Square Invoices.
Plastic Gift Cards: Keep in mind it can take 5-7 working days to receive plastic gift cards so consider when your customers will need to purchase them from you and work back from there.
eGift Cards: You can configure and sell eGift Cards in seconds. It’s free to set up eGift Cards and with a free eGift Card website you can promote that you sell digital gift cards on social media too. Check out these threads to learn more about using Square Gift Cards:
- Getting Started with Square eGift Card: FAQs
- Order Your Square Gift Cards
- Launched: Pay Invoices with Square Gift Cards
- How to Sell More Gift Cards During the Holidays
Manage your team effectively
Data is your best friend when preparing for the Christmas shopping period. On your Square Dashboard, you can see when your peaks and lulls during the day and be able to schedule staff accordingly.
With features like Team Management, you can allow team members to clock in and out of the point of sale. You also can track team member's time with timecards, restrict access to certain areas of your point of sale, or you can track activity by team members. Free and paid plans for Team Management are available as well as a 30-day free trial. Learn more about how to use Team Management in our Support Centre.
Boost sales with rewards
With Square Loyalty, you can set up reward programmes to help incentivise customers to return and build a relationship with them. If customers feel valued, they will recommend your business to other people which can in turn lead to more sales, more signups for your loyalty programme and a potential increase in profit.
Additional resources
Below are some additional resources from the Square Editorial Team that may be of interests to you this festival season:
- How to Get Your Restaurant Ready for Christmas
- 7 Holiday Marketing Tips to Create an Online Holiday Experience
- How to Make This Christmas Your Most Seamless and Successful Yet
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Share your tips to survive the festive season or ask questions below. Wishing you all a wonderful festive season. Stay safe.
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